Born a Slave: Rediscovering Arthur Jackson's African American Heritage

By the close of the Civil War in 1865 all American slaves became free citizens. Suddenly a new life dawned for them and their descendants. Arthur Jackson, a slave born in 1856 in Kanawha County, Virginia, was nine-years-old when he and his family were emancipated in Franklin County, Missouri. He took the surname of his master, Richard Ludlow Jackson, Sr., within whose household he was born and lived intermittently until adulthood. Eventually Arthur met Ida May Anderson, a white woman, and they raised a family together. Their six children passed for white and Arthur's African American heritage became a family secret and was eventually forgotten. During the following century, five generations of Arthur and Ida's descendants lived as white Americans. Thirty years of genealogical research by one of their great-great-grandsons, the author, revealed the secret that Arthur was born a slave, that he and Ida were a biracial couple, and that their children were of mixed racial heritage. Born a Slave: Rediscovering Arthur Jackson's African-American Heritage explores this man's birth, childhood, life as a freedman, his ancestry, and his master's family. It also calls all Americans-regardless of apparent race or ethnicity-to abandon preconceptions and explore their every ancestor objectively and with an open mind . . . especially if they may have been a slaveholder, or if they were born a slave.

Author: David W. Jackson
Publisher: Orderly Pack Rat the
Published: 04/26/2015
Pages: 330
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.97lbs
Size: 9.02h x 5.98w x 0.69d
ISBN: 9780970430816

About the Author
David W. Jackson was graduated magna cum laude with a B.S. in Historic Preservation / Archives Studies from Southeast Missouri State University in 1993. He is director of The Orderly Pack Rat, an independent historical research and consulting firm and publishing house he founded in 1996. Jacksons's 20+year professional career included Archives and Education Director for the Jackson County (Mo.) Historical Society; and, as an archivist for Unity School of Christianity, Unity Village, Missouri. In 2009, he co-founded the Gay and Lesbian Archive of Mid-America (GLAMA), jointly maintained and operated by the Kansas City Museum and LaBudde Special Collections of Miller Nichols Library at University of Missouri-Kansas City. Jackson is author of numerous books, newspaper columns, and periodical articles. Through The Orderly Pack Rat (orderlypackrat.com) he continues to consult, research, write and publish on local history/heritage/historic preservation matters.

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