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The ‘Roots’ of Slavery and its Lasting Effects

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — In 2021, the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) launched a global news feature series on the history, contemporary realities, and implications of the transatlantic slave trade. Today, leadership in America is trying to erase this history. This is Part 6 in the series.

Published

7 months ago

August 31, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

In 2021, the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) launched a global news feature series on the history, contemporary realities, and implications of the transatlantic slave trade. Today, leadership in America is trying to erase this history. This is Part 6 in the series.

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

Kunta Kinte: What’s snow, Fiddler?

Fiddler: Never you mind, boy, never you mind. Let’s get on back to home. I got enough trouble teaching you the difference between manure and massa. ‘Course there ain’t all that much difference when you gets right down to it.

“The first time he had taken the massa to one of these ‘high-falutin’ to-dos,” as Bell called them, Kunta had been all but overwhelmed by conflicting emotions: awe, indignation, envy, contempt, fascination, revulsion—but most of all a deep loneliness and melancholy from which it took him almost a week to recover. He couldn’t believe that such incredible wealth actually existed, that people really lived that way. It took him a long time, and a great many more parties, to realize that they didn’t live that way, that it was all strangely unreal, a kind of beautiful dream the white folks were having, a lie they were telling themselves: that goodness can come from badness, that it’s possible to be civilized with one another without treating as human beings those whose blood, sweat, and mother’s milk made possible the life of privilege they led.”

―Alex Haley, “Roots: The Saga of an American Family.”

“I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character…” —Martin Luther King, Jr.

The year was 1976, and America was still feeling the aftershocks of the Civil Rights Movement, the murder, some eight years earlier, of Martin Luther King Jr., and the end of the Vietnam War. King’s death, along with the murders of President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Sen. Robert Kennedy – both of whom were proponents of civil rights and equal opportunity for African Americans and other minorities – were reminders to many that America still had not come close to achieving the slain leader’s “Dream.”

What’s more, in 1976, author Alex Haley released his family’s autobiography, “Roots.”

It would not only go on to become a best-selling book, but a much-watched and talked about ABC Television mini-series that re-awakened everyone to the darkness, horrors, and inhumanity of the transatlantic slave trade. “Alex Haley tapped into something very special, the idea that black Americans have been, are, and will always be compelled to understand their history,” said Dr. Kellie Jackson, an assistant professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley University.

Jackson’s research focuses on slavery, abolitionists, violence as a political discourse, historical film, and black women’s history. That “Roots” spawned an era where African Americans would give their newborn children African-themed names was no surprise and counts as an important moment in self-recognition, said Jackson, whose new book, “Force & Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence,” examines the conditions that led some black abolitionists to believe slavery might only be abolished by violent force. “For many African Americans, giving their children names with meaning is incredibly important. What’s remarkable about ‘Roots’ is that despite the master’s attempts to rename Kunta Kinte, ‘Toby,’ the name in popular culture and memory never stuck,” Jackson said. “Kunta Kinte is only referred to by his African name. I think this is a signal of the value African Americans place on names. In the 1970s and beyond, giving black children Afrocentric names provided not only a feeling of pride, but a sense of heritage in history.”

Jackson continued:

“Naming children after great rulers such as Nzinga, Kenyatta, or Chaka still resonates with many black parents today. I know parents who have given their children the name Obama. Names that are also signposts to historical moments. What’s more powerful than your name?” Still, those names come with a price because many agree that hate is as American as Apple Pie and baseball. And, victims of such hate not only include the once enslaved African American, but America is a country where it was once illegal for all women to vote. It’s also a country that not only devastated Native Americans, but today still prevents those living on reservations from casting a ballot despite the historic amount of bloodshed and despair brought upon that group. “I believe America does owe Native Americans the chance to cast a ballot,” said Shawn Halifax, a cultural history interpretation coordinator at the MacLeod Plantation Museum in Charleston, South Carolina. “I understand that what the law is and what people who are attempting to exercise their rights are told the law is, can be two different things,” Halifax said.

America has always had a system of discrimination and prejudice against all groups who were not identified as “White Anglo-Saxon” native, said Walter Palmer, the founder of the Walter D. Palmer Leadership Learning Partners Charter School in Philadelphia and current faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches urban studies, social policy, and practice. “Because historically American indigenous native’s language, culture, history, customs, and way of life has been wiped out and they have been a ward of the government, they lost their personhood,” Palmer said of Native Americans. “As American citizens, native indigenous people should be entitled to all the same privileges, rights, and entitlements as all other American citizens,” he said.

