In this episode, Kelly Navies shares a great story of how one 19th Century family photograph launched a genealogical journey of discovery that involves the Underground Railroad, the Civil War, and Reconstruction.

Kelly Navies is an oral historian, writer, and poet. She coordinates the Oral History Initiative at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Navies has degrees in African American Studies and Library and Information Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and the Catholic University of America, respectively. She has also studied at the Southern Oral History Program at UNC Chapel Hill. Navies’ oral history projects and interviews are located at the Southern Oral History Program, The Reginald F. Lewis Maryland Museum of African American History and Culture, the Washington DC Public Library, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Her writing can be found in several publications including, June Jordan’s Poetry for The People: A Revolutionary Blueprint, edited by Lauren Muller, and Bum Rush the Page: A def poetry jam, edited by Tony Medina and Louis Reyes Rivera. 

Links

• Here’s a great website for anyone interested in Black politicians during Reconstruction: https://much-ado.net. It is run by a librarian at Mississippi State University.

Books

• Krewasky Salter. The Story of Black Military Officers, 1861-1948. London: Taylor and Francis, 2015.


• Pamela Peters. The Underground Railroad in Floyd County, Indiana. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2001.

Original music by Sean Bempong