there was no better fitting title for this post since i’m REALLY into the alicia keys song featuring maxwell right now…and this couple is sizzling!

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can a person change your perspective about your life, or perhaps confirm your purpose, merely with a smile, or a willingness to learn?

tonight, as i sit here asking those questions, i also add “how” and “why” to the list. but all i can do is cry.  donitra henderson was murder victim number 32 in oakland this year.  that statement alone makes me want to scream. the person who committed the crime did so in front of her four year old son. now, i’m angry.  why is this happening?!?

i met her last fall when working on the ancestral project which included a group of students at laney college in the beyond emancipation program.  she was happy to be doing the work of tracing her ancestry and our team was equally excited to do what we could to support that.  and now, not even six months later, she’s gone.  gone for no reason.

when tyler was killed, i sat for weeks and asked myself if there was something more i could have done. sometimes, i think about the fact that his family has to live with the fact that he’s no longer here to experience life with them.  this time, with donitra, the pain is just as raw and hurtful. but i have to see God in this because He’s there.

people i know have called me crazy for being so willing to work with youth and teach them about their ancestry.  some of have doubted the value of it and think that only those who are seasoned appreciate it.  they assume that youth aren’t interested and question why am i spending hours and hours of my time teaching them about history and how it relates to their lives and their family trees.  they say the youth are a lost cause, especially being in the inner city, and they don’t think past themselves long enough to want to consider a pedigree chart.  they’d rather have an iPhone or an iPad.

tyler is why i do it. donitra is why i do it. donitra’s son is why i do it.

someone reading this may do genealogy as a hobby or may consider it a passion. for me, it’s much bigger than that.  it’s a purpose. there are days that life and systemic challenges that face the youth we work with are too much deal with  - searching a census let alone filling out a family tree chart is out of the question. on those days, we don’t say “see you later, we can’t help you.” we dig deep. we share our story. we connect and give them hope.  i can’t walk into a session and start talking about sourcing when one or more of their own has been killed the day or weekend before.  THAT is what we experience along with the highs of finally finding your grandmother on a census or what her maiden name is.  really, we are living life right along with them.

when i look at these faces…gone ENTIRELY too soon, my prayer is that something i said, taught, laughed at, or that we experienced made a difference for them and their families.  that the family tree that they worked on and the documents they found are part of their legacy, as they would be for someone who is much older.  that’s the reason why the work is needed for all ages.

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“You reap what you sow…”

“I hope he wasn’t a rapper turning his life around.”

“Midnight basketball, that’s the ticket.”

“Did Lam ont have a criminal record?”

“im sure he was on his way to church too….”

“He was the son of the “reverend” and turned out to be a “gangsta” at the age of 17? Good parenting, like a boss. Also, dude, can’t you take your sunglasses off in the church? You say you’re a “reverend”, but hows about some respect? Also, what’s up with all these names? “Brijjanna? Tajjeunna” WTF?”

“The fact that he’s buried in an oversized red baseball cap says it all to me.”

“What a waste in a human–there was NO life there at all: crime, gang, pregnant, etc. Possibly the government is “giving” too much so some do not become self reliant?”

Brijjanna Price, left, joins her father Ramon and friends as they light candles to mark the one year anniversary of the killing of her brother Lamont, Saturday February 16, 2013, in Oakland, Calif. Lamont Price, 17, was killed on 81 street and Birch in broad daylight. Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle

This undated photo provided by her family via attorney Robert Allard shows [Audrie] Pott. A Northern California sheriff’s office has arrested three 16-year-old boys on accusations that they sexually battered the 15-year-old girl who hanged herself eight days after the attack last fall. Family Photo Provided By Attorney Robert Allard. Source: San Francisco Chronicle

why even talk about the two situations together? apples and oranges?

on the surface these are two different stories. when you look deeply, they aren’t that different.  they both ended the exact same way.  two young people are dead for no reason, and the “world” seems to favor one story more than the other because of appearances.  really, these deaths are symptomatic of a larger societal issue.

