The ties that bind
An organization helps black descendants unearth family roots hidden by time and a lack of official records.
BY HELAINE R. FREEMAN ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
It’s an old photo, taken circa 1916. In it, members of a large, prosperous-looking black family gaze solemnly at the camera, striking their most formal poses. There are 14 people in all, some standing, some sitting. Many are children. On the front row, fifth from the left, Elbert Eugene Payton Sr. stands between his mother and father. The Payton photo represents three generations spanning more than two centuries. The family patriarch, Richard Weldon "Dick" Payton Sr., is believed to have found his way to Arkansas and Cleveland County from a plantation in Virginia. Dick Payton and his wife, Ann, had six children, with only two surviving — a son, Richard Jr., and a daughter, Charity. In 1893, Richard Weldon Payton Jr. married Sarah Elizabeth Edmondson. The couple had 15 children, including Elbert Payton who, until his death Nov. 6, was the only one in the photo still living. All may be gone, but their history is not forgotten, thanks to research by the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society Inc., Arkansas chapter. The Paytons’ are among many family histories explored by the group, whose national motto is "cultivating our roots by identifying, collecting, documenting and preserving our African-American heritage." The Arkansas chapter has been quite a help to Nancy Robinson Lott, who was introduced to the organization by her sister, Elsie Robinson Dodson. "After I attended one meeting, I knew these folks could help me on my mission of discovery about my family and why they migrated from South Carolina," Lott says. "The members were not only inter-
ested in finding their own family roots, they took an interest in helping others." During one of the group’s monthly visits to the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies at the Main Library in Little Rock, the sisters were able to trace their maternal roots all the way back to Africa in a single night, Lott adds. The Arkansas chapter was born of genealogy workshops conducted by Ronnie Nichols, former curator of the Old State House Museum. At a 1997 workshop called "The Tree in Me," he asked participants: "Where do you want to go from here?" and told them of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society. Tamela Tenpenny-Lewis of Little Rock didn’t attend the workshop. But she heard about it and the interest some workshop participants had in forming a local chapter of the society. After several meetings with these individuals, she and a couple of other women wrote out bylaws and gathered the 10 dues-paying members needed to charter a group. In December 1997, the chapter became official. Nichols was named founder of the chapter. Tenpenny-Lewis was elected president, a position she still holds. "We’ve never looked back," she says. Except when it comes to genealogical research, that is. The group now has 65 to 70 members in Arkansas and throughout the country. Among its out-of-state members is Angela Y. Walton-Raji of Maryland, a Fort Smith native who has been a member of the national organization for many years. About five years ago, at the national conference in Washington, she met several women from Arkansas. "I was delighted, and I joined the Arkansas chapter immediately," Walton-Raji says. "It was rare for me to even meet an Arkansas researcher. Now, of course I have a cadre of genealogical comrades, from whom I can learn and share." Walton-Raji visits her home state each year and has attended several Arkansas chapter events. The organization meets the first Saturday of each month and conducts activities such as historical and genealogical research on behalf of other individuals and communities; research "field trips" throughout the year; workshops to educate the public on research techniques; a number of major projects; and an annual conference. The chapter hosted a daylong statewide conference Saturday. It scored a coup in hosting the 1994 national conference, which, except for one year, has always been held in Washington. BLESSED BE THE TIES Recent years have seen a definite increase in interest among blacks to know their roots, Tenpenny-Lewis says. It’s a movement that began in 1977 when Roots, the television miniseries about the family of author Alex Haley, was first aired. "It ... affected blacks overwhelmingly," Tenpenny-Lewis says. However, blacks who were inspired to search for their roots faced some challenges. "The majority of the people in this country discounted Roots as [not] being factual. They felt like it was a made-up story." Many historians felt the same way, Tenpenny-Lewis adds. "They questioned Roots — ‘How is it possible that he could actually trace that back to Africa?’" Not only did black people have to overcome this skepticism, they also had the difficulty in finding records concerning their families — records which, in many cases, had been destroyed. Although blacks have a vast oral history to fall back on — a tradition that goes back to Africa, with family stories passed down from generation to generation — researchers don’t recognize oral history as fact, Tenpenny-Lewis says. "They feel that history must be documented in order to be substantiated." Black-family histories may be hard to document, but it’s not impossible, she says. A major aid to researchers is Web sites on black genealogy. These give people the opportunity to search their surnames. "You would go in and say ‘I’m looking for the Tenpenny family. They lived in this area of Arkansas back in 1800. Have you ever heard of them, do you know of