Armed with only early boyhood memories, Lawrence P. Jackson begins his
quest by setting out from his home in Baltimore for Pittsylvania County,
Virginia, to try to find his late grandfather's old home by the railroad
tracks in Blairs. My Father's Name tells the tale of the ensuing
journey, at once a detective story and a moving historical memoir,
uncovering the mixture of anguish and fulfillment that accompanies a
venture into the ancestral past, specifically one tied to the history of
slavery.After asking around in Pittsylvania County and carefully putting
the pieces together, Jackson finds himself in the house of distant
relations. In the pages that follow, he becomes increasingly absorbed by
the search for his ancestors and increasingly aware of how few
generations an African American needs to map back in order to arrive at
slavery, "a door of no return." Ultimately, Jackson's dogged research in
libraries, census records, and courthouse registries enables him to
trace his family to his grandfather's grandfather, a man who was born or
sold into slavery but who, when Federal troops abandoned the South in
1877, was able to buy forty acres of land. In this intimate study of a
black Virginia family and neighborhood, Jackson vividly reconstructs
moments in the lives of his father's grandfather, Edward Jackson, and
great-grandfather, Granville Hundley, and gives life to revealing
narratives of Pittsylvania County, recalling both the horror of slavery
and the later struggles of postbellum freedom.
My Father's Name is a family story full of twists and turns--and one
of haunting familiarity to many Americans, who may question whether the
promises of emancipation have ever truly been fulfilled. It is also a
resolute look at the duties that come with reclaiming and honoring
Americans who survived slavery and a thoughtful meditation on its
painful and enduring history.
