The Other Madisons

by Bettye Kearse

  Coleman’s articulation of the differences among history, heritage, and memory illuminated for me that I was not alone in my efforts to bring visibility to the invisible, that there were people outside my family who would care about our story. Her discussion of “other persons” helped me realize that the problem I faced in finding my enslaved ancestors was not DNA; the problem was the Constitution.

  In his keynote address the following evening, Rex Ellis, associate director for Curatorial Affairs at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, looked and sounded like the southern black preacher he in fact was. Ellis described James Madison’s world as one that depended on “a community of people who surrounded him, a community of people who supported him, and a community of people who challenged him and reminded him [that] they, too, were contributors to all he was able to accomplish.

  “When he woke up in the morning,” Ellis told us, “they were the ones who summoned him. When he washed his face, they were the ones who brought the water. When he ate, they were the ones who prepared his food. When he was sick, they were the ones who cared for him and nursed him back to good health. When he went to the White House, they went too . . . They were the ones who were by his side when he died. They were the ones who challenged him as a slave owner, who yearned for something more than what they had, the ones who reminded him, in their own ways, that their bodies might have been bent, but they still desired to be free.”

  Ellis told us that the work to which we were contributing acknowledged that “history is messy; history is frustrating; history is oppressive; it is imprecise but eminently worthy of our best pursuit . . . We are all part of the historical process. It does not end at the death of any one man or any one woman. It continues, and we are the ones responsible for its legacy.” Paraphrasing Bernice Reagon, Ellis concluded, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

  It felt good to be part of the historical process, but finding and proving the truth is often daunting. In Lagos, Portugal, a concession stand mocks the suffering that took place there. Aboard slave ships, captives had no names. In New York City, evidence of slavery in a northern city rests beneath the Ted Weiss Federal Building. At Montpelier, Coreen’s footsteps lie under a brick walkway. Wherever I turned, missing, burned, hidden, or nonexistent records led me to dead ends.

  Across the generations, our family griots have had vision, hope, and perseverance. We have told and retold our stories, and, through whatever means available, we have taken on the responsibility of affirming the existence and the accomplishments of the Other Madisons. Mandy’s story would have died with her if she had not learned that staying alive meant being “fighting mad.” Coreen, by words alone, taught her son that in order for there to be any chance for them to see each other again, he would have to remember his name was Madison. Her son and grandson, Jim and Emanuel, were literate, but because slave owners did not believe that their slaves should learn to read and write, my enslaved ancestors relied on the ancient West African tradition of oral history. If these two literate griots had come across written records, there would have been no place to keep them. Even their pockets were not their own.

  Nine years after emancipation, my great-grandfather Mack, Jim’s grandson, held an important document in his hands: the title to his own land. He saved the deed in his Bible. Mack’s desire was for Coreen’s entreaty to inspire future generations. In his old age, as he handed over the Bible and, with it, the duties of griot to his youngest son, my Gramps, Mack repeated his iteration of the credo: “Always remember—you’re a Madison. You come from a president.”

  Once a month, the colored citizens of Elgin, Texas, could use the public library. Gramps was there when the doors opened and stayed until dark, looking for information about West Africa, the slave trade, and slavery in his country. He did not look for his own ancestors in library books; he knew they were not there. Gramps was of the first generation to be born free, and the first time he told his children the stories about his enslaved ancestors was when he changed the saying to “Always remember—you’re a Madison. You come from African slaves and a president.”

  Though my mother never touched a computer, she witnessed the ways the electronic age changed how people communicated and whose voices were heard. She made her intention clear: “I want to give you plenty of time to write the book.”

  I believe my mother recognized that the opportunity for our family’s story to take its place in recorded history had finally arrived. I also believe she knew that as the hardships endured by our family during slavery, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow receded from our minds, the risk increased that our stories would be lost and our ancestors forgotten.

  I could not let anyone hide my footsteps. To honor Mandy and Coreen and all the Other Madisons, I had to put aside my reserve and join them in the emotional journey that made us who we are. Living in a time of rapidly changing technology that allowed diverse voices to speak out, I had an unprecedented opportunity to contribute to the national historical narrative. With my mother’s words urging me on, I would make some noise so that my ancestors would be heard and remembered.

  As I researched my family and traveled to places where horrific things had happened, friends told me that what I was doing to reveal the truth about the Other Madisons was courageous. It did not feel like courage. I was looking for Mandy. After walking in Coreen’s footsteps and realizing how connected I could feel to my ancestors, I wanted to walk where Mandy had walked and see what she had seen. I tried my best to grasp what she went through and what she thought and felt. I assumed knowing her deeply would help me become an unflinching griotte who understood and had reconciled all that it means to be among the Other Madisons. In the end, however, I will never know what it was like to be stolen and put on an auction block, to lose everything I knew and everyone I loved, to be vulnerable to someone else’s power, to be a slave for the rest of my life. If I could have been Mandy for ten minutes, or however long I could bear it, I would have done it. I hoped that I could convey her strength, do justice to her life, and keep her memory alive. I hoped to find the words to make the world pay attention to her.

