I just finished reading Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family by Rachel Jamison Webster. Do yourself a favor and read this outstanding book. Benjamin Banneker’s grandparents were in an interracial marriage and are brought to life by Webster’s writing. A white woman, she takes us on her journey of ancestry and racism over hundreds of years. The story took my breath away. I can’t say it any better than Natasha Trethewey’s quote below.
“Rachel Jamison Webster has collaborated with her relatives to weave an impressive investigation of race and our shared American history―the convergences and divergences across time and space. Webster tells a compelling story as she examines ancestry, DNA, passing, and cultural appropriation, resulting in a resonant addition to our current national reckoning around racial justice.”
―Natasha Trethewey, Pulitzer Prize Winner, Former U.S. Poet Laureate, and author of Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir
Susan Graham for Project RACE