Research at the National Archives&Beyond

Notorious in the Neighborhood  Sex and Families Across the Color Line in Virginia, 1787-1861   "Laws and cultural norms militated against interracial sex in Virginia before the Civil War. Nonetheless, it was ubiquitous in urban, town, and plantation communities throughout the state. In Notorious in the Neighborhood, Joshua Rothman examines the full spectrum of interracial sexual relationships under slavery-from Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and the intertwined interracial families of Monticello and Charlottesville, to commercial sex in Richmond, the routinized sexual exploitation of enslaved women, and adultery across the color line.  White Virginians allowed for an astonishing degree of flexibility and fluidity within a seemingly rigid system of race and interracial relations, Rothman argues, and the relationship between law and custom regarding racial intermixture was always shifting. As a consequence, even as whites never questioned their own racial supremacy, the meaning and significance of racial boundaries, racial hierarchy, and ultimately of race itself always stood on unstable ground--a reality that whites understood and about which they demonstrated increasing anxiety as the sectional crisis intensified." Joshua Rothman is Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Alabama, where he is also Director of the Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South.  

African American Foodways with Michael W. Twitty Bernice Alexander Bennett host, welcomes Michael W. Twitty, a food writer, independent scholar, culinary historian, and historical interpreter who is personally charged with preparing, preserving and promoting African American foodways and its parent traditions in Africa and her Diaspora and its legacy in the food culture of the American South.  Michael is a Judaic studies teacher from the Washington D.C. Metropolitan area and his interests include food culture, food history, Jewish cultural issues, African American history and cultural politics. Michael will highlight and address food’s critical role in the development and definition of African American civilization and the politics of consumption and cultural ownership that surround it. Michael’s work is a braid of two distinct brands:  the Antebellum Chef and Kosher/Soul. Antebellum Chef represents the vast number of unknown Black cooks across the Americas that were essential in the creation of the creole cuisines of Atlantic world.  The reconstruction and revival of traditional African American foodways means seed keeping, growing heirlooms and heritage crops, raising heritage breeds and sustainably gathering and maintaining wild flora and fauna that our ancestors relied upon.  The responsible exploration of the Southern food heritage demands that the cooks of colonial, federal era and antebellum kitchens and enslaved people’s cabins be honored for their unique role in giving the Southland her mother cuisine.

Rebroadcast   "Do Your Roots Need Untangling?  If So, Try Stepping Out on a Limb!  Cluster Genealogy May Hold the Clue"   "Our ancestors lived among many, therefore we can not research them as if they lived in isolation.  Researching our family history through extended family members, neighbors and the community may answer questions and provide information about our own ancestors not found elsewhere".    Deborah A. Abbott, Ph.D., is an adjunct faculty member at the Institute of Genealogy & Historical Research (IGHR) at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama and currently serves as the Cleveland District Trustee on the Ohio Genealogical Society (OGS) Board.  She is past-president of the African-American Genealogical Society, Cleveland, Ohio (AAGS) and a retired professor of Counseling from Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland.  She holds both the Bachelor of Science and Masters of Education degrees from Tuskegee University (Alabama) and the Ph.D. degree from Kent State University (Ohio). In 2010 the City Council of Detroit, Michigan presented Dr. Abbott with a “Testimonial Resolution” honoring her outstanding commitment to African American genealogical research.  Dr. Abbott's five-year genealogical research project about an African American family’s migration from Kentucky to Ohio entitled "From Slavery to Freedom to Antioch" was highlighted in the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Ohio) Newspaper under the title "Six-Volumes to Amplify a Family History" in 2008.    

Natonne Elaine Kemp welcomes author Sydney Nathans, Ph.D. for a discussion of his book TO FREE A FAMILY! TO FREE A FAMILY is the story of Mary Walker, an enslaved woman from North Carolina who escaped bondage in 1848, left her children and mother behind, and spent seventeen years seeking to recover them through ransom, ruse, or rescue.  Using the records of her one-time owners, the vast and vivid letters of the white antislavery couple who befriended and helped her, and an arsenal of social history sources, the book reconstructs her experience in bondage and brings to life the anguished but unrelenting quest to liberate her family.  Her story illustrates a hidden epic of emancipation--the secret striving of refugees from slavery to redeem one family at a time--which paralleled the great social movement to end slavery altogether. TO FREE A FAMILY is the 2013 recipient of the Darlene Clark Hine Award of the Organization of American Historians as the best book in African-American Women's and Gender History.  The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery,Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University jury for the Center’s Frederick Douglass Book Prize has selected  To Free a Family: The Journey of Mary Walker, as one of three finalists for this year’s award. Sydney Nathans, Ph.D. is the Professor Emeritus of History at Duke University and a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations.

