Texas has a deep and complex multicultural history. Interwoven on the fringe of that tapestry has been the experiences of African Americans, who helped shape the state’s rich cultural landscape.
Within the Black community, those stories have generally been kept alive privately through family photos and lore.
My family’s legacy is making sure my deceased ancestors remain alive for future generations, though most of us will never have met them here on Earth. Their journeys, hardships, and perseverance through unbelievable odds have become a source of pride and a foundation on which we continue to build. Telling their stories is a form of mentorship and, done right, becomes legacy building.
For more than 180 years – beginning in 1844 – my ancestors lived in Leon County, Texas, as farmers and cowboys, before moving to Houston in the 1950s for a “fresh start.” Nearly two centuries after Isaac Bladen’s birth in Bladensburg, Maryland, I, his great-greatgreat- grandson, rose to a key role at the Texas State Capitol as speechwriter for the Governor of Texas, just two hours away from where Isaac was enslaved for most of his life in Leona.
The Maryland-born Isaac and his Virginian wife, Elvira, had a daughter named Louisa. Louisa was born into slavery in Texas 15 years before the start of the Civil War. She died after the end of World War II at the age of 99. As a teenager, Louisa was sold to a plantation owner in Louisiana and none of her Texas family ever expected to see her again.
Isaac had other plans. After Juneteenth officially ended slavery in Texas, he devised a plan to find his daughter and bring her home. Against all odds, that’s exactly what he did, and Louisa lived her remaining 80 years in Leon County.
Her son, Walter, was my first direct ancestor who was born free in 1877. To this day, we celebrate the legacy of him and his wife, Anna, with a family reunion in Leon County over the Labor Day weekend each year.
Two of Texas’ most famous Blues musicians, Lightnin’ Hopkins and Albert Collins, have partaken in that reunion because they are some of my relatives. An unusual number of musicians and writers have developed from that family line. DNA is strong, but genes mean nothing without the family stories passed down to those who didn’t witness the events firsthand. It seems to be equal parts nature, nurture, inspiration and perspiration.
My three decades of accumulated research and documentation were submitted to the Sons of the Republic of Texas, and I was admitted for membership in 2022. In doing so, I became one of the first Black members of that legacy organization.
Considering that a third of all Republic of Texas residents were slaves, there is certainly a vast family tree of potential members. However, most descendants of formerly enslaved people cannot document their ancestors’ presence in Texas before 1870. I happen to be one of the lucky ones to have found records that Isaac Bladen was in Texas as early as 1844. In addition, I have documentation that he was one of the state’s first Black voters during Texas’ Reconstruction in 1867.
These days, miles of electronic documents reside in ancestry databases all over the world. However, only the accumulated stories of invested and grateful descendants can bring those documents to life as real human beings with emotions, dreams and talents.
And so, what began with Isaac’s enslavement in Texas has become a testament to endurance, ingenuity and the unbreakable thread of family. His footsteps echo through every reunion, every story retold, every Blues note passed down like an heirloom. History may record dates and names, but legacy lives in the telling — and in the listeners who carry it forward.
Melvin E. Edwards is an award-winning author and former newspaper reporter. His twice-weekly podcast is called “Stories from Real Life.” He is a sixth-generation Texan, who once served as a speechwriter for Governor Rick Perry.
