The Other Madisons

Summary

In The Other Madisons, Bettye Kearse—a descendant of an enslaved cookand, according to oral tradition, President James Madison—shares her familystory and explores the issues of legacy, race, and the powerful consequences oftelling the whole truth.For thousands of years, West African griots (men) and griottes (women) haverecited the stories of their people. Without this tradition Bettye Kearse would nothave known that she is a descendant of President James Madison and his slave, andhalf-sister, Coreen. In 1990, Kearse became the eighth-generation griotte for herfamily. Its credo—“Always remember, you’re a Madison. You come from Africanslaves and a president”—was intended to be a source of pride, but for her it echoedwith abuses of slavery, including rape and incest.Confronting those abuses, Kearse embarked on a journey of discovery—of herancestors, the nation, and herself. She learned that wherever African slaves walked,recorded history silenced their voices and buried their footsteps: beside a slaveholdingfortress in Ghana, below a federal building in New York City, and under a brickwalkway at James Madison’s Virginia plantation. When Kearse tried to confirm theinformation her ancestors had passed down, she encountered obstacles at every turn.Part personal quest, part testimony, part historical corrective, The OtherMadisons is the saga of an extraordinary American family told by a griotte in searchof the whole story.