Family History Helps Us Heal

Guest Post by Sharon Leslie Morgan

founder of Our Black Ancestry and co-author of Gather at the Table: The Healing Journey of a Daughter of Slavery and a Son of the Slave Trade

As a genealogist who specializes in African American research, the work I do digging into the past is difficult and heart breaking. Ninety percent of African Americans were enslaved. Many of the families I research are lost prior to the 1870 federal census, which was the first to document enslaved (Black) people as human beings.

When I started researching, there were no personal computers, no internet, and no cellphones. Social media did not exist. That was more than 50 years ago. Yikes! That makes me feel “older than dirt”, which is an expression I learned from my grandma. 

The fact of my being so dedicated for so many years (half a century!) means that I know quite a bit about how family research is done. I created Our Black Ancestry to share my knowledge with others and to inspire them to apply their research in ways that can be meaningful in their lives today.

My Ancestors Were Enslaved

Ancestors on both sides of my family were enslaved. The laws of the time considered them “chattel” = property, not people. Records for them are found in property transactions, wills, deeds, insurance, and other financial instruments.

Here are three of the dozens of my ancestors who were born into slavery and denied their God given right to existence as full human beings.

My father’s grandparents -- Tom & Rhody Leslie (pictured above)-- were enslaved in Lowndes County, Alabama. Both were fathered by the white men who owned their mothers. As a baby, Rhody was attacked in an outburst of anger against the progeny of her slaveholding husband. After the attack, Rhody and her mother Easter were sold away.

My mother’s great grandmother -- Bettie Warfe/Gavin -- was enslaved in Noxubee County, Mississippi. She was sold at age nine and transported to “the land of cotton.” Her mother and grandmother were left behind. She later bore 17 children with the nephew of her Mississippi owner. 

As I discovered the stories of their lives, my heart was filled with sadness…. anger... and despair.

My feelings were even more poignant when I realized that I had met my great grandmother Rhody Leslie in person when I was a toddler. I was two. She was 100 years plus. I had no idea who she was because I was so small. I was an adult when my father revealed she had been enslaved. Learning that rocked my world. It meant that memories of slavery were alive and well in my lifetime.

Here is Grandma Rhody with her son Tommie Joe Leslie and grandson Frank Leslie (my father’s brother). The photo was taken in Chicago, Illinois when I was about one year old.

How Does Family History Help Us Heal?

There is so much from America’s past that needs to be addressed and healed. First, there was Native American genocide. Then, there was African slavery. These combined “sins” made America the economic powerhouse it is today where “stars & stripes” fly over the most influential democracy in world history.

On my own personal path, I eventually realized that knowledge of the past can be a source of inspiration rather than despair. By revisiting the horror of what happened, it is possible to find a place of peace. We can learn to channel our feelings into productive (rather than destructive) action in today’s world. 

I can barely imagine the suffering my ancestors endured. But one thing is for sure: If not for them, we would not be. I take pride in standing on their shoulders and fulfilling the dreams they surely had. They were the dreamers. I am the dream. 

Here is my immediate family – me with my one son, his wife and their two children.

I want them to know from whence they came and be inspired by the stories of our family. Our forebears endured insufferable conditions that paved the way to the privileged lives they enjoy. They are blessed with an intact family -- two parents, grandparents, and a community of friends and relations who cherish them.

When my grandkids complain about small household tasks I require them to do, I remind them of how lucky they are! Had they been born during slavery times they could have been sold away from us. They could be wearing rags and picking cotton from “‘fo day to can’t see.” If they complain about the food I cook, I tell them they could be going to bed hungry. They get the message and are enthusiastic helpers in my garden and kitchen.

I do not want to sound negative here. I more often tell them about the good things – stories of ancestors who defied the odds and made “a way out of no way.”

I am hopeful that young people will take up my baton. Researching family is not as boring as one might think. In reconstructing your family history, you are filling in the gaps of stories that need to be told…. life stories of people who made you who you are…. strong, self-confident, self-determined, resilient.

In the end, we are all one BIG human family! Regardless of nationalities, ethnicities, religion, and sexual orientation -- We are ALL EQUAL and must treat one another with respect.

Sharon Leslie Morgan is a writer and genealogist. She is the founder of Our Black Ancestry (OBA), an online community dedicated to providing resources for African American genealogical research, preserving historic materials and properties, and promoting healing of wounds that are the legacy of slavery. 

Morgan is the co-author of Gather at the Table: The Healing Journey of a Daughter of Slavery and a Son of the Slave Trade (Beacon Press, 2012). She is also a contributor to Slavery’s Descendants: Shared Legacies of Race & Reconciliation (Rutgers University Press, 2019) and The Little Book of Racial Healing: Coming to the Table for Truth-Telling, Liberation, and Transformation (Good Books, 2019).

In 2019, Morgan received the James Dent Walker Award from the Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society (AAHGS). It is the highest award that can be bestowed “upon a person who has exhibited distinguished accomplishments through a significant and measurable contribution to the research, documentation, and/or preservation of African American history.”

A staunch advocate of racial justice, Morgan has taken STAR (Stategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience) training at Eastern Mennonite University and is actively involved with Coming to the Table, an organization that promotes linkages between descendants of people who were enslaved and descendants of the families that enslaved them for the purpose of healing from the trauma of slavery.

After a long career as a marketing communications consultant, which enabled her to live and work around the world, Morgan currently resides in her ancestral home place in Noxubee County, Mississippi where she is writing a book about her ancestors.