Blog Archives

No Account For It

Posted on June 19, 2016 by Roger David Hardesty — 1 Comment

While drafting the post Half-white Slaves of Aristocratic Masters at my blog, I acknowledged that Edward Ball, in his text, The Sweet Hell Inside: The Rise of an Elite Black Family in the Segregated South, employs the term ‘concubines’ to describe intimate, long-term…

Tagged with: 1830s-1870s, Alabama, archival records, Civil War, Concubinage, enslaved Africans, families, slaveholding, Slavery, Stories
Posted in Coercion, Punishment & Sale, Cooperation: Assistance, Support & Harmony, Enslaved People, Intimacy & Family Life, North America, Philosophical Culture, Plantations, Research Adventures, Sex & Concubinage, Slave Trader, Slaveholders, Slaveholding (1780 -1865), Slavery

When Places Wrap Us Together

Posted on May 13, 2015 by Andi Cumbo-Floyd — 2 Comments

As our car turns down the lane, I flash back to Mom in the driver’s seat, the blue Nissan van idling beneath us as we wait for the yellow behemoth of a school bus to mount the hill in the…

Tagged with: Central Virginiia plantation, Coming to the Table, geography, linked descendants, Slavery
Posted in Connecting Across Families, Discovery & Personal Reactions, Enslaved People, Farms, General, Labor, Legacies, Linked Descendants, North America, Plantations, Slaveholders, Slaveholding (1780 -1865), Slavery

Tarzan Carried a Message

Posted on March 11, 2015 by Roger David Hardesty — 8 Comments

On 1 March, performer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte celebrated his 88th birthday. On 8 November last year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented Belafonte with its Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award … and honored with an Oscar the man’s long…

Tagged with: Africa, Ancestors, Harry Belafonte, Not With Silver, racism in media, Rebecca Carroll, Simi Bedford, slaveholding, Slavery
Posted in Abolitionist, Africa, Arts & Community Culture, Civil Rights/Black Power (1955- 1968), Colonial (Before 1770s), Contemporary (1970- present), Discovery & Personal Reactions, Europe, Film, Historic Harms, Implications for Action, News Media, Racism, Research Adventures, Slaveholding (1780 -1865)

Coming to the Table Leads in Push for HR 40 Reparations Study

Posted on June 14, 2014 by Felicia Furman — 6 Comments

I am posting for Pam Smith. She says, “Ahhh the woes of not being a techy in a technological world! A few little glitches prevented me from posting this directly to the BitterSweet blog. As an active member of CTTT I…

Tagged with: black history, children, Civil Rights Movement, Civil War, Coming to the Table, HR 40, Jim Crow, poverty, Rep. John Conyers, Reparations, school-to-prison-pipeline, segregation, Slavery
Posted in Historic Harms, Implications for Action, Intimacy & Family Life, North America, Power, Racism

Moved to Tears

Posted on February 3, 2014 by dionneford — 1 Comment

When I read Gayle Jessup White’s essay in a recent post on “The Root,” I had such strong identification with it that I was moved to tears: Like most African Americans, oral history is my primary source for deep family…

Tagged with: Coming to the Table, families, genealogy, linked descendants, slaveholding, Slavery, Virginia
Posted in Racism

Up in Smoke: Slavery Researchers Decry Burning of Historical Records

Posted on January 12, 2014 by psmith30 — 13 Comments

New Post Posted on January 10, 2014 by psmith30 (Post first written on January 4, 2014) I am fighting back tears and my stomach is in knots. Most people probably wouldn’t have a physical reaction like this upon learning that 100…

Tagged with: archival records, Franklin County, Heritage Society of Franklin County, North Carolina records destroyed, slaveholding, Slavery
Posted in Abolitionist, Ancestry, Civil Rights/Black Power (1955- 1968), Enslaved People, Farms, Free People of Color, Historic Harms, Implications for Action, Jim Crow Segregation (1890- 1955), Legacies, Linked Descendants, Non-Slaveholding Whites, Plantations, Power, Racism, Reconstruction/”Redemption” (1866- 1890), Research Adventures, Slave Trader, Slaveholders, Slaveholding (1780 -1865), Slavery, Towns

Remembering their names

Posted on October 22, 2013 by grant.hayter-menzies — 2 Comments

When I joined Coming To The Table over two years ago, I began a journey—a journey into the lives and times of my slave-holding ancestors and, most important for me, into the lives of the people they had enslaved. Taken…

Tagged with: Africa, Bushnell family, Connecticut, DNA, Drock family, New England, Norwich, Reunions, Slave dwellings, Slavery, Tunisia, United States
Posted in Abolitionist, Ancestry, Connecting Across Families, Contemporary (1970- present), Discovery & Personal Reactions, Intimacy & Family Life, Linked Descendants, Racism, Slaveholders, Slaveholding (1780 -1865)