Benjamin Banneker and Us Eleven Generations of an American Family

B&W Photographs; 351 pages; Sharpie dot on bottom edge of pages. Smudging (minor stains) to covers. Wear to DJ edges, light. Very Good condition otherwise. No other noteworthy defects or markings.; - We offer free returns for any reason and respond promptly to all inquiries. Your order will be packaged with care and ship on the same or next business day. Buy with confidence.

From Publisher:

A family reunion gives way to an unforgettable genealogical quest as relatives reconnect across lines of color, culture, and time, putting the past into urgent conversation with the present.

In 1791, Thomas Jefferson hired a Black man to help survey Washington, DC. That man was Benjamin Banneker, an African American mathematician, a writer of almanacs, and one of the greatest astronomers of his generation. Banneker then wrote what would become a famous letter to Jefferson, imploring the new president to examine his hypocrisy, as someone who claimed to love liberty yet was an enslaver. More than two centuries later, Rachel Jamison Webster, an ostensibly white woman, learns that this groundbreaking Black forefather is also her distant relative.

Acting as a storyteller, Webster draws on oral history and conversations with her DNA cousins to imagine the lives of their shared ancestors across eleven generations, among them Banneker's grandparents, an interracial couple who broke the law to marry when America was still a conglomerate of colonies under British rule. These stories shed light on the legal construction of race and display the brilliance and resistance of early African Americans in the face of increasingly unjust laws, some of which are still in effect in the present day.

Product Info

ISBN: 1250827302

ISBN-13: 9781250827302

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

Year: 2023

Type: Used

Binding: Hardcover

First Edition

Seller Info

TrueOakBooksLLC

Address: 574 New Paltz Rd Highland, New York

Website: https://www.trueoakbooks.com

Country: United States