as armchair quarterbacks, political pundits, and john and jane doe plead for schools and the “system” to stop bullying, especially when it leads to suicide, the same people are quick to say violence in inner cities like oakland and chicago is an issue for “those people” to fix themselves. i often wonder if the people making these comments consider how they have contributed to that violence. the contribution could be through their vote for those who effect policies negatively (and not properly researching candidates before they elect them), the fact that they turn a blind eye to a human issue, or the fact that they participate in suburban flight which eventually leads them back to the very cities they criticize once those places have been gentrified because then “everything is all better and my commute to work is shorter.”  “why did we move to the ‘burbs again? there are too many ______ people there now.”

has anyone considered that the violence taking place in cities like oakland or chicago may be suicide or even quite possibly the result of years of bullying or coercion? if you live in an inner city environment, with few options, there’s a high likelihood that it’s easier for you to be lead into the street life. this is especially the case if you don’t know anyone doing any better or haven’t been exposed to better.  furthermore, if there is a lack of legitimate economy in your environment (read that no real options for work outside of the drug game), where else are you going to go for opportunities?  you’d much rather have a life that eventually ends up incarcerating or killing you quickly.  At least you have a chance at something.

bullying (and the suicides that follow)  in the suburbs and youth violence in the inner cities are both granules in the same pharmaceutical capsule – violence.

only, the pharma company has got too many people to believe that the pill is two different things because it’s being packaged as two completely different products.  as the actors go frolicking through a field of wheat telling you about how awesome they feel and how the “miracle” drug has changed their life yet, 3/4 of the commercial is spent telling you about side effects.  the commercial for bulsophani is far more palatable because of the editing and the choice of music while oaklandia is just too raw and in your face and you’d rather forget about it.

the bottom line is this.  the same things are hitting everyone.  until they are both looked at as an overall human issues, the cycle and “these” and “those” labels continue.

shine in peace map of incidences of gun violence and homicide in the city of oakland, year 2013

Red: Homicide, Blue: Shooting with injury, Teal: Shooting with no resulting injury

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a little bit about MAAGI:

The Midwestern African American Genealogy Institute (MAAGI) will train individuals to explore and use genealogy resources and research strategies targeting African ancestral family historians. The courses at MAAGI are led by faculty with knowledge in an array of subjects, and demonstrated leadership and expertise in African American genealogy, family history and research.

the courses/workshops will be conducted through the following tracks:

• Track 1:Basic Methods and Strategies for African American Research
• Track 2: Technology and Social Media
• Track 3:  Pre & Post Emancipation Records
• Track 4: Genealogy as a Profession (my session is in this track)
• Track 5: Greater St. Louis History, Heritage, and Legacy

hot off the presses…

Evolution Consulting Group Scholarship Award – Midwest African-American Genealogy Institute (MAAGI)

Evolution Consulting Group (ECG) offers a scholarship to be awarded to an individual who submits a paper based a “genealogy brick wall” they are experiencing and why they want to attend the MAAGI.  The paper should be at least 1,000 words written in WORD. The award carries a $300 value applicable towards the “registration” to attend the “Beginning Methods and Strategies” Track at the MAAGI, July 9-11 in St. Louis, MO, at the campus of Harris Stowe State University. The winner will be acknowledged at the opening session. Papers are accepted via email until May 30, 2013, at 5pm. For any questions or submittal email: info@evolutionconsultinggroup.net.  In the subject line, please put “MAAGI-Brick Wall”.

i would LOVE to see one of you there, so apply, apply, apply!

