Giving a Voice to the Ancestors

by Emily Allen Garland


Formats

Softcover
£15.28
Softcover
£15.28

Book Details

Language : English
Publication Date : 01/12/2002

Format : Softcover
Dimensions : 6x9
Page Count : 368
ISBN : 9781403303349

About the Book

The book is considered fiction, although it is based on the lives of the author's ancestors. Five year-old Emily (Bay-Chile), growing up in rural central Georgia in 1940, becomes curious about color differences within her family and questions her talkative great-aunt and grand-parents. Through numerous inquiries, she learns that her great-grandfather, Josh Ellis, fought with the Confederate Army in the Civil War while her great-grandmother, Charity was a slave. The two met after the Emancipation of the slaves and lived in a loving relationship until his death, raising seven children together.

Further explorations connect the child to the lives of Charity's mother, Ansacka, a mulatto slave woman who conceived Charity through a forced relationship with the slave master; another great-grandmother, Martha, whose parents escaped into the mountains of Georgia to avoid the forced march of the Cherokee from Georgia to Mississippi, becomes enthralled by Troupe Allen, a white man who deserts her just before the birth of their son. Great-great-grandma Judy, among the last of the slaves imported from Africa tells her story .The progress of the descendants, spanning five generations, is traced following the Reconstruction Period through World War II, with some notable achievements. Broader issues include white/black kinship ties in the antebellum and post-bellum South, race relations, intra-racial color conflict, and blended families.

Historical events occurring during the lifetimes of the author's various ancestors are superbly blended within the story.

The story illustrates the devastating effects of racism on the human spirit as well as the ability to press onward despite adversity.


About the Author

Emily Allen Garland has had a passion for writing since she was a child. She completed her first book, Giving a Voice to the Ancestors, in March 2001. Mrs. Garland has published professional articles in the Child Welfare Journal, NABSW Journal, and the Detroit News Sunday Magazine.

Garland holds a masters degree in social work from Wayne State University and has completed post-graduate training at the University of Michigan and University of North Carolina. She has many years of experience in the field of social work including direct practice, supervision, management, and agency administration. From 1972 through 1997, she developed and led the Lula Belle Stewart Center in Detroit, a premiere agency providing services to pregnant and parenting adolescents. The Center was recognized as a national model and was cited in the Reagan Administration publication, Up From Dependency as one of the most effective programs in America. Garland has also worked as an Associate Professor at the Wayne State University School of Social Work.

In addition to creative writing, she currently works as a program and grant-writing consultant and is enrolled in a creative writing class.

Garland spent the first six years of her life with her grandparents who provided much of the oral history necessary to develop her book. She has spent the last two years engaged in research of census data, public documents, and interviews to support the oral history on which the story rests.

Garland, a world traveler, makes her home in West Bloomfield, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit