Benjamin Banneker and Us

"[Webster's] excellent and thought-provoking book is on every level about unknowing rather than knowing—about pondering the mysteries of Banneker, who is often described as one of the first African American scientists, and the legacy of 11 generations of a multiracial American family that only now is coming into view."—The New York Times

"Webster’s years of researching, imagining and feeling her way into the histories of her ancestors and their descendants have culminated in her sweeping, frequently insightful, often speculative and sometimes extremely moving Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family."
—The Washington Post

"The conversations [Webster] had and the things she learned shone a light onto not just a neglected piece of personal and national history but also the hypocrisy inherent in so many discussions around race."—Los Angeles Times

"The book is at its best when Webster interrogates what it means to be white. She is unflinchingly self-reflective after learning of her Black ancestry, and she realizes how infrequently stories about race have been told in her family."—NPR

"Rachel Jamison Webster has collaborated with her relatives to weave an impressive investigation of race and our shared American history—the convergences and divergences across time and space. Webster tells a compelling story as she examines ancestry, DNA, passing, and cultural appropriation, resulting in a resonant addition to our current national reckoning around racial justice."—Natasha Trethewey, Pulitzer Prize Winner, Former U.S. Poet Laureate, and author of Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir

"For America to outgrow the bondage of white-body supremacy, white Americans need to imagine themselves in Black, red and brown bodies, and experience what those bodies had to endure. They also need to do the same with the bodies of their white ancestors. Benjamin Banneker and Us undertakes this work of imagination, research and listening, and is written in the spirit of healing.”—Resmaa Menakem, New York Times bestselling author of My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

"Benjamin Banneker and Us not only tells the story of Banneker but gives the reader a portrait of the women who shaped him—his mother, grandmother and sisters. These women stood up in court to argue for their children’s freedom, served as midwives and herbalists, and found ways to survive and thrive in a country that continually tried to silence them. I am inspired by this family’s resilience, and by the way their lives illuminate the past and our present. "—Anna Malaika Tubbs, New York Times bestselling author of The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation

“[Webster’s] expansive imagination and fluid prose bring these historical figures to life. It’s an enthralling and clear-eyed celebration of America’s multiracial past and present.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Benjamin Banneker and Us beautifully weaves the past and present, fact and imagination, ancestors and the living. In telling the story of this extraordinary Black intellectual, Rachel Jamison Webster chronicles the construction of race in North America, exposing the damage to humanity that it has inflicted upon us all and demonstrating a bumpy, muddy path toward repair. The story is one of resilience, courage, and brilliance and the telling is a masterful display of hope."—Jacqueline Battalora, author of Birth of A White Nation: The Invention of White People and its Relevance Today, 2nd ed.


"When untold secrets straddle the color line as found in Rachel Jamison Webster’s family, she meets the responsibility owed to both sides to voice these narratives. Webster’s skillfully written exposition flows like the mighty river that her ancestors crossed into Ohio to pursue a life of free persons of color. More than a sterile genealogical odyssey, it is a refreshingly humanizing story of early mixed-race America that will touch our hearts while expanding our appreciation for the foundation of one of the most confounding complexities surrounding race in this country."—Ric S. Sheffield, author of We Got By: A Black Family’s Journey in the Heartland

"Benjamin Banneker, a Black American whose genius and contributions to science, civil rights, and the nation’s history are little known beyond Baltimore, his birthplace, and Washington, DC, the city he helped survey, is finally getting his due. Spanning several generations and three continents, this engaging and insightful narrative is made even more compelling because the author, a descendant of Banneker’s, is white."—Gayle Jessup White, author of Reclamation: Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson, and a Descendant's Search for Her Family's Lasting Legacy

"Drawing on her acute sensitivity to language and bias, sharing long discussions with her cousins, and meshing their family history with the brutal realities of Banneker's time, Webster has created an engrossing, multifaceted, profoundly thoughtful, and beautifully rendered inquiry that forms a clarifying lens on America’s ongoing struggles against racism and endemic injustice."—Booklist (starred review)