Sunday, December 15, 2013

Why I, a Young Woman of Color, Joined the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR)

Late in October I received a phone call from a strange number. Now I usually don't answer calls from numbers I don't recognize, but for some reason I answered. I am so happy I did. It was Wilhelmina Kelly, founding regent of the Increase Carpenter Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
She is so classy
We had been exchanging emails off and on since June when I finally applied for DAR. I had always told myself that if I applied to the DAR I wanted to join her chapter since there are several other black members. I figured that if I was going to join a historically white and, well remembered for being racist organization, then I should make it a little easier on myself by joining a chapter with at least one other black member. I guessed that the women in this chapter might be open and supportive of my application. They may also be more helpful with my struggle to get in since they had already gotten over their own historical and racial hurdles.  Increase Carpenter has four black members that I know of.

As I had hoped Ms. Kelly was very excited about my application and quickly set to work trying to help me negotiate the paperwork process and find all of the proof I needed. Then magically 5 months later DAR's membership committee approved my ancestry! I was in! I couldn't believe it. It takes some women years to find just the right ancestral line. I got in on my first try using a family line I had not even known had actually existed a few months earlier.

I used my Fortson line:
ME - My mother Rachel - grandmother Willie Mae Hall Strickland - great grandfather Johnny "Fox" Hall - great great grandmother Martha Fortson Hall - great great great grandfather William Easton Fortson (white former slave owner who lived with his former slave Mertis Thomas and fathered all 16 of her children) - great great great great grandmother Nancy Ham - great great great great great grandfather John Ham - great great great great great great (6x) grandfather Stephen Ham. Nancy's mother also connects me to another soldier Richard Gatewood.
To find out more about William Fortson, Mertis Thomas and their families please see this blog post Love Across the Battle Lines


Why would a black woman want to join the Daughters of the American Revolution after they publicly excluded black women for almost 70 years?

I get that question a lot, mostly from people of color and others who know about DAR's checkered past.

My answer? Because I have done the research and traced my line to multiple Revolutionary War soldiers. Therefore they have no reason to exclude me. I'm no James Meredith and there were no blue haired old ladies with nooses and colonial era ball gowns trying to chase me away from the archives. DAR has changed quite a bit in the last decade or so. Thanks in great part to some of its earliest black members and their many white allies - women like Wilhelmina Kelly and Olivia Cousins and many others who are passionate and dedicated to OUR shared history as Americans.

For Daughters of the American Revolution, a New Chapter


 I personally like the idea of joining and hopefully helping to change an organization that I am qualified to be a member of, and that is even though they may have in the past rejected me because of my color. Why apply for Harvard or work at the Smithsonian? Just because they did not want us in the past does not mean we should not try to make change and then use the organization/institution/company to make our lives and the lives of others better.

For me DAR is also about the network. A strong genealogy network! It's like getting into a sorority only I don't have to worry about an elderly lady paddling me or making me eat dry oatmeal and walk in a triangle. My initiation ceremony involved hours spent squinting at some 19th century clerks awful handwriting or staring bleary-eyed at 4am at my laptop screen reading document after document until I had my answers…or were they just more questions? (oh crap I just lost another 3 hours I should have been putting toward my archaeology course's reading assignment).

I will be making my re-entry into the full time work world in the next 5 months and I know from experience that it is not what you know but who you know. Being a DAR member, especially as a woman of color, may give me a few bonus points when I apply to genealogy and research jobs. I like to think that this connection helps prove how passionate and dedicated I am to genealogy. When I went back to my internship at the New England Historic Genealogical Society and told the lunch room regulars that I had finally made it in, their jaws dropped. There were a few young white women who had been trying to get in and failing for months. They seemed both surprised and in awe. I figure, if I can get in, then so can they, and so can many women of color looking for a means of reifying their family's long history in this country. Now that DNA is acceptable as evidence we all have an even easier pathway in to this historic organization.

Yesterday, I got up at 5 am after getting home from a salsa concert at 2 am to get on a bus to New York. In one of those random YOLO moments. I figured I might as well make the trek back to my favorite city to attend my first DAR meeting. Some how magically despite my printer not working and the bus being over loaded, oh and then there was the part about it snowing, I made it to Queens.

We met at a restaurant called Brooks 1890. As a pretty much life-time member of the National Alumnae Association of Spelman College - Columbia, MD Chapter, I knew how this whole thing would go. We read minutes, said a few prayers, did the pledge of allegiance to the flag (mmmh I've protested that since middle school so I was hesitating on that) and then jumped into business. There was a history moment and then the ladies were invited to share photos and quick stories about the veterans in their lives/histories. Since I have all my research online I was able to share photos of my great uncle Alphonsa "Fuz" Cook who served during the Korean war as a cook in the Navy. I also spoke on my Confederate veteran ancestor and the many questions I wish I could ask him.

