Part of American history as a whole for all people in America should be for us to research our ancestors and find the truth with verified documents. Living in the black community I have found two things blocking black people from doing this.
#1. The black church – The black church presents an idea of more fiction than reality and it promotes that your ancestors, other than black history month, are secondary to Jesus. Therefore, researching your family history is not important because it won’t get you into heaven.
#2. Ignorance – When Slavery is brought up as part of our history people don’t want to hear it unless the slave is portrayed as the lowly victim with no chance at any happiness. In most cases this was true. However, there are plenty of cases where this was not true. People were freed, bought their freedom, and helped others escape. But we don’t hear these stories during black history month because the narrative is not what people want to hear.
In researching my family history my eyes have been opened to how they lived, what they did, the challenges they faced with health, mentally and physically, and how they died was equally important. I am a descendant of slaves, and I have yet to find any death certificate where they were killed by a master.
Am I saying that no master ever killed slaves? No. I am saying that more slaves than not died of the situations and circumstances due to health and the environment rather than at the hands of a slave owner.
Below is an illustration of my latest research on my family. All sources were verified through ancestry.com, familysearch.org, the Kentucky Heritage Centerk, Roots.web, and Kentucky Vital Statistics.
QuannaJace 