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appalachiablue

(41,055 posts)
Sun Jul 19, 2020, 07:51 PM Jul 2020

'The Other Madisons' Book Review: An Astonishing Story Of A President's Black Family

"The Other Madisons review: an astonishing story of a president's black family." In extraordinary times, as statues fall, Bettye Kearse has written an extraordinary book. It contains lessons for all Americans. July 19, 2020.

Virginia tobacco planters, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe, the first, third, fourth and fifth presidents of the United States, had much in common. Between them, over a generation, they owned more than 1,000 human beings. All denounced slavery as the nation’s “original sin”, predicting its inevitable abandonment.
In power, however, none acted to upset or undo the status quo. Each declared that with slave liberation, white prejudice and black grievance would make harmonious coexistence of the races “impossible”. But Jefferson is known to have fathered children with Sally Hemings, a black woman he owned, and Washington, Madison and Monroe are reputed to have done the same, with women owned personally or by family members.

Bettye Kearse’s powerful book acts to memorably illuminate the poet Caroline Randall Williams’ vivid idea of the “rape-colored skin”. By infinite degrees, African Americans’ skins are lighter than our unknown west African ancestors. This is due to our haunted legacy of imposition. Black women submitted to predatory masters. Their husbands accepted and loved white men’s children.

Growing up, Kearse was told by her mother and grandfather: “Always remember – you’re a Madison. You come from African slaves and a president.” In 1950s Oakland, California, this was her family mantra, a kind of incantation, meant to connect her to a personal history of accomplishment, forbearance and fearlessness. Subtly, the process also prepared her for designation as her family’s griotte, or storyteller. Like the Dalai Lama, each new griotte is chosen by the last. Groomed as oral historians, they act almost as a family’s conscience. This west African tradition was brought to America with Kearse’s antecedent, an abducted Ghanaian maiden whom the white Madisons purchased and called Mandy.

Kearse’s book contains interspersed first-person monologues by Mandy, helping to resurrect her five-times great-grandmother. "Mandy made it clear what she wanted me to know,” Kearse says. “Her thoughts and feelings were painful to take in, but had I shied away … my book would have been pale.” Explaining how her mother delivered a box of family papers and photographs, conferring her responsibility as griotte, Kearse takes us through the odyssey she undertook to write her book. Determined to do honor to the black Madisons, she travels to Orange County, Virginia; to the Elmina slave castle on the Gold Coast of Ghana; from Salt Lake City’s genealogy archive to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem...

Read More, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/19/the-other-madisons-review-president-black-family



- Virtual Book Talk with Bettye Kearse, author of 'The Other Madisons,' July 7, 2020.

- Bettye Kearse Website: https://www.bettyekearse.com/

About the author: I was born in Tucson, Arizona and grew up in Northern California. I have a B.A. in Genetics from the University of California at Berkeley, a Ph.D. in Biology from New York University, and an M.D. from Case Western Reserve University. My husband and I have a daughter, a son-in-law, and two grandchildren. In 1990, I became the griotte for my family when my mother brought me the box of family memorabilia, I asked, "Why now?" She answered: “I wanted to give you plenty of time to write the book.” The time had come for the story of my African-American family to take its place in recorded history. To write the book, I traveled around the United States and to Ghana, West Africa, and Lagos, Portugal.

After many years of researching and writing, I have completed The Other Madisons: The Lost History of a President's Black Family. It is both a personal family history and an homage to millions of silenced, invisible African Americans. In recounting the struggles, perseverance, and contributions of ten generations of my family, it reveals the myriad ways African slaves and their descendants were marginalized in or excluded from the dominant narrative of this country. The Other Madisons is an intimate work of narrative nonfiction that discovers, discloses, and embraces a more inclusive and complete American story.

My commentary, “Our Family Tree Searches for Branches” appeared in the Op-Ed section of the Boston Herald. “Destination Jim Crow,” a personal essay published in the fall 2013 issue of River Teeth, was listed among the notable essays in The Best American Essays 2014 and nominated for the 2015 Pushcart Prize. Another personal narrative, “Mammy Warriors” is included in the anthology Black Lives Have Always Mattered (2Leaf Press, 2017). My research for The Other Madisons received extensive media coverage in the Washington Post. I have written children’s picture books, including a series of about a joyful, loving relationship between a grandfather, Grampy, and his granddaughter, BeBe. The series was inspired by those I heard as a child sitting on my grandfather’s lap.

