Knowing my interest in connections between African Americans and whites, Joyce Hostetter shared a link to an interesting article. Bound by the Past tells the story of how a black imam and a white administrator from a Christian Seminary met at a church and discovered a startling connection: her great-grandfather owned his ancestors.
IndyStar columnist, Robert King, notes: “The McWilliams family — its white and black iterations, its parts rooted in slavery and slave ownership — had completed a long journey that Sunday almost one year ago. It was a trip that covered nearly 150 years, four to five generations and almost 400 miles.”
The story didn’t surprise me. As I research my work-in-progress I am constantly aware of the interrelationships between people and generations.
The past is not as far from us as we think.
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Joyce Hostetter, IndyStar, Robert King, the past, Bound by the past, African American history, slavery
