Rachel Jamison Webster learned she is related to Benjamin Banneker at a cousin's wedding. The news was unexpected, not only because of Banneker's place in history but also because the author is white.
When poet and creative writer Rachel Jamison Webster attended a cousin's wedding, she was surprised to discover that her family is related to famed mathematician and naturalist Benjamin Banneker.
Aside from these moments between cousins, the book at its best when Webster interrogates what it means to be white. She is unflinchingly self-reflective after learning of her Black ancestry, and she realizes how infrequently stories about race have been told in her family.
While this will surely work for some readers, I found it challenging. For example, among the highlights of Banneker's life is an eloquent letter he writes to Thomas Jefferson, assailing the man"on his hypocrisy as an enslaver who wrote about freedom.
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