2021/2022 Key Projects ~ Moving Forward

Thanks to all the readers of my blog and especially those who have sent me valuable comments and subscribed to the blog. I am continuing to hear from cousins who are reading the Black Families of Edgefield blog series and finding their family origins in the early Edgefield plantation community. 

I have been away from blogging for a while working on 4 key projects.

November 20, 2021 

I presented The Black Families of Edgefield Plantation Woodville, Mississippi 1776-1876 to the African American Genealogy Interest Group (AAGIG) of Dallas, Texas. The slide presentation consisted of a Google map virtual tour of present-day Woodville, Mississippi, from Highway 61 to the downtown courthouse square, and a look down Wayside Road and Woodstock Road where the Edgefield Plantation used to be. Most of the presentation reviewed my 10-part blog series on The Black Families of Edgefield which revealed the families and names of the early Africans and their descendants up to the 1870 US census. 

In my AAGIG presentation I also included profiles of some of the early enslaved Edgefield Family members as told by Edgefield historian Samuel Booker Minor in my December 26, 1998, interview with him. Booker Minor was born in 1904 and he knew many of the early enslaved family members of Edgefield and told me what he knew about them. I will share some of those rare and valuable biographical sketches on my next blog.

January 11, 2022

I contributed 2 stories of my family members, Robert Veal of Woodville, Mississippi, and Charles Henry Veal of St. Francisville, Louisiana, for the book Black Homesteaders of The South by Bernice Alexander Bennett. The book has forty-nine stories documenting Black land claims representing Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, and Mississippi. The emphasis for expanding the Black homestead claim story came from her book Tracing Their Steps: A Memoir which documents her great-great-grandfather acquiring land under the Homestead Act of 1862. Bernice Alexander Bennett started a facebook group Descendants of African American Homesteaders to bring awareness to the little-known fact that many African Americans acquired land thru the Homestead Act of 1862. Black Homesteaders of the South is available for pre-order with a release date of October 24, 2022.

The Homestead applications files contain details of the struggles of African Americans for land ownership. After moving on the land provided by the US government, filing claims, and receiving patents for the land, stories are being told by family members who inherited the land.

February 23, 2022

I presented The Life of Corporal Philip McWhorter alias PHILIP BROWN: 81st Regiment U.S. Colored Infantry to The African American Civil War Memorial and Museum. Philip McWhorter was my great great grandfather who was born in 1844 and enslaved on the Brown/ Still plantation in Woodville, Mississippi. I tell the complete story on Blog Talk Radio Episode: The Civil War Pension File of Phil McWhorter. The African American Civil War Memorial and Museum in Washington, D.C., sponsored Lunch With A United States Color Troop Descendant to explore USCT veterans through the eyes of their descendants. Descendants were asked to give presentations about their USCT ancestor/s and their research process. “The AACWM’s Descendant Lunches are always a great space to share and learn family history, you never know how another’s ancestry may intertwine with your own!” (“The African American Civil War Memorial and Museum – Posts – Facebook”).

June 11, 2022

I gave a virtual presentation on Black Families of Edgefield Plantation: The Growth of Human Capital, Labor & Wealth In Woodville, Mississippi 1776-1865 to the Sons & Daughters of the United States Middle Passage 5^th Annual Conference held on June 10-11, 2021, at Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Sons & Daughters of the United States Middle Passage (SDUSMP) is a lineage society for descendants of individuals enslaved in English colonial America and the United States of America from 1619-1865.  It is dedicated to preserving the memory of our freed and enslaved ancestors.  The organization was started in 2011 and incorporated in Washington, D.C.  SDUSMP is a non-profit, charitable 501(c)3 organization. The theme of the 2022 Conference was The Economic Impact of Slavery – a detailed analysis of the economic impact of the labor of enslaved individuals and families on the local, state, federal, and world economies. 

My study of Edgefield Plantation has been very rewarding. I have a much clearer understanding of who my enslaved ancestors were in Woodville — their origins, names, and family groups. My SDUSMP presentation was an opportunity for me to focus on the economics of enslavement on a large Southern Mississippi Plantation. I will follow-up with a blog detailing what I learned.