Palmer said America has continued to try to hold onto slavery, but in more legal forms like hate groups and prisons. “After the abolishment of slavery and the end of the Reconstruction period, there was the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, which was a replacement of the slave patrols after this period,” Palmer said. “America always used the prison system as a means of threat, intimidation, and social control, and this was later enlarged to use Chain Gangs and Jim Crow laws to further control the African Americans,” he said.

Palmer said “Roots” was built on the legacy of prior black historians over the past two hundred years, like Fredrick Douglass, William B. Dubois, Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, G. Carter Woodson, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X. “The connection that African Americans have had to the African Diaspora goes back to the ‘Back to Africa’ movement of the early 19^th century, like the American Colonization Society, that was created in 1821,” Palmer said. For the 20th Century, “Roots” proved a watershed moment, Halifax said. “I imagine it inspired an incredible number of people to seek to learn more about their family’s past, because they knew little about it or had not been listening carefully to the stories of their elders,” Halifax said. “I think ‘Roots’ influenced some white Americans. I think the movie helped place the notion in the minds of many whites that enslaved populations were families and communities that experienced pain and suffering, that experienced joy and wonder, that were founders and builders of this country. That they were more than property,” he said.

Halifax continued:

“I think ‘Roots’ helped usher changes regarding the placement of African Americans within the context of our national history. Of course, this did not happen just because of ‘Roots.’ “In fact, I think ‘Roots’ was a crashing wave into America’s consciousness that had been pushed by a swell generated during the Civil Rights and Black Power movements that preceded it. Stories from America’s history were to be highlighted as “American History” and were decided by white male academics. “I think ‘Roots’ helped send a message. Historians needed to be more inclusive in their storytelling. It was during the 70s and 80s that more inclusive social histories were being researched and pursued in academia, and academia began to become more diversified. “By the 90s, museums and historic sites began recognizing that there is more to America’s story than just rich white guys, their families, and the wars they waged. And equally important, it was by then that people began demanding more of these stories. Unfortunately, following the crashing wave of Roots, there has been a very slow seep into the American conscious as a whole.”

“I think evidence of its importance is in the fact that its remake was released the same year as the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture,” Halifax said. “I suspect that was not an accident. We have a long way still to go. The study by the Southern Poverty Law Center on how Slavery is taught in American schools is damning.” Halifax pointed out that it took 100 years for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture to open. To lesser fanfare and just before the opening of that museum on the National Mall, two other smaller museums opened within a few months of each other.

Both state that their purpose is to share the history of enslaved people and their descendants. Both are former slave labor camps, known euphemistically as plantations – the Whitney Plantation in Edgard, Louisiana, and McLeod Plantation Historic Site in Charleston, South Carolina. “As far as I know, they are the only two former plantation sites who have rejected the white dominated narrative, to look at these sites as places of memory for those held captive and enslaved and for those whose families survived,” Halifax said. “These two sites hold promise as places of healing where slavery, its legacy, and American racism can be examined. In the end, I think Roots has had an important and lasting impact.

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Black Artists in America, Installation Three Wraps at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens

TRI-STATE DEFENDER — With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

Published

4 days ago

March 24, 2026

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By Candace A. Gray | Tri-State Defender

The tulips gleefully greet those who enter the gates at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens on an almost spring day. More than 650,000 bulbs of various hues are currently on display. And they are truly breathtaking.

Inside the gallery, and equally as breathtaking, is the “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” exhibit, which runs through Sunday, March 29. This is the third installment of a three-part series that started years ago and illustrates part of the Black experience through visual arts in the 20th century.

“This story picks up where part two left off,’’ said Kevin Sharp, the Linda W. and S. Herbert Rhea director for the Dixon. “This era is when we really start to see the emergence of these important Black artists’ agency and freedom shine through. They start to say and express what they want to, and it was a really beautiful time.”

With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

“Though [Davis] was from LA, he actually lived in Memphis for a decade,” said Sharp. “He was a dean at Memphis College of Art, and later opened the first gallery in New York owned and operated by black curators.”

Another featured artist is former NFL player, Ernie Barnes. His work is distinctive. Where have you seen one of his most popular paintings, Sugar Shack? On the end scene and credits of the hit show “Good Times.” His piece Saturday Night, Durham, North Carolina, 1974 is in this collection.

Memphis native James Little’s “The War Baby: The Triptych” is among more than 50 works featured in “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, the final installment of a three-part series highlighting the impact and evolution of Black artists through 2011.

The exhibit features other artists with Memphis ties, including abstract painter James Little, who was raised in a segregated Memphis and attended Memphis Academy of Art (before it was Memphis College of Art). He later moved to New York, became a teacher and an internationally acclaimed fixture in the art world in 2022 when he was named a Whitney Biennial selected artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Other artists like Romare Bearden, who had a Southern experience but lived up North, were featured in all three installments.

