Renee’s Reviews > Help Me to Find My People: The African American Search for Family Lost in Slavery > Status Update

The ads she's reading... every time she says "owned by," I flinch; especially when it's a mom looking for her children. And their names get changed every time they are sold. There is no internet database of people. Imagine the anguish. But you could never stop looking because ambiguous loss is the worst worst. This is why I pulled these historical women into my imagination to help me cope.

"They had centuries of collective experience developing resources out of what seemed like nothing...". THAT is why I am obsessed with Black history. Because I'm obsessed with resistance and resilience.

White people thought their slaves would choose to stay with them. That's rich.

Omg. "Oh, Suzanna, oh, don't you cry for me...". Holy shit. It's about an enslaved man whose wife was sold away from him.

When my son was forcibly taken from me during my divorce, half of my coping consisted of thinking of these women whose children were taken from them during slavery. And I just read these words: some women didn't survive it.