{"id":23818,"date":"2012-06-17T23:44:12","date_gmt":"2012-06-17T23:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=23818"},"modified":"2013-02-09T22:39:45","modified_gmt":"2013-02-09T22:39:45","slug":"american-tapestry-the-story-of-the-black-white-and-multiracial-ancestors-of-michelle-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=23818","title":{"rendered":"American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

HarperCollins<\/a>
\n2012-06-19
\n400 pages
\nTrimsize: 6 x 9
\nHardback ISBN: 9780061999864; ISBN10: 0061999865<\/p>\n

Rachel L. Swarns<\/strong><\/a>, Correspondent
\nNew York Times<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A remarkable history of First Lady Michelle Obama\u2019s<\/a> mixed ancestry, American Tapestry by Rachel L. Swarns is nothing less than a breathtaking and expansive portrait of America itself. In this extraordinary feat of genealogical research\u2014in the tradition of \u201cThe Hemmingses of Monticello and Slaves in the Family\u201d\u2014author Swarns, a respected Washington-based reporter for the New York Times, tells the fascinating and hitherto untold story of Ms. Obama\u2019s black, white, and multiracial ancestors; a history that the First Lady herself did not know. At once epic, provocative, and inspiring, American Tapestry is more than a true family saga; it is an illuminating mirror in which we may all see ourselves.<\/em><\/p>\n

Michelle Obama’s<\/a> family saga is a remarkable, quintessentially American story\u2014a journey from slavery to the White House in five generations. Yet, until now, little has been reported on the First Lady’s roots. Prodigiously researched, American Tapestry<\/em> traces the complex and fascinating tale of Michelle Obama’s ancestors, a history that the First Lady did not even know herself. Rachel L. Swarns, a correspondent for the New York Times<\/em>, brings into focus the First Lady’s black, white, and multiracial forebears, and reveals for the first time the identity of Mrs. Obama’s white great-great-great-grandfather\u2014a man who remained hidden in her lineage for more than a century.<\/p>\n

American Tapestry<\/em> illuminates the lives of the ordinary people in Mrs. Obama’s family tree who fought for freedom in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars; who endured the agonies of slavery, the disappointment of Reconstruction, the displacement of the Great Migration, and the horrors of Jim Crow to build a better future for their children. Swarns even found a possible link to the Jewish Reform movement.<\/p>\n

Though it is an intimate family history, American Tapestry<\/em> is also the collective chronicle of our changing nation, a nation in which racial intermingling lingers in the bloodlines of countless citizens and slavery was the crucible through which many family lines\u2014black, white, and Native American\u2014were forged.<\/p>\n

Epic in scope and beautifully rendered, this is a singularly inspiring story with resonance for us all.<\/p>\n

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American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama HarperCollins 2012-06-19 400 pages Trimsize: 6 x 9 Hardback ISBN: 9780061999864; ISBN10: 0061999865 Rachel L. Swarns, Correspondent New York Times A remarkable history of First Lady Michelle Obama\u2019s mixed ancestry, American Tapestry by Rachel L. Swarns is nothing less than a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1245,11,459,8,17,6940,20,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography","category-books","category-history","category-media-archive","category-monographs","category-slavery","category-usa","category-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23818\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}