them?’" Tenpenny-Lewis says. "We have a major network across the country because of the Web sites and people that are doing research." Before the Internet, people had to physically go to courthouses to do this research. A byproduct of improved research capabilities for blacks is that people are discovering unexpected relatives. A black descendant of George Washington attended the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society national conference in Little Rock in October. Jama Best, a white woman who joined the society in 2003, found through research that she had black ancestry. At the 2004 conference in October, she met Joyce Higgins of Illinois, to whom she is related through the Hawkins family of Tennessee. The women plan a spring trip to Tennessee to do further research on the family. To further foster these and other genealogical discoveries, the society’s Arkansas chapter has been involved in several major research projects supported with the help of the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment of the Humanities. The group has received additional money from the Arkansas Black History Advisory Council. One of the projects is "Black Cemeteries Uncovered: Connecting the Past," which involves identifying, researching and documenting black cemeteries, including slave burial grounds. BRINGING BACK THE DEAD Phase I and II of the project concentrated on lost and abandoned cemeteries, many of which are in danger of being destroyed by hunters, land developers and vandals — especially in rural areas. Phase III, now under way, involves prominent black cemeteries — Fraternal Cemetery and Haven of Rest Cemetery, both in Little Rock, and Robinson Cemetery in Conway. Activities include finding out how each cemetery was acquired; using tombstones and obituaries to compile a list of the people buried there; and researching their lives. The majority of the group’s cemetery research has been in Pulaski County, but members also have looked at cemeteries in towns such as Stuttgart, Lewisville and Swifton. In another project, the Arkansas chapter has partnered with Family Time Capsule, a program that makes videographers available to tape oral histories. Two hundred people throughout Arkansas will each be given up to two hours to tell their histories. Currently being sought are project managers, who will gather information on prospective interviewees. Especially needed are older people who have valuable information that is in danger of dying with them. Additional projects of the Arkansas chapter: "African American Funeral Homes: The Final Emancipation" was designed to expand the knowledge and resources for researchers, as well as provide a segment of unpublished black history. The group has documented Little Rock’s Dubisson Funeral Home and is working on Ruffin & Jarrett Funeral Home in Little Rock. Soon available for purchase will be an index, in book and CD-ROM forms, that contains the name, date of birth, date of death, burial date and place of burial for individuals whose funerals were conducted from 1925 to 1985. The CMC Historical Scholarship was named in honor of the late Muriel Carrington, an Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society-Arkansas chapter member, and her husband, the late Charlie Carrington Jr., who was also active with the group. The scholarship is designed to promote self-confidence in youths through education and research by providing opportunities to those who have an interest in history. After her mother joined the chapter, the Carringtons were able to reclaim their family cemetery in Sweet Home, recalls Nique Carrington. Along with her sister, the Rev. Joy J. Carrington continues her parents’ legacy by chapter membership. "They are our family and we love their purpose, mission, work, conferences and spirit," Joy Carrington says of the group. "[The Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society] is truly worth joining. Even if you never find your family members or know any more about your history, you will be making history by being a member of a blessed and wonderful organization." For Tenpenny-Lewis, who has researched both sides of her family for the last 25 years, the organization is the key to reminding people, especially the young, that they must honor the past and remember the struggles of those who went before. "Everything that they did has made us what we are now," Tenpenny-Lewis says. "And we’ve lost sight of that. That’s one of the reasons why we’re so committed to the preservation of African-American history. You hear people say it all the time, ‘If you don’t know where you came from, you don’t know where you’re going.’ And you cannot have a pure sense of self." For more information on the Arkansas chapter of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society, log on to: www.rootsweb. com/~araahgs. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/CHRIS DEAN Carla Coleman (left), Tamela Tenpenny-Lewis (center) and Michelle Hood clean a headstone in Fraternal Cemetery in Little Rock. The three are doing research at Fraternal as part of the "Black Cemeteries Uncovered: Connecting the Past" genealogical project. (Below, left) Photos, such as these from Tenpenny-Lewis’ family collection, serve as a chart to demonstrate her family history. In the top photo are Charlie and Vester Scoggins, Tenpenny-Lewis’s grandparents. The bottom picture shows a young Tenpenny-Lewis with her mother, Evelyn Idell Scoggins Tenpenny.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/CHRIS DEAN Michelle Hood, a member of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society-Arkansas Chapter, scrapes algae from a headstone during research in Fraternal Cemetery.
