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Mississippi To Africa, A Journey of Discovery
'Mississippi to Africa, A Journey of Discovery' by Melvin J. Collier
Published by Heritage Books, Inc.
ISBN: 0788447610
A Review
by George Geder
Books on African Ancestored research and discovery are necessary and there can never be enough. Folks that have the courage to push the envelope and publish the stories of African Ancestored peoples in America are the authors you seek.
You've made it your goal to find the first African in any of your lines who stepped off the slave ship. You have already interviewed you elders, gathered some photographs, looked at some census records, and purchased a genealogy software program. You diligently followed some genealogy rules; namely starting with yourself and worked you way backwards. You got the grands and the great grands and dashed all the way back to 1870 and smashed up against the genealogical brick wall.BAM!
You have amassed a ton of data and yet that brickwall is formidable. DNA can get you around it, quickly. DNA will link you to that group or village in Africa. But you know it won't get you the name of that first African in your line who stepped off the slave ship. There's got to be a book out there that will help you.
In 'Mississippi to Africa, A Journey of Discovery' by Melvin J. Collier we are first taken on a trip finding his Ancestors through the disciplines of recording countless oral interviews and following paper trails researching the many documents. This is not a simple task; and because it isn't simple, Mr. Collier takes us step by step on his personal journey. It's one thing for an author to tell you to do this and do that, it's another to guide by example. That's the brilliance of this book.
Melvin Collier employs a very effective technique. At the beginning of each chapter in his book, he lists his methodology. Then, with the bullet list of research tips out of the way, he deftly distills the story of his family and ancestors. I've seen this literary approach before in other areas, particularly in photography. It liberates the author. Mr. Collier shares conversations and his thinking about the information he receives. The reader can learn from his examples.
Mr. Collier goes against the grain of conventional genealogical research by instead of starting with himself and going back in time, he chose to begin with his maternal grandmother. You are immediately drawn into the story of Minnie Lee Davis Reed. On page 21 you see her picture and you're hooked! Melvin's Ancestors and family come to life at the same time as we learn what documents he gleaned insights from. We learn that by interviewing older family members, he was able to write about his grandmother's wedding day in 1936.
Through four fascinating chapters, we take the journey, with a repeating pattern of learning research tips and how they were utilized, and discover through Melvin's Ancestors what life was like for those Africans in Mississippi (and other southern states) during the 18th and 19th centuries.
But how do we get from Mississippi to Africa? Given what we know about the 'peculiar institution' of slavery, where Africans were stripped of their names, languages, and cultures, how does Mr. Collier make the connection? Documents and oral history can only take him so far.
In order to continue his journey, Melvin enters into the science of DNA. In 2000, he heard of the research that renowned geneticist Dr. RickKittles, Ph .D. was doing. It was as if God was saying, "Be patient my children. You will finally know where you come from." When Melvin's first cousin ordered themtDNA kit in 2003, he couldn't be more thrilled.
There are still other research avenues to consider. Melvin points to timelines when Africans reached America and the ports they entered. Some slaves were able to hang on to their original names, which pointed to particular groups and tribes. He was lucky to have some of his Ancestors with these names.
The book is full of pictures and charts that enhance the telling of an amazing story. Melvin travels to Africa and recounts his feelings as he stood in the infamous 'Door of No Return' onGoree Island. There's an amazing forward by Rick A. Kittles, Ph.D., several appendices, notes, and a bibliography.
'Mississippi to Africa' is not a lightweight book. It could have very easily been one of those scholarly tomes that the lay family historian would shy away from. However, I am hear to say that would be a mistake. Melvin Collier has wisely used his family and personal research and experiences to deliver a text that should be read by anyone who is serious about African Ancestored Genealogy.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Angela Walton-Raji on
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George your review of Melvin's book is timely!
I have had the privilege of watching Melvin's growth over the years as a researcher and to see how he has painstakingly turned over stone after stone and documented so much. Imagine my surprise several years ago to even find that one of his stones would overlap with my stones! His gr. gr. grandfather, moved to Mississippi from So. Carolina after the Civil War. Unknowingly this gr. gr. grandfather would live the remainder of his life 60 miles away from his own father, Pleasant Barr who had been taken away years earlier.
While I was researching my YOUNG line from Mississippi, I had sought for Amanda Young and her daughters Harriet and Violet whose names I knew. I combed the Tippah county records for years searching for Amanda, Harriet and Violet. I found a family with those names called Barr---but did not associate them at first with my family---after all I was seeking YOUNGS.
In a conversation with an elder a few weeks later, I mentioned that I was looking for Amanda, but I kept seeing a family called BARR---with an Amanda, Harriet and Violet. She said that was odd, because the only one in the family who was a Barr was Amanda's son Elijah. Who??? Elijah? "Yes, Elijah was a Barr," she said. Well I went back to the 1870 and 1880 documents and there was a son, Elijah in the home! Elijah was the key that unlocked the door. Well----who was the head of the household---Pleasant Barr? All I knew was that he was born in So. Carolina. No one had ever mentioned him before!.
It was mentioned in one of the old AOL chats that I used to co-host, that Melvin Collier was also researching the BARR surname. Well imagine my surprise when I learned that he was trying to find the history of a man he had never known before in his Reed line----a man called Pleasant Barr.
The door would open wider when I located a Civil War pension file of Amanda Young Barr! Her first husband---was Berry Young, and after the death of her second husband Pleasant Barr, she sought a widow's pension from her first husband. But in that file she had to tell her entire life story explaining her marriage to Berry, his death and her second marriage to Pleasant Barr from South Carolina.
Melvin and I exchanged data and learned that his Pleasant Barr and my Pleasant Barr were the same man. I shared some data with him that he researched further and I marveled at how he took the Barr and Reed data and continued to unlock the doors on the history of Pleasant Barr and the Reeds, and even another extended family that he uncovered----the Beckleys!
Melvin is an excellent researcher and scholar, and sharing this portion of our overlapping history with him, has been amazing. We have mutual cousins whom we are both hoping to find someday---the descendants of Elijah Barr---lost somewhere in Chicago, and beyond. But with a researcher like Melvin on the case---our chances of finding Elijah's descendants are strong.
His book Mississippi to Africa is a very well written chronicle that takes the reader on some of this journey to document his ancestors. The readers will learn so much from his meticulous research and it has been a pleasure to watch how his eye for detail, and his attention to clues has turned a once curious young man, into a skilled researcher and a very thorough genealogist.
-Angela- -
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