#ABPOS The Thinner Soul, Chp. 37
Jeff- I'd never guessed when I first started wondering about my heritage that it would lead to two parts Dunbar. When we'd gotten back to L.A. Ketly and I had taken everything we knew to a local historical society archives library. We'd waited nearly a week to sit with someone, and it was everything in one sitting. It was an oral record logged there by my grandmother Dorsey herself. She'd made it just weeks after my father was killed. It included her knowledge of her father's meaning by naming her Dorsey Dunbar and paper records of her marriage to Timothy Earl Dunbar, a railworker. There was even news clippings about my father's death and my grandmother Dorsey's endorsement of his full-breed status. It was a sort of oxymoron. A Black full-breed Dunbar. It made me wonder if my grandmother Dorsey had been in love with Timothy Earl Dunbar, or whether it had been more concerted. The records talked about the Black Dunbar legacy, and freed Dunbars who had been told by their master Sir Dorsey Dunbar that the freeing of the slaves was imperative for America to launch its legal system. The oral history was that many slave masters had been asked before the war to support the budding legal system, by freeing the slaves. Those who stood to capitalize eagerly supported an end to slavery, but others who couldn't see the future of America through the ending of slavery we're strongly opposed. Sir Dorsey Dunbar was a clear supporter, but had used his understanding to enfranchise his slaves. My grandmother had been named after the old slave-master in order to keep the connection alive; to show that the lineage was self-aware and not a rolling ball of hay.
I didn't know how to feel about everything I'd heard, but it was all carefully documented. I suddenly felt what my great-grandfather had done. Without a doubt, I had been transported by the information. Without a doubt, I began as tumbleweed, and had ended up hand-stitched into the Dunbar legacy.
I could only wonder whether Radiance would ever receive such a dipping, or if her connection to the Dunbar legacy would always elude her.

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