"A people without history are like trees without roots," said Rep. Duane E. Bourdeaux, a Utah legislator and keynote speaker at the Family History Library, quoting from an African proverb.
In commemorating Black History Month, the Family History Library in Salt Lake City held its forth annual African-American Family History Research Series on Feb. 11 with about 80 people in attendance.
"It is necessary to acknowledge and know our history, and where we have been in order to know where we are going," continued Rep. Bourdeaux, a five-term legislator in the Utah House of Representatives (D-Salt Lake City).
At the series, Karen Jepson of the Family History Library announced that the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS) will hold its annual convention in Salt Lake City this October. A visitor at the society when this was announced, Sister Jepson said the 400 members of the society "stood and applauded" at the news.
She also noted that the USA Today newspaper recently listed the library as the second best source in the nation for information on African-American roots, behind only the Birmingham (Alabama) Civil Rights Museum. That is because of the library's excellent resources for helping African-Americans find their roots. A recent PBS special on the subject titled, "African-American Lives" received support from the records and experts at the library, she said.
At the gathering, tributes were paid to two African-American women leaders who died in the past year: Rosa Parks, for whom four streets in the Salt Lake Valley have recently been named; and Coretta Scott King, who carried on civil rights work after the assasination of her husband, Martin Luther King Jr., in 1968.
Delivering the keynote address at the series, Rep. Bourdeaux emphasized the importance of teaching family values. He is the executive director of Colors of Success/Center for Family Development.
"Family values are very key," he said. "I believe all of you would agree today that some of our family values have been lost.
"While growing up in my family, we were taught values that I teach to my own children today, such as respecting elders. . . and treating others as you would like to be treated." He spoke of such traditional values as " loving yourself so you can love others." Children need to learn to be able to endure hardships, he said. He encouraged families to have traditions in celebrating holidays and birthdays. They should work to be the best, he said. He was taught by his parents, who are both still living, that "I would be whatever I wanted to be if I worked hard and stayed focused."
"We believe these values should be transcendent and a solid base for tolerance and respect."
This year is the 30th anniversary of Roots, written by the African-American author Alex Haley, he observed.
He cited Haley's example of persistence and overcoming adversity. "Like Haley, we have all felt like giving up. It is much easier than staying the course. He continued his journey and was successful. . . . His discovery and history . . . today empowers other African-Americans to continue his legacy."
"In light of facts which are discouraging, you might ask, 'Why torment us with the celebration of the idea in moments of bleak discouragement when all we really need is enough hope to get us through the day?'
"I believe the answer lies in the truths of past and future; those that have been brought to the present are brilliant, so emancipating, and so incredibly motivating. Without some stirring memory and aspiration toward it, we are all of men and women most vulnerable."
He echoed the words of President Gordon B. Hinckley, who said, "Civility carries with it the essence of courtesy, politeness, and consideration of others. All the educational accomplishments in the world will not count unless they are accompanied by a largess of gentility, respect for others, of going the extra mile."
Rep. Bourdeaux looked back at the recent history of African-Americans when he said they "could not run for office, they could not vote nor sit on juries, they could not attend state universities that their tax dollars helped fund. They could not attend their own community's best schools, they could not stay in local hotels, eat in local restaurants, nor enter the local theaters by the main doors and sit downstairs with the other customers. They were only admitted through the back doors. They could not use the same water fountains or rest rooms as whites; most civic buildings were included, including the local courthouse."
This remained the case until the civil rights movement, "which was led by well-educated, middle-class black ministers skilled at taking the white man's Christianity, which had become their Christianity as well, and using it against them. The movement forced ordinary white citizens to examine their consciousness, even as it summoned black people to reject the condition of their lives and challenge the status quo."
In Utah, he said, separated African-Americans lived in central Salt Lake City, or south of 21st South, in Ogden west of Washington Boulevard and south of 25th Street. "Many of them worked in domestic and personal service. They were excluded informally nevertheless fully, from Euro-American culture. They provided for themselves black newspapers, the African Methodist and Calvary Baptist churches. The men formed Oddfellows and Elks lodges, while the women organized ladies' civic and study clubs, including such arts and crafts organizations as the Nimble Thimble Club.
"Drawn by jazz with its roots in African-American culture, blacks frequented night clubs including the Jazz Boat and Porters and Waiters Club, to dance and listen to music."
Researching roots of African-Americans requires continued focus on their separation. In a family history class, Marilyn Markham, an expert on 20th century research, directed searchers toward many sources of information, both at the library and on the Internet. However, she cautioned, "One of the things you need to be aware of for African-American research is that segregation not only hit the people, it hit the records. They would separate them out and either you will find them at the back of the book or in a totally separate volume. One of the major differences in the 1900s records is that segregation."
However, these many separate sources can provide a great deal of information. Internet sites for African-Americans include: www.afrigeneas.com, memory.loc.gov/ammem/, and for slave narratives: memory.loc.gov/ammem//snhtml/snhome.html, and www.accessgenealogy.com/african. Other sources include church records, school records, directories, immigration records, military records, cemetery and sexton records, Social Security records, and city and telephone directories.
Dr. William A. Smith, an assistant professor in the Education, Culture & Society Department at the University of Utah and a longtime family history researcher who attended the event, said he was inspired to do family history research after reading the book Roots. He has tracked his forebears back to the early 1800s that revealed his own family drama. Some of his ancestors were slaves on a plantation owned by a Polk family. Some were treated very cruelly, yet he found his discoveries of his ancestors to be healing. He has seen records detailing the monetary value of one of his ancestors as a young teenager, and noted that some of the slave holders became extremely wealthy from the labor of slaves. A male ancestor was sold away from the farm where his wife and children remained, and he ran away from his new owner to return to his family.
"It feels good to know who I come from," he said. "It is a psychologically rewarding experience to do it. I haven't done research for a while. This whets my appetite to start again."
E-mail to: jhart@desnews.com