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recently i had the chance photograph one of my favorite people…and the two handsome young men that call her mom. regina jackson is a powerhouse. anyone who knows her will tell you this over and over again. most would think that i would have met her through her amazing work at the east oakland youth development center (eoydc), but we actually connected not in oakland, but across the globe, as part of the ancestry reconnection program 1 and 2. we are cameroonian american sisters…her, from the hausa and masa, me from the bamileke.

it has been such a blessing knowing her.  she is always willing to take me along for the ride, wherever she is going. (one of those places is china!) i remember when i was still hiding behind my lens in cameroon, not thinking that anything that i was taking was worth sharing or showing outside of my own family.  i can still hear her saying “what you’re taking is just as good as the people that are pros.  get out there!” lol by the time we got to the second trip, i had earned a press pass.

to say it was an honor to capture her family is not saying enough.  we had a REAL good time and it shows below.  these are beautiful people, inside and out.  hopefully, our next session won’t be in ten years.

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more on eoydc

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pocket story folios

pocket story mini books

story books

story folios

story albums – panoramic (8.5×11) and square (10X10)

canvas print sets

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Young men from Lamont’s Snaer’s group at Berkeley Tech. Tyler is standing in the center with the black hoodie and beanie on. This photo appeared on the front page of The Oakland Post during Spring 2012.

one of the young men in that group was a funny kid named tyler.  i remember he always had something witty to say and seemed to know a lot more about history than people would give him credit for.  he always had a smile and hug for me whenever i saw him.  I remember that he was photographed when the program made the front page of the san francisco chronicle. no matter where i was, whenever i saw tyler, he always spoke and checked in with me.

unfortunately, due to life and it’s circumstances, tyler was murdered on february 9, 2013 in oakland.  he was not the first one of my kids that has been shot, but he’s the first one that has died.  he wasn’t a perfect kid.

“No sob story childhood excuses attempted murder.”

when i was in high school,  there were two murders that i remember. both of them happened my sophomore year.  one young man, todd mcglover, was shot when he opened the door at his home in a case of mistaken identity.  the other, dennis swain, was even as horrific. he was found in the trunk of his car and shot multiple times.  almost 20 years later, i still have one of the newspaper clippings about dennis. i remember i spent the night at a friend’s house and the morning we woke up was when we got the news that dennis had died.

why am i sharing stories about stuff that happened in 1994? because some realness needs to be kept.  i wasn’t raised in “the hood” or even the inner city.  i was raised in the suburbs. yet, i STILL had classmates who were murdered and that was almost 20 years ago.

yes, limiting ammunition and doing better checks may help, but when it comes down to it, these guns are getting out there outside of the means that a “regular” person would use to get one.  the truth is, many americans are scared of day-day, pookie, and doughboy when recent events have provided more proof that you need to be just as concerned about adam, james, dylan, and christopher.  my own mother recently remarked that anytime she’s at a school she is scanning to make sure she has an escape route just in case something pops off.  doesn’t anyone else find it ridiculous that a retiree is doing this at spelling bees?

so how do we fix “it?”  to me, there are so many “its.”  the roots to the violence are not being investigated or treated.   folks keep throwing money at the “its” thinking it’s going to solve things but it’s not.  one of the “its” is fixing the mental healthcare system. one of the “its” is providing jobs and opportunities (like training for tech jobs that the u.s. has not enough people to fill) for people living in areas that lack them so that they don’t have to rely on the drug trade. one of the “its” is calling a spade a spade and being honest about who your child is and what they are doing.  do they need medication? do they need opportunities? how about just parenting a youth, even if it’s not your own?

generation x and y…i believe this is our issue to address. with the record numbers of grandparents raising their grandchildren, many of us have literally left this issue at the feet of our parents or we’ve determined it’s not ours to do anything about because we’re so focused on making lives for ourselves.  movements were started by young people…so why do we think it’s the baby boomer’s job to fix this alone?  as you sit and read this, what are things you can do to help with this issue? yep, they’re not your kids and not “your issue,” but trust me.  eventually, they WILL become “your issue.”

Tyler Jamison…eyes and smile, center.