  This book will be my legacy, my life’s purpose, and I share it with Mandy and all who came after her. I share it with other slaves and their descendants. I offer it to all Americans who care about the gross mistreatment of millions of African slaves and who believe, as Gramps believed, that African Americans have always been vital to this nation. In Gramps’s words:

  Our white ancestors laid the foundations for this country, but our dark-skinned ancestors built it. They worked the fields, nursed babies, preached sermons, and fought in wars. They played music, owned businesses, cured sickness, and worked on railroads. They taught their children everything important about life in this world. They taught their children about God.

  The story my family kept alive and those that other African-American families kept alive have evolved from memory to heritage and now can emerge as history, a more inclusive and complete history. In order to make the transition, we cannot allow our footsteps to be buried under someone else’s disregard or be wiped away by tides of ignorance. We cannot allow our presence to be obscured by racist complicity, our women disrespected, our young people discarded. And, for our own part, we cannot allow ourselves to shrink away from the painful facts in our family histories.

  Our magnificence is indeed in our survival, but it’s also in our intelligence and creativity, in our self-respect and self-determination, in the potential of our young people, in our importance to America’s global success and global presence. It is in our stories. President Madison’s black descendants, his only descendants, are not “other Madisons.” And America’s slave descendants are not “other Persons.” This message is the cornerstone to what I bring to my family’s oral tradition.

  I have been asked many times, “Would it matter to you if you learned, with no uncertainty, that you are not a descendant of President Madison?”

&
nbsp; My friends know how long and hard I have tried to find Madison’s son, Jim. They have shared my disappointments and frustrations. My friend Renée, who is white, said, “You are a Madison. Why do you have to prove it?”

  I could have answered, Because I’m black. I doubt the recognized descendants of Madison’s family get the same question, and I would be shocked if anyone asked them, “Would it matter to you if you learned, with no uncertainty, that President Madison fathered a child with a slave woman?” Instead, I smiled and said to Renée, “You’ve always been in my corner. That’s why I love you.”

  However, when casual acquaintances ask me whether it would matter to me if it turned out I have no connection to the president, I detect their assumption that my family story cannot be true and, moreover, that we are seeking a way to rise above the presumed limitations of being black in America. Nonetheless, I answer the question.

  “No,” I reply, “it would not matter. I’ve always known I am a Madison, but when my mother handed me the box of family memorabilia, the journey of becoming the griotte changed me.

  “The Madison name,” I explain, “was important to my family’s early story. My sold-apart family members hoped to use it to find each other, but they died before they got the chance. Then, when freedom came, the name inspired my enslaved family to do great things, just like their famous ancestor. But my grandfather, who was born free, admired his parents and his aunts and uncles and his grandparents. They survived slavery, he told his children, because they were strong inside and believed in themselves. ‘And,’ he always added, ‘you’re just like they were. Strong. Smart. Capable of doing anything you set your mind to. Nothing wrong with being hardheaded . . . about the right things.’

  “Nobody knew anything about DNA back then,” I say. “It hadn’t been discovered yet. People knew who they were by the photos they kept; by the Bibles they stuffed with birth certificates, marriage licenses, and the like; by old letters from family and friends; and by stories that made ancestors real individuals with emotions, talents, and values. The stories didn’t just tell who begat whom or what person did this or that; they were real-life examples of what is truly important. DNA proof would be nice to have, but it wouldn’t define what makes us proud to be who we are. Having James Madison on our family tree is pretty cool, but,” I tell my inquisitors, “the pride we feel as a family, as a people, has little to do with a president.”

  Our stories begin with our names. Mandy’s owner gave her a slave name and then listed her among his belongings. That has changed. My daughter, whom my husband and I named Nicole Elise, was brought up knowing that her life and choices are her own. She and her husband, Peter, gave their children names that honor their families. They named their son Peter Lee, after his father and his maternal grandfather, Lee. Their confident, joyful daughter is Madison Lyfe.

  When plans for the 2014 reunion of the black Madisons were under way, I asked Nicole whether she was coming.

  “Of course,” she replied, “and I’m bringing Madison. It’s her party.”

  Mandy

  I cried when I saw you. You, my baby girl, were streaked with blood, the blood of our African ancestors. You were strong and beautiful, like my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, and the women before her, though your skin was lighter and more golden, glistening like the morning glow on the plains that had nurtured my village for generations. When you arched in my resolute arms, your back and legs felt sturdy, like the trunk and limbs of the tree standing watch over the village where I had learned to fight for the me who I am. Slick with the water from my womb, your hair glowed red as if the promise of the sun were your only equal. When I kissed your smooth little cheek, it tasted salty, like the mighty ocean that had inspired me. You cried, and the drumbeat of your voice foretold the resilience inside you. And I remembered the evening I arrived in this place and the singing I heard in the distance. The melody, I now knew, was a lullaby of possibility for an irrepressible child. I threw back my head and cried hope-filled tears.

