BLACK HISTORY MONTH

When Origin Stories Collide

How my search for my family’s roots intersected with the Cherokee Nation — and The 1619 Project

Black Freedmen, descended from those enslaved by Cherokee Indians, protest their expulsion on September 2, 2011, outside a regional Bureau of Indian Affairs office in Muskogee, Okla. Marilyn Vann, in pink, is the president of the Descendants of Freedmen Association. | Credit: Alex Kellogg/NPR

Earlier this month, on an episode of the PBS program “Finding Your Roots,” Angela Davis, the 1960s activist and social justice icon, learned that one of her forebears came to America on the Mayflower: