FROM THE RISING OF THE SUN...

About the Book

Alex Haley’s “Roots” stimulated many to search and find their ancestors. “FROM THE RISING OF THE SUN…” is not just another story of black family genealogy, but one of personal life in the Black experience. At the time I initiated the writing of this book it was a means for just our family to record and preserve its history and a way to share it with our children. Throughout the writing, however, I have connected with so many family members that I did not know existed and have connected with many others with lost or unknown family members of their own that our lives will never be the same. This is the true story and genealogy of Essex and Julia Spinks. Through seven generations and over 2,150 descendants after Essex’s birth in 1815, the family has taken many paths from several Mississippi counties to most states in the continental United States and even abroad. This generational journey also incorporates Black history events in general and the Civil Rights Movement in particular that directly touched the Spinks family in a very personal way. For example, family members participated in the church meeting in Philadelphia, Mississippi which led to the cruel senseless slaying of three Civil Rights workers in the summer of 1964. Family members were involved in other history making events that helped to change circumstances and helped to alter the environment in which they lived, giving us a quality of life never dreamed of at the beginning of our family history. We are “overcomers,” standing up against oppression and injustice, from the Civil Rights Movement and Apartheid to the black experience in the inner cities of America. My prayer is that as you read this book it will bless you as it has me and, hopefully, will encourage you to capture your family’s story and preserve it for posterity.

About the Author

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Aletha Joyce Solomon is a retired manager of Avaya Communications Corporation. She graduated from Northwestern High School in Detroit, Michigan, the University of Denver, Denver, Colorado, and the Harty Bible School, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 2004 she became a Mentoring Supervisor for the Amachi Pittsburgh Mentoring Ministry through Family Guidance, Inc. Amachi is a faith based mentoring initiative matching Christian men and women with children who have an incarcerated parent. She is the mother of Tai-Tanisha Tejada-Simmons and her husband SFC. Michael Lawrence Simmons, and the grandmother of Rafael Roberto Tejada, Carlos Roberto Tejada, Michelle Tanisha Simmons, and Michael Lawrence Simmons, II, all whom she loves dearly. Aletha truly loves family expressed through the search for extended family in the family tree, in her work to bring positive role models into the life of children through mentoring, and in her natural family wherein she finds the greatest joy. She also mentors a young girl named Libya Wilson whom she loves. Her family extends far and wide, coast to coast even to Morocco where Jasmine, her “favorite niece”, is serving in the Peace Corps. God has placed a “Sisterhood” in her life to encourage and strengthen her in all that she does and is instrumental in who she is today, in every way. Thank you, “sisterhood”. But, first and foremost, she is a child of the King, and is fully committed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is her first published work and it has been a long journey of commitment and spiritual growth for which she is eternally grateful.