Among all of the coverage of the devastation in Haiti, I was pleasantly surprised to read the AP article about Senegal offering land to Haitians. The headline reads, “Senegal’s president offers voluntary repatriation and land to any Haitians that want to come”. President Abdoulaye Wade made this offer to our brothers and sisters in Haiti because they are the descendants of enslaved Africans, many of whom likely were taken from Senegal.

It is encouraging to see the intensive outreach to Haiti from all over the world. It is particularly empowering to see this type of outreach from Senegal. It is at the core of our mission at African Ancestry that we see ourselves differently and that we see Africa differently. I am glad to know that it works both ways.

Today, Dr. Kittles and I decided to make a commitment to Haiti as well. We are going to donate 2% of all African Ancestry sales this month to the CARE Haiti Earthquake Relief effort.

We encourage you to also find a way to give to the people of Haiti. There are many credible organizations that are on the ground in Haiti making a difference.

What started out as an evening celebrating DC-area teens who have beaten the odds, turned into a blog post to raise awareness about child slavery in Africa. I recently attended the Children Defense Fund’s “Beat the Odds” Dinner in DC where I met Martha Newton, Executive Director of the Touch A Life Foundation. Her organization is doing great work to financially support the care of Ghanaian children rescued from slavery.

There’s child slavery in Ghana? There’s child slavery in DC? What?! As African Americans, we still experience the psychological, economic, and sociological effects of slavery and its legacy, as individuals and as a community. The idea of our little brothers, sisters, and cousins living as enslaved people is unimaginable. Not here. Not today.

Her organization’s work led me to other sites and articles about the prevalence of child slavery not only in many African countries but also here in the United States (not to mention other parts of the world). Can you even begin to imagine children enduring a system of slavery today?

Please take a few minutes to educate yourself and your family about the present-day issue of child slavery and more importantly, how you can make a difference. Click on the images or the links below to get started. We’ve come too far and we have too much to not stand up for others.

MSNBC Story: One child speaks for the thousands in silent servitude

Oprah.com Story: Sold into Slavery

Two weeks ago extraordinary attention was placed on the family history of our first lady, Michelle Obama. Her mixed ancestry was found to be a surprise by many Whites in America. Similarly, the European and East African ancestry of President Obama was seen as an exotic mix. For African Americans, mixed ancestry is no surprise; it is part of our history and can be uncovered in most families through traditional genealogy research as well as DNA testing.

The story of Melvina Shields, the great-great-great-grandmother of Michelle Obama who was enslaved and impregnated by a white man is a consistent theme heard in many narratives of African American family history.  Noted sociologist, E. Franklin Frazier, explained in “Black Bourgeoisie” that the nearly 600,000 mulattoes in the U.S. in 1860 were mainly the result of the sexual association of white men and enslaved African women. We also see this reflected in the DNA of African Americans. When we test the paternally inherited Y chromosome DNA we find that 3 out of every 10 (30%) African American men have European Y chromosomes while less than 5% of the maternally inherited mtDNA is of European ancestry. This is called sex-bias gene flow and is largely the result of the behavior of many slaveholders and/or their male relatives.

The increased focus by the media on uncovering white ancestry in African Americans is interesting to some but is also disturbing to others, especially when these stories portray mixed ancestry as the reason for African American achievement. It is important to understand all of your family history. However, for most African Americans, including Michelle Obama, we cannot trace our family history using traditional methods beyond the Melvina Shields and others enslaved in the mid 1800s. This is because of the lack of adequate records on the enslaved and why DNA testing offered by African Ancestry is so important and exciting to African Americans.

There is no peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Do you know that years of combat, sexual violence, and other humanitarian abuses are devastating this country?

Do you know that it is considered one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world?

Do you know that coltan, considered to be the “blood mineral” of the Congo, is believed to be financing this crisis? Coltan is used in the production of popular electronics like cell phones and DVD players.

Congo Week 2009 (www.congoweek.org) will take place October 18-24.  Please take a few moments to visit their site and learn more about how you can educate yourself on the Congo and how you can make a difference.

Here are some other links that provide information about the current conflict. Check them out or find some others on your own. Then share what you’ve learned with a friend, family member, or colleague.

UN News Service

BBC

Human Rights Watch

NPR

African Ancestry has provided these links for information purposes only. Their content does not necessarily reflect the views of African Ancestry or its employees.

Recently I was interviewed by Joe Johns about First Lady Michelle Obama’s roots. CNN was researching her ancestry as part of their coverage of the Obama’s trip to Ghana.

Having identified the genealogy of her paternal great great grandfather to a plantation in South Carolina, he wanted me to guess at where her enslaved ancestors may have been taken from. We don’t guess. (Maybe that’s why I didn’t make the final edit!) We use genetic technology to provide a definitive answer. We’ve done it for everyone (Oprah, Henry Gates, Judge Hatchett, Forest Whitaker, the list goes on) and we want to do it for her!

I would be honored to trace the Michelle Obama’s roots. Although her father has passed, we can determine the origin of the Robinson roots using her brother’s Y chromosome. This would bridge the gap between South Carolina and where her ancestors were before the Slave Trade. We can also tell her the origin of her maternal roots using her mtDNA.

We’ve all seen how her choices have influenced where we shop, what we wear, and even to some extent what we eat. Imagine the impact that her decision to know her roots would have on our community. Millions of Americans would have a transformative view of themselves, their pasts, and their futures. What a tremendous gift.