{"id":13250,"date":"2016-01-14T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-14T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:/wp-json/wp/v2/article/13250///wp-json/wp/v2/article/13250//www.yesmagazine.org/wp-json/wp/v2/article/13250//article/wp-json/wp/v2/article/13250//people-power-how-this-black-student-used-documents-and-dna-to-find-her-slave-ancestors-20160114/wp-json/wp/v2/article/13250//"},"modified":"2019-11-26T01:19:19","modified_gmt":"2019-11-26T09:19:19","slug":"how-this-black-student-used-documents-and-dna-to-find-her-slave-ancestors","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:/wp-json/wp/v2/article/13250///wp-json/wp/v2/article/13250//www.yesmagazine.org/wp-json/wp/v2/article/13250//democracy/wp-json/wp/v2/article/13250//2016/wp-json/wp/v2/article/13250//01/wp-json/wp/v2/article/13250//14/wp-json/wp/v2/article/13250//how-this-black-student-used-documents-and-dna-to-find-her-slave-ancestors","title":{"rendered":"How This Black Student Used Documents and DNA to Find Her Slave Ancestors"},"content":{"rendered":"/wp-json/wp/v2/article/13250/n

LaKisha David’s sense of dread increased as her turn approached. The professor had asked the students to introduce themselves by telling the history of their names. “It was humiliating, because I couldn’t do it,” David remembers./wp-json/wp/v2/article/13250/n

It was the winter of 2013, and she was a master’s student in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning. She and her classmates were on their way to Ghana to research water and sanitation. “This is the way I’m being introduced to these people,” thought David, “as someone who doesn’t even know her history.”/wp-json/wp/v2/article/13250/n

What David did know about her history, she didn’t say. She is the direct descendant of slaves. Here she was, on her way to Ghana, and for all she knew she could be of Ghanaian descent./wp-json/wp/v2/article/13250/n