Leading black genealogist visits West Tennessee

MEMPHIS, Tenn. —  Genealogy and family ties were the focus of leading black genealogist Darius Gray as he spoke in several locations around West Tennessee, including The National Civil Rights Museum. Gray, a Mormon who lives in Salt Lake City, was instrumental in helping the LDS Church create a CD-ROM database of the records of Freedman’s Bank, a government-created bank for newly emancipated slaves. The database contains half a million names of freed slaves and family relationships of bank users. __IMAGE1__While in West Tennessee late last week, Gray wanted to share as much information as possible about African-American family history and the importance of the family in today’s chaotic world. \"Our ancestors want to be connected. They know who you are and they want you to know them,\" Gray said. While in West Tennessee, Gray spoke at The National Civil Rights Museum; Alex Haley’s boyhood home in Henning, Tenn.; Jackson State University; Lambuth University; and the Memphis 1st Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.   At The National Civil Rights Museum, Gray presented a lecture on \"Blacks in the Bible.\" Using a map of Africa, Gray showed areas referred to in the Bible as he followed the descendants of Noah's son, Ham, after the flood. Shelby County Commissioner James Harvey Sr. attended the lecture. \"It helps to compare where we come from,\" Harvey said. \"It is all connected. We aren't any different now than we were then. It makes (family history) research, really, the genealogy of human existence, which in turn, is our family.\"  In Jackson, Tenn., Gray spoke at an African-American genealogy conference and shared his own slavery roots dating back to the mid-1700’s.  He told how many freed male slaves spent their life savings to find their wives, children, cousins, and grandchildren and reunite their families.  The Rev. Joe Woodson, an African-American pastor of the Church of God in Christ congregation in Pinson, Tenn., said he was impressed by Gray’s openness about slavery.  “He was very courageous to touch on the subjects he did: slavery, white ownership, even white owners having children with the black slaves,\" Woodson said. \"Then he directed it to the family of it all, and I forgot about color.”   Gray said that as we find our family we see what they stood for and what they lived by.  \"My family helped build and shape this country,\" Gray said. \"That is my heritage, and I am proud of them.\"