Mixed Race Studies with Steven Riley   Natonne Elaine Kemp co host, welcomes Steven Riley the creator of MixedRaceStudies.org for an enagaging discussion of a non-commercial website that provides a gateway to contemporary interdisciplinary English language scholarship about the relevant issues surrounding the topic of multiracialism. At present, the site contains +6,000 posts which consists of links to +3,300 articles; +1,000 books; nearly 600 dissertation, papers and reports; nearly 300 multimedia items; +300 excerpts and quotes, +100 course offerings; etc. Currently,MixedRaceStudies.org receives over 1,800 visitors/day, over 37,000 unique visitors/month, and nearly ½ million page views/month. The site has been called the “most comprehensive and objective clearinghouse for scholarly publications related to critical mixed-race theory” by a leading scholar in the field. Steve has been an Information Technology professional for 25 years in the D.C. area and is currently Director of Database Development and Design at a trade association in Washington D.C. His areas of expertise are application programming, database and website development.    

Culinary History of African Americans with Dr. Leni A. Sorensen   Are you curious about the diets of enslaved Africans  in the new world? Do you wonder what was eaten and how it was prepared? Natonne Elaine Kemp - co-host welcomes Dr. Leni A. Sorensen to share her knowledge and answer questions concerning culinary history and cookery of African Americans. Dr.  Sorensen worked for over thirty years as a university lecturer, museum consultant, hands-on presenter and researcher with a focus on African American slavery, American agriculture, and women’s work in colonial and post-colonial America.  Recently retired from Monticello she now teaches rural life skills from her home in Western Albemarle County, Virginia.

To Serve the Living: Funeral Directors and the African American Way of Death with Suzanne E. Smith   Suzanne E. Smith is Professor of History in the Department of History and Art History at George Mason University.  Her first book, Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit (2000), examines Motown and its relationship to the black community of Detroit and the civil rights movement.  It was awarded third in the eleventh annual Gleason Music Book Awards, sponsored by NYU, Rolling Stone, and BMI.  Her latest book, To Serve the Living: Funeral Directors and the African American Way of Death (2010), explores the role of funeral directors in African American life and their participation in the national civil rights movement.  To Serve the Living was a finalist for the Library of Virginia's Non-Fiction Literary Award in 2011.  Her current book project is a biography of the African American radio evangelist, Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux.  

Ancestry Reconnection Program to Cameroon Gary Franklin host, welcomes Family Historian Callie Flournoy - Riser for a discussion of her journey to her roots via of Cameroon. This episode was produced and hosted by the participants in the Midwestern African American Genealogy Institute in St. Louis, Missouri on July 10, 2013.

Rebroadcast Got Proof! My Genealogical Journey Through the Use of Documentation, Lieutenant Commander Michael Nolden Henderson, USN retired, captures the attention of genealogists, historians, and others interested in the complex social structure that developed during the French and Spanish colonial periods in Louisiana. He explores the forbidden relationships from which evolved the unique Creole culture. Revealing original documents from as far back as the 1770s, Henderson uses his own experiences as a family history researcher, as well as the insight of noted scholars, to reveal the methods, standards, and techniques used to prove his ancestry.  Lieutenant Commander Michael Nolden Henderson, United States Navy retired, is a family history researcher who began his genealogy journey almost thirty years ago. He is a native of Algiers, Louisiana, and a graduate of Xavier University. In 2010, he became the first African American in the state of Georgia inducted into the National Society Sons of the American Revolution (SAR). He later became president of the Button Gwinnett Chapter, Georgia Society SAR, and continues his research of colonial Louisiana. 

  CeCe Moore and Shannon Christmas will discuss strategies for using autosomal DNA to resolve genealogical problems. CeCe Moore is a professional genetic genealogist and writes the popular blog Your Genetic Genealogist, where she covers the developments in the field of DNA genealogy as an independent, unbiased authority. She is the Southern California Regional Coordinator for the International Society of Genetic Genealogy and the administrator of the organization’s DNA Newbie Mailing List. In 2012, CeCe was personally appointed by the CEO of 23andMe to serve as their lead Ancestry Ambassador, a volunteer position that enables her to promote the interests of the genealogy community. Shannon Christmas is an experienced genealogist specializing in genetic, colonial American, and African-American genealogy in Virginia and the Carolinas. He serves as a 23andMe Ancestry Ambassador, an Ancestry.com Ace, administrator of The Captain Thomas Graves of Jamestown Autosomal DNA Project, and a co-administrator of The Hemings-Jefferson-Wayles-Eppes Autosomal DNA Project.      &

