American Tapestry
The Story of the Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama
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Narrated by:
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Claudia Alick
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By:
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Rachel L. Swarns
About this listen
Michelle Obama's family saga is a remarkable, quintessentially American story - a journey from slavery to the White House in five generations. Yet, until now, little has been reported on the First Lady's roots. Prodigiously researched, American Tapestry traces the complex and fascinating tale of Michelle Obama's ancestors, a history that the First Lady did not even know herself. Rachel L. Swarns, a correspondent for the New York Times, brings into focus the First Lady's Black, White, and multiracial forebears, and reveals for the first time the identity of Mrs. Obama's White great-great-great-grandfather - a man who remained hidden in her lineage for more than a century.
American Tapestry illuminates the lives of the ordinary people in Mrs. Obama's family tree who fought for freedom in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars; who endured the agonies of slavery, the disappointment of Reconstruction, the displacement of the Great Migration, and the horrors of Jim Crow to build a better future for their children. Swarns even found a possible link to the Jewish Reform movement.
Though it is an intimate family history, American Tapestry is also the collective chronicle of our changing nation, a nation in which racial intermingling lingers in the bloodlines of countless citizens and slavery was the crucible through which many family lines - Black, White, and Native American - were forged.
Epic in scope and beautifully rendered, this is a singularly inspiring story with resonance for us all.
©2012 Rachel L. Swarns (P)2012 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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The First Kennedys
- The Humble Roots of an American Dynasty
- By: Neal Thompson
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Their Irish ancestry was a hallmark of the Kennedys’ initial political profile, as JFK leveraged his working-class roots to connect with blue-collar voters. Today, we remember this iconic American family as the vanguard of wealth, power, and style rather than as the descendants of poor immigrants. Here at last, we meet the first American Kennedys, Patrick and Bridget, who arrived as many thousands of others did following the Great Famine—penniless and hungry. Less than a decade after their marriage in Boston, Patrick’s sudden death left Bridget to raise their children single-handedly.
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Fascinating and inspiring
- By tejanomusic on 04-03-22
By: Neal Thompson
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Passing Strange
- A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line
- By: Martha A. Sandweiss
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Brilliant scientist and witty conversationalist, best-selling author and architect of the great surveys that mapped the West after the Civil War, Clarence King was named by John Hay "the best and brightest of his generation". But King hid a secret from his Gilded Age cohorts and prominent family in Newport: for 13 years he lived a double life - as the celebrated White explorer, geologist, and writer Clarence King and as a Black Pullman porter and steelworker named James Todd.
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Race and Identity
- By Roy on 03-22-10
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A Warrior of the People
- How Susan La Flesche Overcame Racial and Gender Inequality to Become America’s First Indian Doctor
- By: Joe Starita
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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On March 14, 1889, Susan La Flesche received her medical degree - becoming the first Native American doctor in US history. She earned her degree 31 years before women could vote and 35 years before Indians could become citizens in their own country. This is the story of an Indian woman who effectively became the chief of an entrenched patriarchal tribe, the story of a woman who crashed through thick walls of ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice and then spent the rest of her life using a unique bicultural identity to improve the lot of her people.
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A Remarkable Woman
- By Jean on 11-27-16
By: Joe Starita
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Harriet Tubman
- The Road to Freedom
- By: Catherine Clinton
- Narrated by: Shayna Small
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Celebrated for her courageous exploits as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman has entered history as one of 19th-century America's most enduring and important figures. But just who was this remarkable woman?
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Returning this book
- By KMS on 07-11-18
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In Search of Our Roots
- How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past
- By: Henry Louis Gates Jr.
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 16 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Most African Americans, in tracing their family’s past, encounter a series of daunting obstacles. Slavery was a brutally efficient nullifier of identity, willfully denying Black men and women even their names. Here, scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., backed by an elite team of geneticists and researchers, takes 19 extraordinary African Americans on a once unimaginable journey, tracing family sagas through US history and back to Africa.
