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

  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

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

In 2012, I was teaching LDS Institute in Spanish. Most of my students were from Mexico, but I had some from Chile, El Salvador, and Puerto Rico. I had attended summer training for Seminary and Institute teachers at BYU and had received the manual given to all instructors. It was November and I still had not opened it. I was more than halfway through the Doctrine and Covenants when I decided to see what was in the supplement. It was still shrink-wrapped.... Read more

Today, June 19th, 2020, I give you the excerpt from The Last Mile of the Way, which I wrote with Darius Gray fifteen years ago. We used vocabulary (“Negro” “Colored”) consistent with our narrator’s time. This excerpt addresses the Greenwood massacre. The cover of this book in its original publication shows Darius’s family–his parents, Elsie and Darius (Derrus) and his sister Sandra. Darius is the baby. End of Chapter 22 Thousands of former slaves had migrated to Oklahoma to find... Read more

I wrote some of this in 2013, but it has additional relevance today, so I have brought it up again and revised it. Not much revision. I retired from BYU two years ago. I don’t know if there’s an African American Studies major, though I know African Studies exists. I would love more information. DARIUS: In 1965 when Darius Gray came to BYU, he was called in to the Dean of Students’ office.  “We’ve had complaints,” the dean said.  “We’ve... Read more

ART DAY Go the Museum of Art online and ENJOY everything there.  You might visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, or the Louvre  I have provided a few artworks in this post in case you have problems accessing a virtual art museum tour. Choose a work which speaks to you and write a story or a poem or a journal entry stemming from some of these possibilities (several of which are borrowed from... Read more

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