Journalist and essayist Jerkins journeys to discover her ancestral lineage. As she travels south, she learns the complexity of her genetic heritage, dating back 300 years, and peels back the layers of myths in Black culture.
The text is timely, as people are increasingly looking to learn about race and the Black experience in the United States through books, amid calls for conversations on justice and equity sparked in part by protests about systemic racism ... Jerkins weaves a vivid and painful backstory of Black people forced into enslavement in the American South ... The book is filled with poignant examples from across multiple centuries, including those retold in classrooms and those relegated to forgotten parts of our country's consciousness ... Jerkins speaks truth to power....She also does the research, inputting all the relevant facts and figures to give some necessary numerical context to her musings on the migratory patterns. She relies on scholars, professors, family members and residents of the cities from her travels to provide the instructive mise-en-scène that accompanies her analysis. The numbers are critical in connecting the dots, with both the hyperpersonal stories and the universal truths shared by many Black Americans over generations, though in a few instances the data can come off as pedantic ... It's when Jerkins sews her familial threads with those poignant historical facts from deep in the archives of America that the book is most impactful. Equally heartbreaking and reaffirming are the trials and tribulations too many Black people in the United States have faced and somehow conquered, coming out more resilient on the other side.
... sensitive, insightful ... After her illuminating visits to Louisiana, Oklahoma and the Georgia-South Carolina low country, Jerkins ends in Los Angeles, where she spent part of her childhood ... moving.