In my pediatric practice in Boston, I performed well-child care, treated a variety of acute and chronic illnesses, and empowered mothers and fathers to be confident parents. Among my most rewarding experiences as a physician were my travels to China on behalf of Wide Horizons For Children, an international adoption agency; and service on the board of directors of From Roots to Wings, a community-based organization for grandparents and the grandchildren they are raising. I enjoy writing; reading; traveling; gardening; watching movies; attending art exhibits, dance concerts and live theater; and working out at the gym—especially Pilates and Nia... (2020).
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'The Other Madisons' Book Review: An Astonishing Story Of A President's Black Family (Original Post) appalachiablue Jul 2020 OP
The word is Griot, not griotte. Triloon Jul 2020 #1
In the 1st section of the video interview author Bettye Kearse appalachiablue Jul 2020 #2

Triloon

(506 posts)
1. The word is Griot, not griotte.
Sun Jul 19, 2020, 08:23 PM
Jul 2020

This is not a petty spelling error or autocorrect flub. Anyone who knows anything about the carriers of oral history in west Africa knows this word. The author should not have tried to use it. A griotte is a sour cherry. Destroyed any trust I wanted to have about the authors expertise. Also the remark about american descendants of africans all having lighter skin tones than those ancestors. Non-factual guesswork ruins the writing. Neat story though.

appalachiablue

(41,055 posts)
2. In the 1st section of the video interview author Bettye Kearse
Sun Jul 19, 2020, 08:44 PM
Jul 2020

discusses 'griots' (men) and 'griottes' (women) and more in her post in 2015. Ms. Kearse explains the tradition passed on by her female family members which may be why the author used the female version; the Guardian writer could have noted the distinction.

- *Griots and Griottes | Keepers of Unwritten History, Posted on December 5, 2015 by Bettye Kearse.
In West Africa, its history written in its own languages is relatively new. African history was written in European languages during the colonial era, and in Arabic for centuries. But well since before that, in communities in the Sahel and Savanna regions, the griots (men) and griottes (women) have spoken, from memory, epic-long histories and genealogies that often take days to recite. - African “Wordsmiths”: For hundreds of years, possibly beginning before the birth of Christ, the griots and griottes have served as human links between past and present, speaking the stories of their ancestors and the history of their people—births and deaths, conquests and defeats, plenty and famine, tales of vast empires and tiny villages, exploits of nobles or heroes or commoners—all to preserve not just a family or a community but an entire culture and its values.

In Africa, this role, unique to that continent for centuries, now adopted, to various extents, by countries around the world, includes many diverse responsibilities: not just oral historian and genealogist, but also teacher, spokesperson, exhorter, interpreter, poet, storyteller, diplomat, adviser to nobility, family counselor, judge, messenger, master of ceremonies, praise singer, and musician, to name just a few. As Thomas A. Hale states in his book, Griots and Griottes: Masters of Words and Music, “No other profession in any other part of the world is charged with such wide-ranging and intimate involvement in the lives of people.” These “wordsmiths” are the “social glue” of the community. Their words, and the complex layers of meaning behind their words, influence how each person views himself in the present and within the continuum of the distant past and the unknowable future.

Griots and griottes, considered by West Africans as being fundamentally different from all other human beings, are not religious icons, nor are they sorcerers, but they hold an aura of power and mystery that is at once revered and frightening. Nearly omniscient, the wordsmiths can sing ones praises… or ones doom. - The Voices of African Women: This important role is inherited, and training begins at home. Trainees then advance to special schools, and then to apprenticeship with master griots and griottes. Young griottes may have less freedom to travel and train because of family obligations, but even in patriarchal West Africa, they learn to speak up in order to encourage, comfort, and empower women. The saabi, a poetic narrative form that West African women sing, often challenge male superiority...
https://www.bettyekearse.com/griots-and-griottes-keepers-of-unwritten-history/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griot

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