American Tapestry

April 16, 2012
In this layered, scrupulously researched, and wrenching chronicle, New York Times reporter Swarns takes readers to South Carolina rice plantations, small Georgia farms, and the industrial magnets of Birmingham and Chicago as she weaves robust portraits of first lady Michelle Obama’s ancestors. At the core of this family saga is slave girl Melvinia, mother of Dolphus Shields, the first lady’s maternal great-great-grandfather. Melvinia never disclosed the paternity of either of her mixed-race sons, and Swarns’s research runs up against the inherently hidden aspect of sex across the color line in the slave-holding South. Generations later, the former Michelle Robinson’s family remained unclear on the details of her ancestry—a subject rarely discussed since the past was obscured by a present-day struggle, and “the experience of bondage was so shameful and painful that they rarely spoke of it.” Though Swarns makes little of Obama’s reaction to these revelations, she shows that the branches of the first lady’s family tree are populated by admirable and fallible people propelled by the currents of race and history, reflecting a core aspect of the African-American experience. Agent: Philippa Brophy, Sterling Lord Literistic.

June 1, 2012

New York Times correspondent Swarns outlines the fascinating journeys taken by various ancestors of First Lady Michelle Obama--the people who, across the generations, helped make her who she is today. The author not only presents these accounts but also interleaves them with the story of how she uncovered this information, which began with research for an article she wrote on the subject for the Times. Swarns discovered an ancestor, a slave named Melvinia who had two mixed-race sons. She identifies the descendants, including Michelle Obama and distant relatives who had no idea they were related to the nation's First Lady. Of course, records, no matter the skill in finding them, can tell only so much, and Swarns is very careful to distinguish the known facts from possible explanatory or additional details (e.g., the possible story behind Melvinia's mixed-race pregnancies or likely reasons why a post-Civil War black child might not have been sent to school). VERDICT The result is an engrossing book that demonstrates a lot of research, dedication, and care. Recommended to all readers interested in biographies that employ genealogical research, as well as readers in African American heritage and history. [See Prepub Alert, 12/16/11.]--Sonnet Ireland, Univ. of New Orleans Lib.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2012
A New York Times reporter carefully tracks the complex genealogy of Michelle Obama. Originally emerging from Swarns' reporting for the Times, this intensive research work pursues numerous Southern ancestors on both maternal and paternal sides who eventually ended up in Chicago by the 1930s looking for new opportunity. The key forebear here, the "mystery of Michelle Obama's roots," is a slave woman named Melvinia, who worked on a farm in the mid 1800s in Jonesboro, Ga., where she eventually bore several children whose father was white. After the Civil War, Melvinia stayed on in Jonesboro and had several more biracial children, until she moved away in the mid 1870s. Her older son, Dolphus, became a Baptist deacon and a successful citizen, while his grandson Purnell, having relocated with his mother to Chicago in the 1920s, plunged into the integrated South Side's scene of swinging jazz. On the other side, Swarns follows the intriguing life's wanderings of Mrs. Obama's great-grandmother, Phoebe Moten, born in 1879 in Villa Ridge, Ill., the daughter of sharecroppers and freedmen who had joined the general exodus north during or after the Civil War to flee the blighted opportunity and increasing racial violence that characterized the South. Yet the hope of finding a measure of freedom and prosperity in cities like Chicago didn't always occur, as in Phoebe's case: She and her husband, James, an itinerant minister, and their numerous children struggled to reach the middle class only to be dragged down again by racial antagonism and the Depression. Swarns provides numerous tales of heartbreak and achievement, many of which essentially make up the American story. Elegantly woven strands in a not-so-easy-to-follow whole, but tremendously moving.

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