Mukasa's Paternal Lineage

As Afrikan people, especially those of us snatched away from our mother continent, we should investigate our family lineage and be sure to pass that memory on to our children. I became very interested in my family history when I first began to gain consciousness of my people's history and culture as a teenager. Now that I am a Baba (father), I am even more interested in passing this memory of my family lineage on to my son - Mukasa Sa-Ra Djhewety-Msu Ma'at II.
My family were sharecroppers in the year 1900. My oldest known ancestor is Horace Logan, born in North Carolina in August 1859, just before the start of the Civil War. His wife was Henrietta Logan, born in Alabama in September 1864, just before the Civil War ended. My great, great, great grandparents - Horace and Henrietta got married in 1887, and they eventually had 7 children, at least by the time the family appeared in the 1900 US Census. At this time, Amanda was only 13 years old. She is my great, great Grandmother. They all lived on Beat 3, in Sharkey, Mississippi. Rollingfork is the closest city. Sharkey was a small, Black, farming county of only a few thousand, as it still is today.

My great, great, great, great grandparents lived in North Carolina and Alabama, both slave states. Unfortunately, I don't know their names. These were the parents of Henrietta and Horace. They were likely born of parents who were enslaved. I am more inclined to believe this because they ended up in Mississippi as sharecroppers. They likely rose before sunrise to work the farm with their children and laid down to rest in the dark of the evening when they couldn't work the land anymore under nightfall.

My family today is mostly Baptist Christians and most Black folk in Delta Mississippi were Christians. Therefore, my guess is that this sharecropping family were Baptist Christians. Blues originated in Delta Mississippi, most music historians would say. My family enjoyed the Blues and Gospels. As Jazz became the more popular style, I'm sure they loved it too. I'm sure I had some family who made it to those Juke Joints to listen to the "Devil's Music"!

I am Afrikan Spiritual. My son is being raised in the ancient tradition of Ma'at from the land of KMT along the Nile Valley. He will also learn the lifestyle of Ma'at-Sumu. His education will be Afrikan-Centered. Now, to get back to the family history -

As far as food, like most farmers of the time, my ancestors ate what we would call Southern "soul food," at least when they could because sharecropping was backbreaking work and you didn't get a lot of money out of it. In fact, sharecroppers often ended the year in debt to the land owner.

Amanda Logan, the daughter of Horace and Henrietta, would grow up and have many children. Her daughter, Nettie Mae William Washington was born in 1913. It's a family story about how Amanda bites a white man's ear off for trying to steal the deed to the land when her husband was away. The man who lost his ear was named Clyde Clay.

Mama Nettie, we called her when I was a boy, gave birth to Fannie Mae Watts in 1930 who gave birth to my mother Ida Mae Davis on February 8, 1954. I was born to Charles Durham and Ida Mae Davis on the date of April 20, 1975. More here later...