The Authors

“What a courageous journey – communicated in an engaging, readable style, with candor, humor, and deep feeling. This book shed light on the thoughts, questions, and feelings I have about race, society, culture, historical, generational and structurally-induced trauma–and the human ability to transcend.  In  reading it, I realized there are questions I’m still afraid to ask about race, things I’m afraid to say, and yet I realized anew the power of acknowledgment, mercy, justice, and conflict transformation. I’m grateful to DeWolf and Morgan for not just taking the journey, but for sharing their story with us.”

— Carolyn Yoder, Author, The Little Book of Trauma Healing: When Violence Strikes and Community is Threatened

Sharon Leslie Morgan

Sharon Leslie Morgan is the founder of OurBlackAncestry.com, a website devoted to helping people appreciate and explore African American family history and culture.

For more than 25 years, Sharon has been researching her family history in Lowndes County, AL and Noxubee County, MS. She is a member of several genealogical associations including the National Genealogical Society, the African American Historical and Genealogical Society and local societies in the geographic areas of her research.

Professionally, Sharon is a marketing communications consultant. A pioneer in multicultural marketing, she is a founder of the National Black Public Relations Society; worked for a multitude of Fortune 100 companies (including Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and Walmart); and spent many years living abroad in the Caribbean, Europe and Africa.

Sharon’s first book, My Daddy Is A Cool Dude, was published in 1975 by The Dial Press and nominated for a prestigious Caldecott Medal for children’s literature. She is also the co-author of Real Women Cook: Building Healthy Communities With Recipes that Stir the Soul.

Thomas Norman DeWolf

Tom serves as Executive Director for Coming to the Table, a non-profit organization that provides leadership, resources, and a supportive environment for all who wish to acknowledge and heal wounds from racism that are rooted in the United States’ history of slavery. He is a trained STAR Practitioner. STAR is a research-supported trauma awareness and resilience training program that brings together theory and practices from neurobiology, conflict transformation, human security, spirituality, and restorative justice to address the needs of individuals, organizations, and communities dealing with the impacts of present-day or historic trauma.

Tom is the author of Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History (Beacon Press). He wrote about traveling with nine distant relatives on a life-altering journey through Rhode Island, Ghana, and Cuba to film the Emmy-nominated documentary Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, in which he is featured. An Official Selection of the Sundance Film Festival, the film premiered on national television on the acclaimed PBS series P.O.V.

Tom was born and raised in California. He’s a graduate of Northwest Christian College and the University of Oregon. Tom served on the Oregon Arts Commission for nine years and as a local elected official for eleven. His years of public service focused on the arts, literacy, children’s issues, and restorative justice.

The African American Jazz Caucus awarded Tom the 2012 Spirit of Freedom Award for Social Justice.