Journalist Lee Hawkins details the eye-opening discoveries revealed during his search to fill in the gaps of his family history in the new memoir “I Am Nobody’s Slave,” which was released on Jan. 14 through HarperCollins Publishers. Hawkins recently spoke at the Museum of the City New York during an event titled “Roots and Rise” that also included panel discussions on African burial grounds, film screenings, and performances.
In the book, Hawkins, a 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist and former reporter with the the Wall Street Journal, dives into the impact of tracing his ancestry back to an ancestor who was enslaved, learning more about his parents’ upbringing, and meeting white cousins he never knew he had. He also learned that since 1837, a member of his family had been murdered in every generation before him.
Hawkins’s efforts to learn more about his lineage began in 1991 in Alabama, when he and his father interviewed the author’s uncle, then in his 90s. That uncle talked about his grandmother, but failed to mention that she was enslaved for the first 30 years of her life. In 2014, Hawkins, yearning to find out more about her and connect with other relatives, took a DNA test.
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“I am hoping to encourage more Black Americans to do that because for a long time, we were put under the impression that somehow our family lineage is forever lost if we have any kind of enslavement in our past, and that’s not true at all,” Hawkins explained in a conversation with the AmNews.
The test revealed 80% African ancestry, while the other 20% traced back to white family members in Virginia and Alabama. Hawkins then connected with white cousins for the first time, who were also deeply interested in learning their family history.
“Of course it surprised me, but also what surprised me was how warm, kind, and loving they were,” Hawkins reflected. “We all know the political context of what was happening at that time [of enslavement in the U.S.], but my goal at that time was not to pass judgment on anybody; it was more to identify as much information as I could.”
Hawkins grew up in Minnesota in the 1970s and ’80s, in a place and time where there weren’t many other Black people around. In “I Am Nobody’s Slave,” he recalls getting screamed at by his mother and beaten by his father at five years old for going to a birthday party that one of his white classmates invited him to, without his parents or the parents who owned the house knowing beforehand. The experience led Hawkins to write in the book, “I longed for a mom who wanted me to go to a birthday party and have a joy-filled time.”
“What my parents were trying to do was teach me all the multitudinous number of rules that Black boys have to follow, as quickly as possible,” Hawkins said further in an interview. “That statement was me mourning that childhood that I knew was never going to happen. I had to become an adult pretty quickly, and by the time I was eight years old, I really was expected to operate as an adult would operate.”
Hawkins writes at length about the belt as a familiar means of corporal punishment and a symbol of trauma passed on in Black families through generations, highlighting its semblance to how enslavers administered punishment to enslaved Black Americans. As an adult, Hawkins began having nightmares about the beatings he received as a child, similar to nightmares Hawkins learned his father had of his upbringing in Jim Crow Alabama.
“It would be unfair for me to singularly characterize my parents as these cruel, abusive people, when a lot of things that they did were things that were done to Black people for centuries, and internalized by our families over time,” Hawkins said. “Some Black families, including my parents themselves, believe that Black children could endure more pain, or that the pain that we endure is a necessity and it’s better than being killed. That was really hard for me to process, because I know that my parents loved me, and I know that most of the Black parents who falsely believe they need to do this to protect their children love their children.”
That created a complicated relationship, particularly between Hawkins and his father, who doled out most of the physical punishment. Hawkins now calls his father his “best friend” and recalls his father’s apology to him and his sister 21 years ago as a pivotal moment in their relationship.
“It meant everything to me and my little sister,” Hawkins said. “When an elder does something as radical or revolutionary as to listen, and to humble themselves to say, ‘I was wrong. I mistreated you,’ that means the world. And I think that my sister and I didn’t need more than that, and our father gave us that, and it was beautiful.”
In the memoir, Hawkins introduces terms he created himself, like the “Original Baby Daddy” theory he uses to describe enslavers like the one who impregnated his great-great-grandmother centuries ago, who “had multiple children with Black women who they sexually assaulted, who they weren’t taking responsibility for.”
As Hawkins explained, “It was something that occurred to me when I was looking through the will of my great-great-grandmother, and I was thinking, I wonder how many of these kids are his [her enslaver’s] kids. I think I’ve tried my best in writing this book to be critical of myself and look at the ways white supremacy has been internalized in my own mind.”
When speaking to readers and audience members at events like “Roots and Rise,” Hawkins often meets people dealing with similar familial struggles, but usually much earlier in their journey to find answers. He encourages Black families to use genealogy as a means of bringing family together, healing trauma, and celebrating the accomplishments of their ancestors.
“I think most of the feedback that I’ve gotten that makes me feel the warmest inside are the people who say, ‘Thank you for deciphering this for me and inspiring me to have these conversations in my family and to research my family,’” Hawkins said. “I would say that’s the most gratifying part I’ve found on the book tour — I’ve been able to meet so many people and listen to their stories about themselves and give them advice on how to push through.”
“I Am Nobody’s Slave” is available via Barnes & Noble online and in-store, as well as other online retailers.