Rebroadcast How the courts dealt with wills bequeathing property or freedom to mixed race children. Fathers of Conscience examines high-court decisions in the antebellum South that involved wills in which white male planters bequeathed property, freedom, or both to women of color and their mixed-race children. These men, whose wills were contested by their white relatives, had used trusts and estates law to give their slave partners and children official recognition and thus circumvent the law of slavery. The will contests that followed determined whether that elevated stat ..read more

Have you ever considered searching records of incarceration to find your ancestors?  Whether researching a notorious family outlaw or a victim of early 20th century justice, there’s a good chance that you have an ancestor who has been incarcerated. Researching records of incarceration at local, state or federal penal institutions can reveal valuable family history information and also document shameful community patterns of social and economic abuse against blacks.  Join Sharon Batiste Gillins for an engaging discussion on the genealogical value of searching records of the incarcerat ..read more

Melissa L. Cooper is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Rutgers University-Newark. Cooper’s ground breaking book, Making Gullah: A History of Sapelo Islanders, Race and the American Imagination, published by the University of North Carolina Press, is a fascinating history.  Using Sapelo Island as a case study, Cooper unearths the intellectual and cultural trends that inspired, and continues to inspire, fascination with low country blacks and the African roots of their unique culture. Examining the history of Islanders in published works, Making Gullah tells a larger st ..read more

After retiring from a career in banking, Bill Webb began to investigate his family history. His interest had been sparked by a family Bible record of his ancestor Brown Colbert that he saw as a child in Parkersburg, West Virginia. The research of Bill and his wife, Eva Kobus-Webb, revealed the connection to Monticello and brought to light other Colbert descendants like the Civil War soldier George Edmondson and suffragist Coralie Franklin Cook. Webb can track his lineage to Elizabeth (Betty) Hemings, mother of Betty Brown & Sally Hemings ..read more

Bernice Bennett welcomes James Louis Bacon for a moving discussion about his genealogical journey to document his family history. James Louis Bacon has entertained a lifelong passion for writing and African American History.  He began his  family research 35 years ago, and published his book in 2016. He is a veteran of the United States Navy where he  proudly served from 1970-1974. The Ties That Bind is a written tribute to his family which documents both the hardships, strength and  fortitude of those who were enslaved. It is the story of the Van Arsdal ..read more

Zann Nelson will discuss the occurrence of selling literally 100s of thousands of enslaved people South to the cotton and sugar fields with Virginia being the largest exporter and how challenging it is to reunite these ancestors with their place of birth and in many cases with family members who remained behind.  Searching for the sixteen slaves sold South is supported by the Montpelier Foundation to learn more about the 16 enslaved Virginians sold by James Madison in 1834 to William Taylor who relocated them to Pointe Coupee Parish, LA.   The ultimate goal is to find at le ..read more

The Civil War Pension File of Philip McQuerter of Woodville, Wilkinson County, Mississippi provides revealing information about his family. Alvin Blakes is a lifelong organizer and community worker who has been researching African history since he was a teenager, and has travelled to Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and all over the United States to pursue his studies. He has researched his family’s history from Woodville, Mississippi back to the late 1700s in the Eastern US. He is a member of the Dallas Genealogical Society’s African American Genealogy Interest Group. He grad ..read more

            Dr. Eva Semien Baham is as an assistant professor of history at Dillard University, in New Orleans, Louisiana.  Prior to coming to Dillard, she taught for twenty-one years at Southern University, Baton Rouge. Her specialties include American, African-American and Intellectual history.             She received her undergraduate degree in journalism from Southern University in Baton Rouge and her Masters of Arts and her Ph.D. in American Studies/History from Purdue University, West Lafayett ..read more

Witness To Change - From Jim Crow to Political Empowerment Sybil Haydel Morial is an activist and community leader in New Orleans.  She spent her career in the education field, first, as a public school teacher and later as an administrator at Xavier University. Sybil’s memoir reveals a woman whose intelligence overrides the clichés of racial division. In its pages, we catch rare glimpses of black professionals in an earlier New Orleans, when races, though socially isolated, lived side by side; when social connections helped to circumvent Jim Crow; when African-American culture forged New ..read more

Join Janice Gilyard and Cherekana Feliciano for a conversation with Charles Holman regarding the parents of his great-great grandmother who escaped slavery. Charles is the great-grandson of an enslaved person who in freedom became a civil rights leader and one of the first lawyers of color in his state.  Since that time nearly 150 years ago, civil rights has been a dedicated mission in Charles’ family as well as Charles’ personal calling ..read more