Descendants of a Foot-Warmer

Book excerpt: This book tells the story of the Brown family of Caswell County, NC, and their journey over four generations, captured in short stories, vignettes and whimsical narrative glimpses. The Brown family's journey began two generations earlier with my grandmother's grandmother, Queen Evans, who was kidnapped in Africa and brought to North Carolina as a slave on a plantation of a White slave owner. One of the many duties of Queen, the seven-year-old enslaved girl, was to serve as a "Foot-Warmer." The stories, in no particular sequence, are centered around the descendants of Queen. In the cover photo, I am the little boy standing on the front row, and Queen's son, Sam Evans, is seated and holding a cane.These stories have a strong overall focus on education and educational achievements, financial ingenuity and the Brown family's service to society, all in the context of the rural South and the accompanying Jim Crow laws and systemic racism from slavery to the present time.At the same time, the reader will have the opportunity to view Christmas Eve through the eyes of children who don't know they are poor or Black and share in the culinary delights and humor of Christmas dinner at Granny's house. After reading these stories, the reader is asked to answer the question, "Considering the constraints and challenges, how well did the Brown family do?"