Migration, The Art of Survival is a memoir about my family’s history. I research and track down my ancestral line, seven generations, dating back to the 1700’s. In my memoir I follow my family’s history from the plantations of North Carolina and Tennessee, to slave trails leading westward into Western Tennessee, and their migration north to escape Jim Crow and violence in the south. I write about their survival and the quest to obtain the American Dream.
The connection to the past and how it shapes the future is one of the over arching themes in my memoir. I explore how family trauma can be passed down from one generation to the next, revealing itself through mental illness and disease. It is a story about the black experience from the point of view of time and movement.
This is my blog about my family history project, writing process, research tools I have used, writer’s resources and much more.
jshannise.blog 