Banneker’s journals burned when his cottage was set on fire by vandals on the day of his funeral, with only one volume surviving. It’s written as a work of “grounded imagination,” Webster explains, as a way to “feel with” her marginalized ancestors whose stories were never recorded or didn’t survive.
Webster’s years of researching, imagining and feeling her way into the histories of her ancestors and their descendants have culminated in her sweeping, frequently insightful, often speculative and sometimes extremely moving “ Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family.” The book, her first, benefits from the voices of many Black cousins she meets along the way whose thoughts, feelings, experiences and reservations are woven into the story.
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