How Black Families Reclaim Lost Legacies with Historian Martha S. Jones

Black History Year

PushBlack

History, Society & Culture

4.3 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of Black History Year, host Darren sits down with cultural and legal historian Martha S. Jones to discuss how deep research and personal discoveries can help recover lost Black family histories–and why remembering is one of the most powerful ways to resist erasure, defy the archives that tried to forget us, and reclaim our stolen legacies. To learn more about her family's story, Martha S. Jones's “The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir” is available in bookstores everywhere. For practical ways to uncover your family’s ancestry, visit www.marthasjones.com _____________________________________________________________________________________ Black History Year (BHY) is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school and explore pathways to liberation with people who are leading the way. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com — most people donate $10 a month, but every dollar makes a difference. If this episode moved you, share it with your people! Thanks for supporting the work. Darren Wallace hosts BHY. The BHY production team includes Brooke Brown, Amber Davis, Mina Davis, Kevin McFall, Gabby Roberts, and Leslie Taylor-Grover. Cydney Smith, Darren Wallace, and Len Webb, who also edits the show, are our producers. BHY’s executive producers are Julian Walker and Lilly Workneh. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:32.3	I was sold from them in 1860.
0:35.4	At that time, we belonged to a man named Jacob Jacob Certain. I was sold by him to a man
0:41.3	by the name of Burmaudell, then living in Memphis, Tennessee. The oldest child's name was Millie
0:47.8	in a ninth year. The second was married, nearly seven years old. It would be 20 years in October
0:54.0	since I saw them, and I would be
0:56.6	more than glad to hear from them. Their youngest sister Martha is now living at Cape Giridot, Missouri.
1:04.7	Any information will be greatly received by their mother, Nancy Williams, apophyll, Missouri.
1:18.1	The words you just heard?
1:22.6	They were posted as an ad by Nancy Williams, a formerly enslaved woman and officially determined mother.
1:24.5	It was around 1885, two decades after the
1:27.8	Emancipation Proclamation was signed and Nancy was still looking for her
1:31.5	daughters, Millie and Mary. Sadly, she was far from the only one
	...

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