Setting the story in its time
If Grandfather served in Vietnam, what was the war about, and what was happening to Black people at the time, both in the war and at home? If a relative can be traced to 1860, what mattered most to Black people that year?
Black family actions didn’t then, and don’t today, happen in a cultural or historical vacuum. When you place your elder’s life against the larger Black story, their choices take on new meaning. A move north becomes part of the Great Migration. A decision to vote becomes an act of courage.
At the Araminta level you place one elder in their time. In later levels, Go Deeper grows to include family decisions, family insights, the people and movements that touched your family, and your family’s roots in Afrika.
How-To Study: Reading a life against history
Open the video in GHL
For each key moment in your elder’s life, ask what was happening with and to Black people in three rings.
- LocalIn their town, neighborhood, church, school, or workplace.
- NationalAcross the country: laws, movements, uprisings, victories.
- InternationalAcross Afrika and the diaspora: independence, liberation struggles, Pan-African gatherings.
Then note the connection. Sometimes there was a direct influence: your uncle joined a march, or your grandmother moved because of a lynching in her county. Sometimes there was an indirect influence: the family didn’t take part, but the event changed what jobs, schools, or neighborhoods were open to them. And sometimes there is no known link. Note it anyway, as a backdrop. Your family was living inside that history either way.
An example
An invented elder, to show the method
Mrs. Hattie Jones was born in 1948 in Birmingham, Alabama. In 1963, when she was 15, her church hosted meetings for the Birmingham campaign, and that September four girls were killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. She says that was the year she stopped being afraid. (Local, direct influence.)
In 1965, when the Voting Rights Act passed, she was 17. Her mother registered to vote for the first time the next year. (National, direct influence.)
In 1960, when she was 12, seventeen African nations won independence. Her teacher hung a map and colored each new country in. (International, backdrop that became personal.)
Where to look
- Your elder’s own memory: “Where were you when…?” is one of the best questions you can ask.
- The Black press: newspapers and magazines like the Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, Afro-American, Jet, and Ebony recorded what the white press ignored.
- Local keepers: public libraries, historical societies, church anniversary books, and Black museums in your area.
- The builder timeline below: a starting list of events, from which you pin the ones that matter to your elder.
Check yourself
Answer each in your head, then open it to compare. Your graded quiz is in GHL.
What are the three rings of context?
Local, national, and international.
Your family didn’t take part in a 1968 uprising in their city, but insurance rates and store closings changed their neighborhood afterward. What kind of connection is that?
An indirect influence. The event shaped their lives even though they weren’t part of it.
Why note an event as a backdrop even when there is no known link?
Because Black families always lived inside the larger Black story. The backdrop helps you and your family understand the pressures and possibilities of that time.
Why does placing a life in time matter for a Djeli?
It turns private family moments into part of our people’s history, and shows that our family’s choices were significant.
Family Research: Place your elder in time
Choose one elder you interviewed in Stage III, or another elder with a long memory. Then interview them again, and build their timeline.
Interview questions
- Tell me about the key moments in your life: where you were born, where you moved, school, work, marriage, children.
- Where were you when [an event from the timeline] happened? What do you remember about it?
- What was happening to Black people in our town when you were growing up?
- How was our family involved in the Civil Rights or Black Power movements over the years?
- What were Black people doing back then that our community, and maybe our family, was proud of?
- What were we doing that may have scared us?
- What were we doing to navigate or defeat oppression?
Tip: Enter your elder’s birth year in the builder before you interview them. Then you can ask about events at the ages they lived through them: “You were 15 when the church was bombed. Do you remember that?”
Place in Time builder
You can place a living elder, or an ancestor born as far back as the 1700s. Your entries save in this browser only. When you’re done, copy the timeline into your GHL portfolio.
1. Pin events from the larger Black story
Check the events you asked about, or that touched your elder’s life.
2. Add your family’s events and local events
3. The timeline
Personal Reflection
Write your answers here or in your journal. The copy button includes your timeline.
Demonstration: My elder in their time
First, respond to two tellings
Answer before you call. Respond to two tellings from classmates or from the Ancestor Shelf, using the four moves:
- Name itGive the story a temporary name.
- Take itSay one thing it taught you.
- Ask itAsk the teller one question.
- Link itConnect it to your own family or adopted line.
Then, post your telling
Record 2 to 3 minutes of audio or video, or write about 300 words.
- Introduce yourself: “I am [your name], Djeli-in-Training of the [family name] family.”
- Introduce your elder and the year they were born.
- Tell one moment from their life, and what was happening to Black people locally, nationally, or internationally at the time.
- Say what that moment shows about your family’s courage, choices, or strength.
Share only what you have permission to share, and choose your tier. When people answer your telling, post an answer back to close the circle.
Bring to your weekend session
Bring your timeline. The circle will lay classmates’ timelines side by side to see where families crossed the same moments in history.
For the family
This week your Djeli-in-Training is placing one elder’s life inside the larger Black story.
“I’m making a timeline of your life next to what was happening to Black people in our town, our country, and the world. Will you tell me where you were during some of these moments, and what our family was doing?”
Help by sharing old newspapers, programs, photos with dates, and memories of how the times felt at home.
Stage IV checklist
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