Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker A New York Times Editors'' Choice "Webster''s years of researching, imagining and feeling her way into the histories of her ancestors and their descendants have culminated in her sweeping, frequently insightful, often speculative and sometimes extremely moving Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family ." -- The Washington Post "[Webster''s] excellent and thought-provoking book is on every level about unknowing rather than knowing -- about pondering the mysteries of Banneker, who is often described as one of the first African American scientists, and the legacy of 11 generations of a multiracial American family that only now is coming into view." --Jess Row, The New York Times "Rachel Jamison Webster has collaborated with her relatives to weave an impressive investigation of race and our shared American history--the convergences and divergences across time and space. Webster tells a compelling story as she examines ancestry, DNA, passing, and cultural appropriation, resulting in a resonant addition to our current national reckoning around racial justice." --Natasha Trethewey , Pulitzer Prize Winner, Former U.S. Poet Laureate, and author of Memorial Drive: A Daughter''s Memoir "For America to outgrow the bondage of white-body supremacy, white Americans need to imagine themselves in Black, red and brown bodies, and experience what those bodies had to endure. They also need to do the same with the bodies of their white ancestors.
Benjamin Banneker and Us undertakes this work of imagination, research and listening, and is written in the spirit of healing." --Resmaa Menakem , New York Times bestselling author of My Grandmother''s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies " Benjamin Banneker and Us not only tells the story of Banneker but gives the reader a portrait of the women who shaped him--his mother, grandmother and sisters. These women stood up in court to argue for their children''s freedom, served as midwives and herbalists, and found ways to survive and thrive in a country that continually tried to silence them. I am inspired by this family''s resilience, and by the way their lives illuminate the past and our present. " --Anna Malaika Tubbs , New York Times bestselling author of The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation ".the book is at its best when Webster interrogates what it means to be white. She is unflinchingly self-reflective after learning of her Black ancestry, and she realizes how infrequently stories about race have been told in her family.
" --NPR "[Webster''s. They also need to do the same with the bodies of their white ancestors. Benjamin Banneker and Us undertakes this work of imagination, research and listening, and is written in the spirit of healing." --Resmaa Menakem , New York Times bestselling author of My Grandmother''s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies " Benjamin Banneker and Us not only tells the story of Banneker but gives the reader a portrait of the women who shaped him--his mother, grandmother and sisters. These women stood up in court to argue for their children''s freedom, served as midwives and herbalists, and found ways to survive and thrive in a country that continually tried to silence them. I am inspired by this family''s resilience, and by the way their lives illuminate the past and our present. " --Anna Malaika Tubbs , New York Times bestselling author of The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation ".
the book is at its best when Webster interrogates what it means to be white. She is unflinchingly self-reflective after learning of her Black ancestry, and she realizes how infrequently stories about race have been told in her family." --NPR "[Webster''sand James Baldwin Shaped a Nation ".the book is at its best when Webster interrogates what it means to be white. She is unflinchingly self-reflective after learning of her Black ancestry, and she realizes how infrequently stories about race have been told in her family." --NPR "[Webster''swn bodies, and experience what those bodies had to endure. They also need to do the same with the bodies of their white ancestors. Benjamin Banneker and Us undertakes this work of imagination, research and listening, and is written in the spirit of healing.
" --Resmaa Menakem , New York Times bestselling author of My Grandmother''s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies " Benjamin Banneker and Us not only tells the story of Banneker but gives the reader a portrait of the women who shaped him--his mother, grandmother and sisters. These women stood up in court to argue for their children''s freedom, served as midwives and herbalists, and found ways to survive and thrive in a country that continually tried to silence them. I am inspired by this family''s resilience, and by the way their lives illuminate the past and our present. " --Anna Malaika Tubbs , New York Times bestselling author of The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation ".the book is at its best when Webster interrogates what it means to be white. She is unflinchingly self-reflective after learning of her Black ancestry, and she realizes how infrequently stories about race have been told in her family." --NPR "[Webster''s.
They also need to do the same with the bodies of their white ancestors. Benjamin Banneker and Us undertakes this work of imagination, research and listening, and is written in the spirit of healing." --Resmaa Menakem , New York Times bestselling author of My Grandmother''s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies " Benjamin Banneker and Us not only tells the story of Banneker but gives the reader a portrait of the women who shaped him--his mother, grandmother and sisters. These women stood up in court to argue for their children''s freedom, served as midwives and herbalists, and found ways to survive and thrive in a country that continually tried to silence them. I am inspired by this family''s resilience, and by the way their lives illuminate the past and our present. " --Anna Malaika Tubbs , New York Times bestselling author of The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation ".the book is at its best when Webster interrogates what it means to be white.
She is unflinchingly self-reflective after learning of her Black ancestry, and she realizes how infrequently stories about race have been told in her family." --NPR "[Webster''sand James Baldwin Shaped a Nation ".the book is at its best when Webster interrogates what it means to be white. She is unflinchingly self-reflective after learning of her Black ancestry, and she realizes how infrequently stories about race have been told in her family." --NPR "[Webster''s: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation ".the book is at its best when Webster interrogates what it means to be white. She is unflinchingly self-reflective after learning of her Black ancestry, and she realizes how infrequently stories about race have been told in her family.
" --NPR "[Webster''s. They also need to do the same with the bodies of their white ancestors. Benjamin Banneker and Us undertakes this work of imagination, research and listening, and is written in the spirit of healing." --Resmaa Menakem , New York Times bestselling author of My Grandmother''s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies " Benjamin Banneker and Us not only tells the story of Banneker but gives the reader a portrait of the women who shaped him--his mother, grandmother and sisters. These women stood up in court to argue for their children''s freedom, served as midwives and herbalists, and found ways to survive and thrive in a country that continually tried to silence them. I am inspired by this family''s resilience, and by the way their lives illuminate the past and our present. " --Anna Malaika Tubbs , New York Times bestselling author of The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation ".
the book is at its best when Webster interrogates what it means to be white. She is unflinchingly self-reflective after learning of her Black ancestry, and she realizes how infrequently stories about race have been told in her family." --NPR "[Webster''sand James Baldwin Shaped a Nation ".the book is at its best when Webster interrogates what it means to be white. She is unflinchingly self-reflective after learning of her Black ancestry, and she realizes how infrequently stories about race have been told in her family." --NPR "[Webster''sidwives and herbalists, and found ways to survive and thrive in a country that continually tried to s.