I spent most of the meeting chatting with a young woman named Charlene. We connected instantly since we are both studying some of the most heartbreaking and difficult segments of Black America's history. I'm studying slavery and she is focusing on the American prison system, convict leasing and the rampant lynching of black military veterans in uniform. Whew! Talk about commiseration! I'm not sure anyone else wanted to join our conversation. It was wonderful though! It is always great to find a kindred spirit. We connected through email and Linked In, traded book titles, authors, scholars and info. She is even interested in joining the African American Genealogy Book Club I am co leading on LinkedIn! Very happy to have finally gotten a chance to meet her and the rest of the members who came out despite the snow. We had a wonderful time. Cannot wait for the next meeting in February.

Ok ladies! I'm ready. Pin me!



Any thoughts on whether I should attempt to join the United Daughters of the Confederacy? Colonial Dames?

15 comments:

  1. Congratulations, on Joining the DAR. As a woman of color, You have accomplished something very few persons of color have been able to and for that you should be very proud. Your story and documented research of your Patriot ancestor's service and contribution is itself enough reason for joining this Lineage Society. Hopefully, as more become aware of their ancestor's service and contribution to the cause of America's Independence, they to will take on the challenge of recognizing their ancestors by documenting and becoming a member of this particular lineage society.
    And by all means go ahead and submit your other known Patriot Ancestor as a supplemental application. Who knows someone in your family may be able to connection to this person later when their interesting in family history and making ancestor's connections to american history is developed. You would have paved the way to help make that possible . Once again, congratulations

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    1. Thank you Michael! I plan to get back to work on proving my supplemental lineages after graduation in May. In the meantime I am definitely enjoying being a part of this organization. My chapter has been wonderfully supportive and now I am doing my best to help encourage more women to join

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  2. As a family tree researcher, I understand what an accomplishment this would be for me (a white person), and even more so for you, and I rejoice with you! Well done!

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  3. Congrats! I have really enjoyed reading some of the blog and research backstory you have posted, and will be reading more of it. Fascinating journey.... Those with any black ancestry (and as humans, we're pretty much all an interesting melange) certainly have immense challenges tracking records and individuals but, in a way, I really wish we all had the same problems with this.
    We all need to really delve into the history, the time, the locale, and the society, and work to understand the people, and everything that made up the complexities of their lives. For black ancestors, you are *must* do this. Maybe if there were a similar "no choice" reality in other areas, we would become better researchers....
    And, yes, why not go for the other two, as well!
    And don't give up yet on the love story. Oh, not simple or romantic. Nothing easy or hearts-and-flowers there. But sometimes a connection can be incredibly strong between people. Been that way across time. Despite things....

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    1. Thank you Genevieve and Linda! The more research I do on my ancestors the more I see how each branch and each ethnic group presents its own special challenges. I've always loved a good challenge
      I have not given up on the love story yet. I plan to take another look at William and Mertis for my final paper in my Narrating History class and maybe one day a novel. We'll see what happens and I will make sure to add updates to the blog

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  4. Congratulations. The history of Africans in America is much more available than most would think. www.colonialcemetery.com

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  5. Wonderful story -- you deserve a great deal of credit for the research you've done, and should take pride in your accomplishment. The DAR really is a great organization -- it has come a long way from the past… But if you apply to the Daughters of the Confederacy, please blog about it. That's a story I can't wait to hear!

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    1. Thanks Kathleen! Applying to the Daughters of the Confederacy is still on my to do list. For now it is all about finding an interesting chapter of open minded women to join. Trust me if I get in I will definitely be blogging about it. I can only think of one other black member and that was Strom Thurmond's daughter who joined after he died via his family line. Then she died a few years ago soooo. We'll see

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  6. Congratulations and job well done!!!!

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  7. E ku se!( Well Done)! The Egungun( Ancestors) are opening doors of prosperity! I will be praying for you- let me know when the others accept your application. Egungun a se egbe ire( Msy the Ancestors bless you abundantly)-Ase!

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    1. Thank you!! I will certainly need the ancestors' blessings and support in the next few months as I finish my classes, put the finishing touches on my genealogy workshop series, graduate and fingers crossed find a job!
      I will pass on the word to Wilhelmena. Do you know how you may be related?

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  8. Please tell.Ms. Wilhelmina Kelly of DAR that I.may be related to her . Thanks

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  9. Wow, it appears that we have a lot of family members in common. Although my Mattox family was originally brought to Virginia as slave, our some of our Caucasian ancestors moved to Elbert, Elberton, and Oglethorpe, Georgia and took some of my relatives with them and fathered many of them as well. I would really love to connect with you. Many of my Georgia “Mattox” family married “Fortson”. Feel free to contact me anytime at C_Skipper@msn.com. God Bless.

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    1. Hi Cassandra,

      I have definitely seen the Mattox name in the census records alongside my ancestors. Yes lets connect!

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