Black Man’s Organization Helps Black People Trace Their Family Trees Back To Slavery

Source: Roberto Machado Noa / Getty

Black Americans are a people who often struggle to find their place in the larger Black diaspora because our lineage was stolen from us. White supremacy stole our ancestry and now it charges us money to fill in the gaps it created.

So, basically it’s up to Black folks to learn who we are for ourselves, and, for that reason, NewsOne would like to give a special shoutout to a Black man who has helped 50 people identify the branches on their family trees, which had been lost in (white)  history.

Meet John Mills, founder of the nonprofit organization the Alex Breanne Corporation.

Mills, of Bloomfield, Connecticut, specializes in African American history, but he wasn’t always a history buff.

“I had no interest in history,” Mills told Fox 61. “My sister introduced me to genealogy. She actually found who my grandfather’s parents were. I found out his grandfather was an enslaved man who was freed on Juneteenth. I found out my third great-grandfather was in the Civil War. I just kept getting these nuggets of information.”

“I had to process that my grandfather had to walk past a whites-only cemetery and carry his parents into the woods to bury them,” he recalled. “That gave me a different kind of pride; I thought that could give other kind of Black kids that same pride.”

So far, Mills’ organization has reportedly helped dozens of Black people learn more about where and who they came from. He said it’s hard, “tedious” work, and because it’s far too large an undertaking for one man or one organization, he’s hoping to see others join him on his mission.

“It’s a tedious thing, you can’t research certain things but there’s a lot of tools and tricks,” Mills said. “On social media, you’re trying to find these people. Newspaper clippings sometimes have obituaries that sometimes have who the relatives are. It’s a puzzle to try to trace back.”

“Because I refuse to timebox it, I can’t hit a lot of people,” he went on to say. “And so there would have to be other people that came along that went, ‘We’re going to do the same thing.’ I’m hoping to inspire other individuals to decide to do something similar.”

Helping Black people learn their familial histories isn’t all the Alex Breanne Corp has been working on. According to Fox 61, its “latest project is an honorary street named after Prince Mortimer in Middletown.” Mortimer was an enslaved man who spent most of his life in Middletown.

You can go to the non-profit’s website to learn more about its mission.

Keep doing the necessary work, John Mills. Salute!

Also, Happy Black History Month, y’all!

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