In Got Proof! My Genealogical Journey Through the Use of Documentation, Lieutenant Commander Michael Nolden Henderson, USN retired, captures the attention of genealogists, historians, and others interested in the complex social structure that developed during the French and Spanish colonial periods in Louisiana. He explores the forbidden relationships from which evolved the unique Creole culture. Revealing original documents from as far back as the 1770s, Henderson uses his own experiences as a family history researcher, as well as the insight of noted scholars, to reveal the methods, standards, and techniques used to prove his ancestry.  Lieutenant Commander Michael Nolden Henderson, United States Navy retired, is a family history researcher who began his genealogy journey almost thirty years ago. He is a native of Algiers, Louisiana, and a graduate of Xavier University. In 2010, he became the first African American in the state of Georgia inducted into the National Society Sons of the American Revolution (SAR). He later became president of the Button Gwinnett Chapter, Georgia Society SAR, and continues his research of colonial Louisiana. 

  Natonne Elaine Kemp and special guest host Angela Walton-Raji will discuss with author and researcher Bob J. O’ Connor  his research on Black Prisoners in Confederate Prisons During the Civil War. O'Connor is a native of Dixon, Illinois and a graduate of Northern llinois University.  He is retired, and lives in Charles Town, WV and is the author of nine books, all on the American Civil War.  His topics include John Brown(abolitionist), Ward Hill Lamon (President Lincoln's bodyguard), and Civil War topics linked to his local area (two brothers who fought against each other twice and a black blacksmith who is seeking his freedom). His interest in studying African American history comes from studying John Brown and Abraham Lincoln and their concerns with slavery. His current research involves studying the black prisoners held in Confederate prisons during the Civil War. The stereotypes that no black prisoner made it to prison are wrong. In fact, he is only partially through the U.S. Colored Troops records and have found 2,182 black prisoners (2078 soldiers and 104 black sailors). An amazing 79 percent of those black POW's survived their incarceration. His research includes the names, regiments, company, rank, date of capture, place of capture, name of the prison or prisons where they were held, if they survived or not, date of death or what happened to them, place of birth and age.

  Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations with Jean L. Cooper Natonne Elaine Kemp welcomes Ms. Jean L. Cooper, a Cataloger and Reference Librarian, and Genealogical Resources Specialist at the University of Virginia Library.  Ms. Cooper received the Virginia Genealogical Society’s Virginia Records Award in 2009 for her work in indexing the Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations microfilm collection. She has a B.A. from Alma College (Alma, MI), and an M.L. from the University of South Carolina (Columbia, SC). Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations is a set of microfilms that contains images of manuscript materials from fourteen different libraries and archives across the South.  The entire set includes 1500 reels of microfilm, each with approximately 1000 frames resulting in 1.5 million manuscript images of material written primarily between the American Revolution and the Civil War. The items indexed include deeds, wills, estate papers, genealogies, personal and business correspondence, account books, slave lists, and many other types of records.     Title: Index to Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations: Locations, Plantations, Surnames and Collections, 2d ed. Author: Jean L. Cooper Publisher: MacFarland, 2009 ISBN: 978-0786439904  Show more  

“The Empress has no Clothes…Conquering Self-Doubt to Embrace Success” Rebroadcast. Bernice Bennett welcomes author Joyce Roche to discuss her new book, “The Empress has no Clothes…Conquering Self-Doubt to Embrace Success” a deeply personal memoir that describes her lifelong struggle with the impostor syndrome and provides coping strategies based on her own experiences and those of other high-achieving leaders.   Ms. Roche is the retired President and CEO of Girls Inc., former President and Chief Operating Officer of Carson Products Company, and Vice President of Global Marketing of Avon Products, Inc.  She currently sits on the Board of Directors of AT&T Inc., Macy’s Inc., Tupperware Brands, and Dr Pepper Snapple Group and chairs the board of Dillard University. 

“The Empress has no Clothes…Conquering Self-Doubt to Embrace Success”   Bernice Bennett welcomes author Joyce Roche to discuss her new book, “The Empress has no Clothes…Conquering Self-Doubt to Embrace Success” a deeply personal memoir that describes her lifelong struggle with the impostor syndrome and provides coping strategies based on her own experiences and those of other high-achieving leaders.   Ms. Roche is the retired President and CEO of Girls Inc., former President and Chief Operating Officer of Carson Products Company, and Vice President of Global Marketing of Avon Products, Inc.  She currently sits on the Board of Directors of AT&T Inc., Macy’s Inc., Tupperware Brands, and Dr Pepper Snapple Group and chairs the board of Dillard University.