Slaves in the Family

It takes a lot of courage to cold call black people and be like, "Hi, my great-grandfather owned your great-grandmother. Can I come over so we can talk about it?" and then actually show up and talk about all the consequences of slavery. It seems like families that can trace their ancestry back to a......more

I've got Balls in my line. . .but mine are all in North Carolina, and then trundle down to Georgia before heading to Louisiana and northwest Texas, and former slaves came with them to Texas. My great-grandma, Granny had stories. Sitting on her backporch, listening to her unfiltered, affectionate, lo......more

This is the second time I've read this book and I was as pleased with it this time as the first time. This is the story of the author's research into his family's past as slave owners and slave traders. Through painstaking research and wonderful storytelling Ball tracks down his ancestors, both whit......more

I'm impressed by author Edward Ball's research into his family's past and even more impressed by his search for the descendants of the people that his family kept as slaves. He was able to reconstruct slave families' genealogies down to the present and then he contacted 100,000 of the descendants of......more

Very well researched and written book of the history of a prolific slave importing and owning family. Chose it as part of my Black History education. I typically choose authors of color, but made an exception. Parts did make me uncomfortable, often slave were referred to as "workers" and I felt the......more