TONY BURROUGHS IS coming to the Bay Area to show our community how to research and identify slave owners; research the Freedman's Savings and Trust Co. (the first black bank); trace African-Americans in small cities and towns and how to locate any place your ancestors might have lived.

The African American Genealogical Society of Northern California (AAGSNC) is presenting Tony Burroughs to the Bay Area in an educational seminar entitled "Uncovering African American Roots" on Feb. 12 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Oakland YWCA at 1515 Webster in Oakland.

This meeting is a must for those interested to finding their ancestors and their connection as depositors to the first black bank, because the techniques that Burroughs teaches can then be used to take advantage of next month's "Finding Your Roots" program March 25 at Temple Hill, where some of the 1 million names from the deposit records of the Freedman's Savings and Trust Co. will be presented.

Since there were only 3.5 million blacks in the United States in 1865, when the bank was created at the end of the Civil War, the likelihood of any living black being related to an original depositor is better than 33 percent.

Why is this important?

Because blacks pooled their nickels, dimes, quarters and dollars to amass a sum of $57 million and in today's market that would now be worth many billions.

Nearly all of the money was borrowed by whites who never repaid the loans.

This collection of bank records can help you trace your family as well.

Burroughs, an internationally known genealogist, author, lecturer and teacher will show beginners and advanced genealogists how to navigate through sparse records to help put African-American families together.

Ranie Smith, AAGSNC president, said that a lot of younger blacks, eager to learn of their legacy, are starting to join his organization so they can "leave a legacy too, as well as find their lost history."

Smith, born in Dallas, is an Oakland resident who works as a contract administrator for Equilon Enterprises LLC (Shell and Texaco), was bitten by the "roots bug" when a friend changed his name.

His curiosity led him to discover that his father, Ranie Smith, was named after an uncle named Ranie Henderson.

His mother, Alma Jean Shaw was also born in Dallas. They immigrated to California in 1944. Smith graduated from Pittsburg High School.

Karim Aldridge and Peggy Woodruff direct AAGSNC's youth branch, which plans to present "Roots Finding Techniques" to all high schools in Northern California.

"Genealogy can help solve the lack of self-awareness problems of our youth and help them to appreciate the sacrifices made by their ancestors," Smith said.
 

Sam Louis Golden, Oakland's first black fire chief and one of the heroes our youths study and seek to emulate, is also an AAGNSC member.

Inspired by Alex Haley's "Roots," he began to talk to his mother and father and used their oral histories to begin his roots searches.

His father, Sam, came from Houston, Miss.

His mother was a Huddleston from Mississippi. Samuel Louis Woolfolk, Golden's grandfather, was elected to two terms to the Arkansas State Legislature in 1888 and 1890. Woolfolk sat on the Board of Education in Jefferson County, Ark., and became a preacher.

He founded Gethsemene Baptist Church in Gethsemene, Ark., where he is buried.

Sam attended Clawson Elementary School in Oakland and graduated from University High in Oakland.

Betty Golden's (Sam's wife) father, Hope Faith Hall, came from Berrytown, Ky., (an all-black town in Jefferson County near Louisville).

Rose Gibbons, her mother, came from San Antonio. Hope Faith Hall, a train waiter, met Rose Gibbons in Oakland.

Betty attended Cole Elementary, McClymonds and Berkeley High.

Lisa Lee, like the Goldens and Smith, feels her family stories will inspire others to dig a little deeper in their past to help guide them to their futures.

Lee, an Oaklander, works as a health and medical systems team leader for Staywell.com in Silicon Valley.

Her mother, Edith Johnson-Lee, from Richmond, Va., lives in Oakland.

Johnson-Lee, a retired physician who pioneered house calls in low-income neighborhoods before welfare health care, had at one point 30,000 patients.

She fearlessly rode her bike with her doctor's bag, around the streets of Detroit, because she was too large from pregnancy to drive.

During the 1967 riots in Detroit, in the midst of snipers, Johnson-Lee never stopped making her house calls.

"Our youth need to hear these family stories of commitment and sacrifice to motivate them to achieve," Lisa Lee said.

Lisa Lee's father, C. Bruce Lee, comes from Buffalo, N.Y.

He was the first black to graduate from University of Michigan with a Ph.D. in microbiology.

And yet, he couldn't get a job because many white employers considered him "too smart."

So, Bruce Lee, "sacrificed" by "dumbing down" his credentials by telling employers that he had only a sixth-grade education.

He eventually became the Federal HEW Regional director in San Francisco.

C. Bruce Lee's great grandfather, Barnard Lee, emigrated from Ontario, Canada, where he had sought sanctuary after fleeing as an escaped slave via the "underground railroad" around 1840. Canada had ended slavery in 1835.

He married Helen Smith from County Cork, Ireland.

Lisa Lee says she's a direct descendant from the historic Pocahontas.

Through her genealogical searches she's discovered that she's related to John Randolph of Roanoke, Va. Randolph, a cousin of Thomas Jefferson, had a daughter from his slave, Martha.

Jefferson, too, fathered children from his slave, Sally Hemmings.

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