Personal Statement

I joined the MPCPMP in 2022, as a researcher, to help search for yet-to-be-recognized Middle Passage ports of entry along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. There’s an immediacy, an urgency, to primary source documents from the 17th and 18th centuries. Scouring old newspapers, letters hand-written by slave traders, and the sworn testimony of crewmembers, I continue to be paralyzed and pained each time I discover yet another slaver financed by yet another “highly respected” business and family man. The more I discover, the more I feel the presence of the ancestors, the more committed I am to challenging the denial of truths about the transatlantic human trade and honoring the memory of enslaved Africans who survived the Middle Passage, and those who didn’t. Working with the MPCPMP, including descendants in communities of entry, and spending time among the ancestors at local African American burial grounds, has changed my worldview. Raised straddling diverse cultures while visibly white, I now see wherever I go the long shadow of denying the humanity of an entire race of humans – legally, for 246 years – at the advantage of another race. However, the MPCPMP’s efforts extend well beyond un-censoring, un-whitewashing, how U.S. history is told. By shedding light on the unimaginable suffering and sacrifices and the immeasurable contributions of the ancestors, starting with their rich native cultures, we also promote compassion, reparative justice, and healing, the ancestors’ and our own.