In general, the history of African American outreach to Africa and Africans has a very checkered past, though not without its highlights: the good feelings, the sense of unity, the pride and optimism generated during the high water marks of Pan-Africanism; the way in which the American struggles for civil rights and the African struggles for independence inspired one another. Yet for a long time, the racist poison internalized during slavery and its lengthy afterlife had the effect of leading a great many African Americans to reject association with anything African. But once great numbers of black people throughout the entire African diaspora experienced, in the fifties and sixties, a new awakening of pride in African heritage - a longing to connect with the continent in meaningful ways - that pride awakened with a vengeance. The descendants of African slaves were driven by a deep longing to break through the historical fetters of the slave past and connect with an African identity before slavery. But most who tried to satisfy that longing by making the pilgrimage to Africa, found that the history they had come to seek was still bound by the shackles of slavery, even there.
News and happeinings in Tuskegee, AL, African-American genealogy research and family related articles.
Anita Talks Genealogy is a show about Genealogy. Host Anita Wills is an author Notes and Documents of Free Persons of Color Pieces of the Quilt The Mosaic of An African American Family. She also Speaks and Lectures on writing Family History Books Free Persons of Color and How To Research and Document your Multi-Racial Ancestors.