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108 years later, ike laid dead on what appears to be a mortician’s table.  the book that the picture was in was yellowed, the cover missing.  it was kept in a plastic bag.  i remember my dad saying that we were related to ike, and i had questions like “why on earth would somebody smoke him just for getting off the train? he doesn’t look african american at all – who were his parents?” there was no way i could ask these things.  dad had died three years prior.  his parents, my grandparents, dead.  my aunt, his sister, dead, as well as my only first cousin.  i chose to call other relatives who told me that we were cherokee and had deep roots in the nation.  i also reached out to the genealogy community.  the entire time i remained skeptical about it all.

who was isaac rogers?

First Kansas Colored Infantry flag, after conservation treatment. Source: Kansas Historical Society

the community at Afrigeneas responded immediately.   angela walton-raji was the first to respond, and the lead she gave me was priceless.  ike had fought in the civil war. really?  so, there i went and ordered his civil war pension file.  the file confirmed that he was the father of my great grandfather, theodore cooey vann rogers, sr.  ok. ike was my 2x great grandfather, my grandmother lois’ grandfather. further research showed that he enlisted as part of the first kansas infantry who, as per the kansas historical society, were the first african american group to be recruited in the north, the first to see battle, and the first to die in the civil war. take that 54th massachusetts from the movie glory. lol

after a period of digging, and more conversations with relatives, i discovered that i was related to someone who was “famous.” now, in the world of genealogy, researchers are always trying to prove they are related to someone, anyone, with a “name.” i’ve never been into this.  i know having a “name” can be a little dangerous.  but what i found still shocks me every time i read it.

ike rogers was born about 1850 in the indian territory,- or what is now northeast oklahoma.  he is always noted as being a relative of clement vann rogers (father of humorist will rogers) - i haven’t been able to verify this - and family says his mother, martha richardson, conceived him with a man who was either caucasian or caucasian and cherokee. he was a slave of alzirah (elzira) price and her husband peter may.  alzirah was cherokee.  wait, what?!?

after all the history i had read, all the classes i attended, no one had ever told me that the cherokee owned slaves.  as a matter of fact, i would later discover that others groups who are part of the five civilized tribes (cherokee, choctaw, chickasaw, creek (muscogee), and seminole) owned slaves.  statistics have said that 10 percent of the people who were part of the trail of tears were slaves.  ok. history book rewrite? to say that this angered me was an understatement.  there was a possibility that some of my ancestors were part of such a horrible event and they were never mentioned…EVER? bad business.

the back of grandpa cooey’s dawes card. he was cherokee freedmen 854. it lists grandpa ike as his father and ike’s slaveholder as elzira may.  these cards were segregated based on who had a “degree” of indian blood.  source: fold3.com, dawes enrollment cards. nara M1186

Isaac Rogers, born about 1850, died April 1898. i’ve been told by a historian that this is probably the one of the only pictures of grandpa ike that still exists. it may have been taken right after the civil war.

once ike mustered out of the military, he eventually had several children, try 8 (grandpa cooey was number 4 or 5) and married about four times.  i have to admit, he’s a pretty nice looking man.   and judging by the number of children and wives (two were sisters), the ladies back then felt likewise. lol

ike eventually became a u.s. deputy marshal who rode for the infamous judge isaac parker, who was dubbed the hanging judge.  remember the book with grandpa ike dead in it?  i discovered that it detailed page after page judge isaac’s exploits as he hung 83 men during his tenure.  that’s A LOT of people to hang.  the book was an early edition of hell on the border.  grandpa ike eventually lost his commission as a marshal…stories vary as to why (we’ll talk more about that later), but ike came back into prominence due to a single act.

cherokee bill  (crawford goldsby) was a indian territory outlaw who was (in the words of my mom) “going around killing up folks just ’cause.”  lol he became nearly impossible to catch until grandpa ike and others used the most time honored trick in the world – employ his affinity for women. the story is pretty long, you can read more about it here, but after birthday party, whiskey drinking, a slumber party, a fire poker beating, and a near escape on a wagon ride, judge isaac eventually got to hang bill.  clarence goldsby, bill’s brother, was the one who smoked grandpa ike at the train depot as retribution for his brother’s hanging.  eventually, i would have a great aunt who was also named clarence.  to this day, i have NO idea why grandpa cooey named one of his daughters the same name as the man that killed his father.  lol