“During this period of time, he was a major figure,” said Sharp. “He wrote one of the first books on the history of African American art during a time when there were more Black academics, art teachers, more Black everything!”

Speaking of Black educators, Sharp said the head curator behind this tri-part series and Dixon’s partner in the arts is Earnestine Jenkins, Ph.D., an art history professor at the University of Memphis, who also earned a Master of Arts degree from Memphis State University (now UofM). “We began working with Dr. Jenkins in 2018,” he said.

Sharp explained that it takes a team of curators, registrars, counterparts at other museums, and more, about three years to assemble an exhibit like this. It came together quite seamlessly, he added. Each room conjured up more jaw-dropping “wows” than the one before it. Each piece worked with the others to tell the story of Black people and their collective experience during this time period.

One of the last artists about whom Sharp shared information was Bettye Saar, who will turn 100 years old this year. She’s been working in Los Angeles for 80 years and is finally getting her due. Her medium is collages or assemblages, and an incredible work of hers is on display. She’s married to an artist and has two daughters, also artists.

The exhibit catalogue bears some of these artists’ stories, among other scholarly information.

The exhibit, presented by the Joe Orgill Family Fund for Exhibitions, is culturally and colorfully rich. It is a must see and admission to the Dixon is free.

Visit https://www.dixon.org/ to learn more.

Fun Facts: An original James Little design lives in the flooring of the basketball court at Tom Lee Park, and he makes and mixes his own paint colors.

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Grief, Advocacy, and Education: A Counselor Reflects on Black Maternal Health

SAN DIEGO VOICE & VIEWPOINT — Last month healthcare leaders, birth workers, and community members gathered to honor the legacy of Charleston native Dr. Janell Green Smith, a nurse-midwife and doctor of nursing practice who died in January from childbirth complications. She had participated in more than 300 births and specialized in helping Black women give birth safely.

Published

4 days ago

March 24, 2026

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By Jennifer Porter Gore | Word-In-Black | San Diego Voice and Viewpoint

In 2024, the number of U.S. mothers who died as a result of pregnancy or childbirth dropped compared to 2023. But while slightly fewer Black mothers died that year, they still had three times the mortality rate of white women.

South Carolina’s rates of maternal deaths outpaced even the national rates. In fact, the state’s overall rate of maternal deaths between 2019 and 2023 was higher than all but eight states and the District of Columbia.

Last month healthcare leaders, birth workers, and community members gathered to honor the legacy of Charleston native Dr. Janell Green Smith, a nurse-midwife and doctor of nursing practice who died in January from childbirth complications. She had participated in more than 300 births and specialized in helping Black women give birth safely.

Her death shocked the community and her colleagues who are determined to address concerns about Black maternal health. The event also covered the importance of protecting mental health during grief and of men’s role in solving the maternal health crisis.

As both a therapist and a father, Lawrence Lovell, a licensed professional counselor and founder of Breakthrough Solutions, discussed ways the event’s attendees could process their grief over Green Smith’s death. He also shared ways male partners can advocate for women’s maternal health during pregnancy and childbirth.

Lovell spoke not just as a therapist but also as a father whose own family had briefly crossed paths with Green Smith. The event, he said, emerged organically from a moment of collective mourning.

Despite the grief, “it was still, like, a really beautiful event, a much-needed event, and it almost felt like we were all giving each other a collective family hug,” says Lovell.

His connection to Green Smith, Lovell says, was brief but meaningful during his wife’s pregnancy with their second child. Green Smith was practicing at the same birthing center where they had their child. She began practicing in Greenville a short time later.Even that short connection carried significance for Lovell, given the small number of Black maternal health professionals.

Lovell did not initially plan to become a mental health practitioner; he chose the career path after graduating from college, when someone suggested he consider psychology. His interest deepened when he noticed how few Black men work in mental health.

“Being Black man and playing football in college, there weren’t a lot of people that look like me talking about mental health,” says Lovell. “[I wanted] to give people that look like me an opportunity to work with someone that looks like them.”

Working with Expectant and New Parents

Lovell often counsels couples preparing for parenthood by, helping partners understand what a successful pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum recovery look like. That often means helping women manage postpartum depression.

As a man, Lovell says, it’s “humbling” that a woman “just trusts me enough to work with me through their pregnancy or their postpartum recovery.”

In his work, Lovell has noticed how few men understand pregnancy before they experience it with their partner. Because early pregnancy symptoms are often invisible, he says, men may underestimate how much support a mom-to-be actually needs.

“Sometimes they may not realize they don’t know much about pregnancy and what to expect in those three trimesters,” Lovell says. “I tell a lot of the men that just because you can’t see [she’s pregnant] doesn’t mean that she won’t appreciate your intense support in that first trimester.”

