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Past Is Prologue
The Art of Reclaiming Your Roots
A conversation on migration, lineage, and family with Morgan Jerkins, author of ‘Wandering in Strange Lands’
Morgan Jerkins is a New York Times bestselling author, a senior editor at our sister publication ZORA, and a daughter of the Great Migration. In her forthcoming book, the highly anticipated Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots, Jerkins takes readers — and herself — on the journey of several lifetimes in an attempt to report out and repair a lineage marred by slavery and migration. It’s a story about her family, and about any Black family for whom movement meant survival.
After hearing Morgan read an excerpt from the book, I asked if she’d be willing to share more about her research process, the discoveries she made, and any advice she can offer those looking to embark on a similar journey. The result of our conversation is below and has been edited for clarity.
Steph Georgopulos: When I recently heard you read an excerpt of Wandering in Strange Lands, the first person I thought of was my mom. It really hit me how she, and so many other people, have this desire to research where and who they come from but hit a wall at a certain point and don’t know where to go after that. And you having this background in journalism and storytelling—it’s a very powerful skill set for this kind of project. So my hope is to talk a bit about the process you went through to research your family and maybe help guide people who are interested in pursuing something similar.
I want to start by asking what led you to write this book when you did? Because it’s not an impersonal research project, where you start with a question and you learn some things and you’re done; it’s the kind of work that changes how you think about yourself and your family and, of course, history in general. So, it’s a huge investment of both time and emotion and knowing that you’re going to come out the other side as something else. What brought you to the point where you decided that this was your next book?
Morgan Jerkins: Well, thinking on it now, this is kind of embarrassing, but in the beginning I wasn’t even going to include my own family…
