July 30, 2020

The Genesis Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized on October 17, 1971. The presidency comprised Ruffin Bridgeforth (president), Darius Aidan Gray (first counselor) and Eugene Orr, second counselor. This photo shows Gordon B. Hinckley with Ruffin Bridgeforth at the organization of Genesis. It was not an easy time. (more…) Read more

July 28, 2020

Following is an excerpt from the third book in the trilogy of historical fiction which Darius Gray and I wrote. The title is The Last Mile of the Way. The revised edition has a photo of Len and Mary Hope on its cover. The original edition has a photo of Darius Gray with his parents and sister. This excerpt happens after the baptism of Len Hope, shortly after the end of WWI. (more…) Read more

July 25, 2020

Pioneer Remembrance Day circa 1886, Willow’s Creek, Idaho Green Flake describes slavery: Bishop Simmons introduced him, and Green took the pulpit. He started slow but then got going and told his tale—what it was like to dig and hack out the trail the later pioneers would follow; what it was like to drive Brigham Young’s wagon and to know Brother Brigham on a personal basis; what it was like to see a grizzly bear lying dead at his feet and... Read more

July 23, 2020

Enslaved people Elizbeth and Green Flake (ages 5 and 10) were given as wedding gifts to James and Agnes Love Flake. In this segment, Darius Gray and I depicted the moment when Liz was taken from her mother and prepared to become the property of Agnes Love Flake. We know that Green was told that his mother had died. This was not true, but he was told this so that he wouldn’t run off and seek her. This excerpt is... Read more

July 20, 2020

A short excerpt from The Last Mile of the Way. (more…) Read more

July 19, 2020

Excerpt from The Last Mile of the Way. Everything in this excerpt is true as well as Darius Aidan Gray could remember it. I include a photo of the book with its original cover, because this is Darius’s family. He is the baby. The setting is Provo, Utah, 1965. I was in fourth grade at Wasatch Elementary School. Darius had no idea what was awaiting him in Provo as he came to study at Brigham Young University. (more…) Read more

July 17, 2020

I am posting daily to invite empathy into Black lives. My main focus is Darius Gray. This is an excerpt from our third book, The Last Mile of the Way. We refer to Darius as Aidan, which is what his family called him.   Like many of us, Elsie and Derrus Gray subscribed to Ebony and Negro Digest. Around this time, the second of those magazines ran a series of articles by famous colored Americans titled “How I Told My... Read more

July 16, 2020

This is the roster for The Race Horse, a ship which sailed from South Africa to the USA. On it were Susan Talbot, one of my ancestors on my Blair line, her many family members, and a Xhosa slave, Gobo Fango. (Xhosa refers to a particular area/dialect in South Africa.) I knew the history of Gobo Fango before I realized that I had a family connection.  In fact, I wrote an article about him for BlackPast . Gobo Fango’s history... Read more

July 15, 2020

  Darius Gray’s grandfather, Louis Gray, was born a slave in Marshall, Missouri in 1858. We put the Louis’s family–his grandparents, Gracie and Louis–into our second book of the Standing on the Promises Series. We researched the history and even visited the segregated cemetery in Marshall. Finally, we wrote the scene where Darius’s great grandmother was auctioned to the Gaines family. We wept as we wrote the last sentence. Read it as though you were sitting next to a descendant... Read more

July 14, 2020

In 1968, conspiracy theories flourished that blacks from California were coming en masse to Utah, where they would start riots which would result in blood “flowing down the street.” I heard these scary reports from a Home Teacher, who read an alleged prophecy from John Taylor, which was subsequently revealed as a fake. But we all-white Provonians were a ready audience and utterly scarable. I definitely was scared. It was quite a different experience for Darius, of course. He found... Read more

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