Year to Date - 2016

It's hard to believe we are already well into the second month of 2016. I had meant to start out the year with some fresh goals and ideas for what I planned to do this year with regard to my research but I've been busy so far this year. Although, I've not been working on my research, per say, I've been busy with the activities of the African-American Heritage Ministry at the church that I attend.

Last weekend, we sponsored an event to kick off our Black History Month activities. Although there weren't many young people in attendance, one of the goals of our ministry is to help the younger generation know of the sacrifices of earlier generations. While everyone knows of the noted historical African-American firsts, etc., the goal of the event was to make the congregation aware of those notable firsts within our own congregation. We started out by having people fill out a survey. From there there were some members of the ministry  that called the respondents to get some answers to follow-up questions.

One of the people that I got to interview was Don Hudson, who now resides here in Charlotte, NC. In 1971, Mr. Hudson became the first African-American football coach at a predominately white university when he became the coach at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN. You can read more about Mr. Hudson here.

Today, our ministry gave a Beginning Genealogy presentation.I was one of the presenters and this marked the first time I did a presentation to someone other than family. While I was up to the 11th hour working on my portion of the presentation, I had fun preparing and giving the presentation. I'm thinking perhaps this may have marked the beginning of my next chapter in my genealogy journey.

The ministry has more events planned for the remainder of the month such as a visit to The International Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro, NC. However, I'm not involved in any more activities until the end of the month where I'll be leading a viewing and discussion of the movie Selma.

So, as you can see, while I've not been busy with my own research and history, I have been busy with other genealogical and historical activities so far this year.

Hopefully, after I get through this some what hectic month, I can get back to working on my research.

So, until next time.