  Acknowledgments

  From the moment I first set foot on Montpelier in 1992, I felt welcomed. Lynne Lewis, director of the archaeology staff at that time, immediately recognized the importance of my research and trusted me to see their most important recent discovery, the remains of the south kitchen. This trust allowed me to walk, literally, in the footsteps of my enslaved ancestor Coreen. During a later visit, Lynne took me to the slave cemetery, where I “found” my beloved Mandy.

  The trust, support, and respect I have felt at Montpelier do not end with Lynne. Christian Cotz, director of education and visitor engagement, included me on the advisory board for A Mere Distinction of Colour, a permanent exhibit about the importance of Montpelier’s slaves to James Madison and, ultimately, to the formation of the nation. I am proud that my image and voice are part of the exhibit. Matthew Reeves, current director of archaeology and landscape restoration, encouraged me to participate in an archaeological dig in search of slave artifacts. I felt like a real archaeologist when the knees of my jeans became coated with Virginia’s red soil. In 2017, Matt and Christian bestowed upon me the honor of representing Montpelier on a panel of slave descendants at a symposium held at the University of Virginia. Hannah Scruggs, research associate for the African American Descendants’ Project, has taken care to include me in every program for and about Montpelier’s slaves and their descendants. When I asked Elizabeth Chew, vice president for museum programs and chief curator, to read a draft of my book, I was concerned she would reject any unfavorable statement about the Madisons, but Elizabeth is a champion of my story, my research, and my writing. Hilarie Hicks, senior research historian, also reviewed my book and offered several important historical details, clarifications, and insights, which augmented the accuracy of the manuscript.

  Ann L. Miller, research scientist and historian for the Virginia Transportation Research Council, has been a valuable resource for all sorts of information about the people and history of Orange County and its surrounding areas. Her words brought the people, places, and times of the past into the present for me.

  Searching every archive they could get access to, Jimmy Madison and Sean Harley dug up invaluable difficult-to-find bits of information about our family that opened up new avenues of investigation. Thank you, cousins.

  To develop my writing skills, I sought out other writers, took classes, and joined critique groups in the Boston area. Special thanks to my first writing instructor, Gail Pool. In her class Writing for Publication at the Radcliffe Seminars—which included fellow students Gloria Jean Gallington and Elizabeth Marcus—I acquired the skills, fortitude, and persistence required to be a writer.

  The group that has been part of my life for some twenty years was inspired by our muse, Zora Neale Hurston. We proudly called ourselves “Zora’s Girls.” Je’Lesia Jones, Renée Gold, Robin Reed, Carrie Johnson, Ellen Story, and Arlene Weiland are my sisters of the pen. We wrote, critiqued, agonized, laughed, and cried together.

  For two years, I was also a member of the critique group, affectionately known as “the Critical Mass,” at the Writers’ Loft. In an actual loft in Sherborn, Massachusetts, Dave Pasquantonio, Geoff Parker, Jessica Sweet, Tod Dimmick, Ben Williams, Erica Boyce Murphy, Brent Hall, Deborah Mead, and Deborah Norkin, all astute readers and strong writers, offered in-depth and profoundly insightful analyses.

  Another group at the Writers’ Loft, the Nonfiction Think Tank, which included Nancer Ballard, Elana Varon, and Jui Navare, made me look beyond the trees so that I could see the forest of my book.

  My mother had handed me such a wealth of material that I was in danger of overwhelming my readers by attempting to include everything. “Book Doctor” Ellen Szabo helped me to focus the story I wanted to tell, and “Book Architect” Stuart Horwitz guided me toward creating a sound structural foundation upon which to build that multifaceted story.

  Paula Young Lee, author of many literary articles and several well-regarded nonfiction books
, put in a good word for me with her agents at Inkwell Management, Kimberly Witherspoon and Jessica Mileo. They agreed to read my book and then offered to take me on. Simply stated, Paula, Kim, and Jessica made things happen for me.

  Lauren Wein, my pencil-in-hand editor, and her successor Pilar Garcia-Brown asked hard questions about my purpose. The answers helped me to place my personal story within the larger historical framework and to become an active participant in the ongoing conversation.

  Tracy Roe, my copyeditor, fact checker, and fellow MD, analyzed my obsession with commas and quotation marks and led me to recovery. My production editor, Jennifer Freilach, calmly handled my episodes of panic and made sure everything was in place and looked just right. The expertise, dedication, and enthusiasm of the publicity, marketing, and sales team, Emma Gordon, Liz Anderson, Hannah Harlow, and Alia Almeida made getting my book out to the public an exciting adventure.

  From start to finish, my cheerleading team, Danielle Buckman, Tommy Simms, Carol Hovey, June Tarter, Clemmie Cash, Margot Patricia Forneret, Bonnie Peet, and Ellen Griffiths, kept my spirits high.

  Throughout the many years I worked on this book, my husband, Lee, gave me support.

  From the moment she was born, my daughter, Nicole, gave me joy.

  Indeed, it takes a village.

  On June 27, 2009, my mother passed away. I hope she is looking down at me and saying,

  I love the way you told our story.

  Ruby Laura Madison Wilson (1918–2009), circa 1980