Education about pregnancy and postpartum recovery, he says, can change how men support their partners.

Teaching Advocacy in the Delivery Room

Another major focus of Lovell’s counseling is preparing men to advocate for mothers during labor.

“Helping men understand what pregnancy looks like: what delivery is going to look like, and what are the realistic expectations that I should have of myself in postpartum,” he says.

Lovell encourages partners to be honest about their expectations for what will happen during delivery. He helps them prepare for the big day by discussing the birth plan and knowing how to quickly recognize problems. Clear communication, he says, prevents misunderstandings.

He regularly trains men to ask their partners detailed questions about their expectations during and after pregnancy. Advocacy in medical settings can be especially important and requires attention to details the mother may not be able to address.

“It’s always important to fine-tune things and truly understand what helps your partner feel most supported,” Lovell says. “Instead of guessing, you should ask.”

Lovell recalls a moment during the birth of his first child when he had to take that role.

During the delivery, “I felt like something wasn’t as sanitary as I’d like it to be,” he says. “I asked, ‘Hey, can you switch those out? Can you change your gloves?’”

Lovell has a succinct but powerful message he regularly shares with clients’ families, and he shared it with attendees at last month’s event.

“Just to believe women,” he says. “I’ve worked with different couples, and sometimes I’m not really sure that there’s enough empathy from the men.”

That includes how women express pain.

“If a woman says, ‘my pain is at a nine,’ just because how you would express yourself at a nine is different than how she’s expressing herself at [that level] doesn’t mean you shouldn’t believe her,” he says.

Empathy, he says, can change outcomes far beyond the delivery room.

“We’ve got to believe women when they’re talking about their experiences and their feelings and their pain,” he says. “I think there’s a lot that we can prevent if we empathize better.”

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Future of Florida’s Black History Museum in Limbo

JACKSONVILLE FREE PRESS — A proposal sponsored by Tom Leek, a Republican from Ormond Beach, has now passed the Senate in back-to-back legislative sessions. But the House version, filed by Kiyan Michael, a Jacksonville Republican, did not receive final approval in either year, effectively stalling the effort.

Published

4 days ago

March 24, 2026

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Jacksonville Free Press

Plans to establish a long-awaited Black history museum in Florida are once again on hold after legislation needed to advance the project failed to clear the state House for a second consecutive year, despite repeated approval in the Senate.

A proposal sponsored by Tom Leek, a Republican from Ormond Beach, has now passed the Senate in back-to-back legislative sessions. But the House version, filed by Kiyan Michael, a Jacksonville Republican, did not receive final approval in either year, effectively stalling the effort.

Under Florida law, identical or similar bills must pass both chambers before heading to the governor’s desk. Without House approval, the legislation has been unable to move forward, leaving the project in limbo. Long journey, contested location.

The proposed museum, formally known as the Florida Museum of Black History, has been years in the making, with lawmakers and community leaders framing it as a long-overdue institution to preserve and showcase the state’s African American heritage .A central point of contention has been the museum’s location. St. Augustine — widely recognized as the nation’s oldest city and a site deeply tied to both slavery and early Black history — emerged as the leading contender. Supporters argue the city’s historical significance makes it a natural home for the museum. However, competing interests and regional considerations have fueled debate, slowing consensus among lawmakers.

While the Senate-backed measure has consistently advanced, the lack of alignment in the House has underscored ongoing divisions about how and where the project should take shape.

The holdup in the Florida House appears to be less about opposition to the museum itself and more about a combination of procedural bottlenecks, unresolved structural issues, and lingering disagreements over how the project should be formalized and governed.

Despite the legislative setbacks, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has publicly voiced support for the museum. Speaking last month during the unveiling of a statue of abolitionist Frederick Douglass in St. Augustine, DeSantis said the project would move forward “one way or another,” signaling an intent to see the museum built regardless of legislative hurdles.

The anticipated museum has already cleared several hurdles. St. Johns County signed an agreement last year with Florida Memorial University to use the land that once housed its campus last year’s legislative session netted $1 million in funding for St. Johns County to work on planning and design for the museum. However, its anticipated that a million $3 million is needed.

Still, without statutory approval to finalize key components — including governance, funding mechanisms and site selection — the project remains largely conceptual.
With the House bill failing again, the timeline for the museum’s development is unclear. Lawmakers could revisit the proposal in the next legislative session, but any further delays risk pushing the project back several more years. Advocates warn that continued inaction could stall momentum for a museum many see as critical to telling a fuller, more accurate story of Florida’s past. For now, the effort remains paused — caught between political support at the top and legislative gridlock within the Capitol.