Tracing the Enslaved: A Research Journey

The year 1865 poses a major obstacle to most African American family historians. The two and a half centuries of enslavement prior to that year obscured the identities and lives of ancestors bound to work for the welfare and prosperity of their enslavers across several generations. Yet no one should feel hopeless about this period. In this video, we take a prominent African American of late-nineteenth-century High Point, North Carolina, Willis Hinton, and through his case and that of his brother, Albert Miller, find a way to crack the slavery barrier. You can too!