Category: Uncategorized
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Summer Reading
I moved back home for a few days before my summer travels –civil rights tour, birthday celebration week, and a trip to Harlem. By July, I will settle into my new place in Baltimore (speaking it into existence). A few months ago, I received a Barnes and Noble gift card from a former professor and…
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(Updated) Chauncey Sawyer Flowers
In 1895, Harry and Nancy (Sawyer) Flowers gave birth to their first child, Chauncey Flowers in the city of Jacksonville, Florida. He is Rachel Flowers’ eldest brother. One of the first items I look for in my research is a photo. I discovered a number of primary sources detailing his life, yet currently no photo…
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Chapter Two: “What Have You To Say”
With the completion of chapter one of my thesis, I move on to the introduction (backwards I know) and chapter two, the biography of Rachel Flowers. Photo Source: Messiah College Archives This image first introduced me to my research. Messiah College archivist placed the image’s date between 1916 to 1918, the years of her enrollment.…
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Thesis Writing
Photo Source I am writing my thesis, the long awaited thesis. I entitled the project “Our Children’s Children Live Forever”: The Educational Activism of the Sawyer-Flowers Family in America From 1866-1988. It is exciting, but it is a bit scary. Scary because I am writing the history of a family I have never met. Scary because it…
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“My Grandmothers Were Six Feet Tall”: Geraldine’s Family Memories
Geraldine Wilson, 1955 The more I discover about this family, the more I wondered if they were aware of one another’s accomplishments. I wondered if Geraldine knew of her grandfather’s service in the American Civil War. Did Rachel know of her grandfather’s educational activism? Did this fuel her own activism?As always in research, with many…
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#BlackGirlsTravel: A Week in Panama
Taboga Island, Panama I love to travel. If I am not traveling, I am planning my next international adventure. So Panama began with a phone call to my old college roommate, Djola (who I know loves to have fun) and my sister, Faith, who needed a stamp in her passport. I wanted to spend a week…
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A Tribute to Queen Mother Moore from Geraldine Wilson
Miss Moore came to be called Queen Mother during a trip to Africa years ago, when a tribe in Ghana awarded her the honorary title. In Africa, as she once put it, “I felt the lash on the backs of my people.” Her outrage over the suffering of blacks in America led to years of…
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Geraldine Wilson’s Statement of Purpose
When she applied to graduate school at New York University, Geraldine resided in Jackson, Mississippi where she worked with the state’s Head Start Program. As I researched Geraldine’s biography, I connected with her story, her resilience, and her passion for the education of African American children. It helps that her archival collection at the Schomburg…
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May 2016
With three semesters of graduate school under my belt, I finished with a 4.0 GPA (look at God!). Honestly, this past school year was full of many challenges whether it was lack of motivation, regret, family, or extreme exhaustion. Nonetheless, I made it and I also passed my thesis proposal defense. I neglected this blog…
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Look Out to Look In: The Search for a Living Descendant
Henry Sams (1915-1975) b. Jacksonville, Florida d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Half-brother of the Flowers children Born to Henry Sams and Nancy Sawyer Sams, Henry Sams Jr. spent his childhood in Jacksonville, Florida before his family’s migration to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Throughout his lifetime, he excelled in sports since his time at Overbrook High School. He also participated in pre-Olympic meets…
Diary of a Historian 