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Amazing
- By Placeholder on 04-17-19
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A Different Mirror
- A History of Multicultural America
- By: Ronald Takaki
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 18 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Upon its first publication, A Different Mirror was hailed by critics and academics everywhere as a dramatic new retelling of our nation's past. Beginning with the colonization of the New World, it recounts the history of America in the voice of the non-Anglo peoples of the United States---Native Americans, African Americans, Jews, Irish Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, and others---groups who helped create this country's rich mosaic culture.
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All mirrors distort
- By Michael on 04-02-17
By: Ronald Takaki
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Jefferson's Daughters
- Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America
- By: Catherine Kerrison
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 17 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Thomas Jefferson had three daughters: Martha and Maria by his wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson, and Harriet by his slave Sally Hemings. Although the three women shared a father, the similarities end there. Martha and Maria received a fine convent school education while they lived with their father during his diplomatic posting in Paris. Once they returned home, however, the sisters found their options limited by the laws and customs of early America. Harriet Hemings followed a different path. She escaped slavery — apparently with the assistance of Jefferson himself.
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Don't waste money on this book.
- By Amazon Customer on 02-17-18
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Life of a Klansman
- A Family History in White Supremacy
- By: Edward Ball
- Narrated by: Edward Ball
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Life of a Klansman tells the story of a warrior in the Ku Klux Klan, a carpenter in Louisiana who took up the cause of fanatical racism during the years after the Civil War. Edward Ball, a descendant of the Klansman, paints a portrait of his family’s anti-Black militant that is part history, part memoir rich in personal detail.
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Thought Provoking, But . . .
- By William G. Stuart on 09-01-20
By: Edward Ball
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White like Her
- By: Gail Lukasik PhD, Kenyatta D. Berry - foreword
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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In the historical context of the Jim Crow South, Gail explores her mother's decision to pass, how she hid her secret even from her own husband, and the price she paid for choosing whiteness. Haunted by her mother's fear and shame, Gail embarks on a quest to uncover her mother's racial lineage, tracing her family back to 18th-century colonial Louisiana. In coming to terms with her decision to publicly out her mother, Gail changed how she looks at race and heritage.
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Disappointed
- By Yoli on 06-06-18
By: Gail Lukasik PhD, and others
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The Bone and Sinew of the Land
- By: Anna-Lisa Cox
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Starting in our nation's earliest years, thousands of free African Americans were building hundreds of settlements in the Northwest Territory, a territory that banned slavery and gave equal voting rights to all men. This groundbreaking work of research reveals the lost history of the nation's first Great Migration. Though forgotten today, these pioneers were a matter of national importance at the time; their mere existence leading to fierce political movements and battles that tore families and communities apart long before the Civil War erupted.
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A must read for all!
- By Linda on 05-14-19
By: Anna-Lisa Cox
What listeners say about American Tapestry
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Matthew
- 07-19-12
Neglected Parts of American History
This is not about Michelle Obama, it's about how tightly linked the races were even during slavery and segregation. Some of the details of the family's history are elusive but the overall picture of American society is clear, ante-bellum, during reconstruction, and through the last century.
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2 people found this helpful
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- sistahatty
- 11-13-19
Excellent historical narrative
While the genealogy of Michelle Obama is interesting, the author’s research of the historical background of Mrs. Obama’s ancestors is truly informative and interesting. I learned a lot.
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- Caro
- 10-14-12
A unique look at history
I definitely agree with the person who described this book as "epic in scope and beautifully rendered." Rachel Swarms was expecially adept in portraying the family members within their historical context, bringing alive not only these particular individuals but nameless others who shared their experiences.
I couldn't help thinking that this book is a special gift to the Obama daughters. But even if the subject had not been the family of a woman I admire and respect immensely, I would have appreciated reading about the various people who were uncovered in the book. It was fascinating to see how decades of family history were pieced together from records and memories that were often scanty.
On the down side, I had some difficulty following the chronology via audio. It was difficult to keep up with the generations, especally as the narrative is not linear but doubles back many times to pick up various strands. This audible selection should come with a pdf giving a graphic family tree and as many photos as possible.
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4 people found this helpful