Overview

"A writer in search of his roots discovers stories of African American struggle, sacrifice, and achievement. In The Garretts of Columbia, author David Nicholson tells a multigenerational story of Black hope and resilience. Carefully researched and beautifully written, The Garretts of Columbia engages readers with stories of a family whose members believed in the possibility of America. Nicholson relates the sacrifices, defeats, and affirming victories of a cohort of stalwart men and women who embraced education, fought for their country, and asserted their dignity in the face of a society that denied their humanity and discounted their abilities. The letters of Anna Maria ""Mama"" Threewitts Garrett, along with other archival sources and family stories passed down through generations, provided the framework that allowed Nicholson to trace his family's deep history, and with it a story about Black life in segregated Columbia, SC, from the years after the Civil War to World War II."

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9781643364544

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Reviews

"A searching family history, unfolding into a larger social history, by the noted Washington Post Book World writer and editor. Nicholson's forebears descended from enslaved people who worked the fields of South Carolina, then defied societal expectations by becoming soldiers, Civil Rights workers, lawyers, writers, and scholars. Such expectations extended into the author's own time. As a student in Washington, D.C., it was ""assumed all Black kids played basketball,"" while a well-meaning if clueless schoolmate's mother delivered a Thanksgiving meal out of concern that the Nicholsons could not provide a feast for themselves (they could). The author is a splendid storyteller. Having grown up hearing tales of ""the African,"" for instance, he relates what he was able to discover of a distant ancestor who ""put down where he was, made the best of where he'd found himself, [and] reinvented himself as an American."" He purchased freedom for himself and that of his wife and two of his children, while his other children were sold, since he couldn't afford to buy freedom for all. Nicholson gamely admits that because the facts are scarce, ""not knowing who he was, I can make him who I need him to be."" That ancestor provided a template for others, including a great-grandfather who was fearless and combative, ""perhaps the most respected disliked man in Contemporary Negro life in South Carolina during the early years of the twentieth century."" That ancestor, an ""Afro-Victorian"" who believed in education, ambition, and hard work, set a template of his own. Working these and other lives into a fluent and swift-moving narrative, Nicholson delivers a vivid portrait of eminent lives carried out in a society that did little to accommodate them: ""They were far more faithful than the nation they loved deserved."" A fascinating excursion into a past that, though relatively recent, has long been hidden from view. -- ""Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"""

Author Information

David Nicholson is former editor and book reviewer for the Washington Post Book World and author of Flying Home: Seven Stories of the Secret City. Nicholson has worked as a reporter in San Francisco; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Dayton, Ohio. He lives in Vienna, Virginia, with his wife and son.

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