Cherokee Bill [above center with left hand in his pocket], who killed for the pleasure of killing, and his captors, on his arrival in Fort Smith, Arkansas, to face the Hanging Judge. Readig left to right: Zeke Crittenden and Dick Crittenden, deputy marshals; Bill; Clint Scales; Ike Rogers (1) and deputy marshal Bill Smith. Source: http://www.jcs-group.com/oldwest/outlaws/cherokee.html

for anyone, this would have been enough for an entry in the family file, but grandpa ike wasn’t through with me yet.  earlier in my search, in addition to finding out who my ancestors were, i was interested in registering as a member of the cherokee nation since other family members had been enrolled.  ha. if it was only that simple.

grandpa ike’s first muster card from the civil war. source: fold3.com, civil war service records

many don’t know that the cherokee sided with the confederacy during the civil war.  and because they were a sovereign nation within the u.s., the emancipation proclamation did not free their slaves.  a treaty was required between them and the u.s. government.  although the treaty of 1866 between the cherokee and the u.s. government said that “all freedmen who have been liberated by voluntary act of their former owners or by law, as well as all free colored persons who were in the country at the commencement of the rebellion, and are now residents therein, or who may return within six months, and their descendants, shall have all the rights of native Cherokees,” that treaty was only honored up until the late 1970s, early 1980s.

my mother gave me a letter that was addressed to one of my great aunts. it was postmarked in 1985. it said she had to re-enroll and apply noting an ancestor who was on the “by blood” cherokee dawes roll. the dawes roll is what is used to verify eligibility for membership into the cherokee nation. this roll has been hotly debated regarding it’s accuracy as adopted whites and those who did not have a degree of blood were listed with a degree of blood and many of african descent who had a degree of blood weren’t listed with one and were noted only as freedmen.  the by blood and freedmen rolls were segregated.  court battles have been brewing for years over formerly disenrolling the descendants of the former slaves. in the space of about five to seven years, i couldn’t, then i could, and then i couldn’t apply.  my ancestors had returned to the nation as required, my great grandfather and great aunts were on the rolls and even received land.  why were me and my family being denied?  i became apathetic about the whole scenario.  it was way too messy.

i learned there were other rolls before this, including the wallace roll which documented cherokee freedmen. one day, i started peeking around at more documents and came across notations of grandpa ike advocating for cherokee freedmen rights.  what?!?  yes.  apparently, ike was pretty riled up about how the nation was treating it’s formerly enslaved.  he wrote letter’s to the editor of the indian chieftain and even went to washington, dc. to advocate.  it appears as though some of his efforts lead to creation of the wallace roll.

eventually, grandpa ike ended up in front testifying in front of a senate subcommittee on may 20, 1885. *wig across the room* to say that he was bold is not enough.

so…what’s next?

when i read through the writings of historians, they nearly all speak horribly about grandpa ike.  i won’t go on record to say he was a perfect person. on the other hand, i can only imagine the reasons why he was characterized so bad.  last time i checked, other people who spoke out against the majority are almost always were characterized negatively.  it’s obvious I need to rewrite his story.  stay tuned

for the genealogy purists, who want to know how i was able to find all this information, here are some of the things i used:

• u.s. civil war pension files – national archives and records administration (nara)
• dawes application cards and packets – digitized on fold3.com
• various newspapers such as the indian chieftain, vinita, ok newspaper – digitized on chronicling america – library of congress website and others through genealogybank.com
• census records – u.s. census (1900 – indian territory, 1910, 1920, 1930 in oklahoma); state census in kansas.  all available via ancestry.com
• u.s. congressional serial set

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