Press Release
African American Lives - "African American Lives 2"
Participant biographies
AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2
KATHLEEN HENDERSON
Kathleen Henderson was selected from more than 2,000 applicants who responded to a casting call to participate in AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2. Henderson was born in Middletown, Ohio, and grew up with her two sisters and brother outside Dayton, where she lives today and is the director of First-Year Student Engagement at the University of Dayton – the same university where her grandmother was a cook when Henderson was young.
Among the stories of her ancestors revealed in AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2 is that of her paternal great-great grandparents, Dennis Jackson and Julia Mason, who were married twice in Kentucky – once in 1864 in an unofficial slave wedding, presided over by a black minister and a white land owner, and again in 1874 as free people. Henderson also learns that her third great-grandparents are found in the estate inventory of a slave owner named Abraham Van Meter, a proponent of gradual emancipation and, it so happens, a cousin of the Abraham Van Meter who owned and then freed some of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s ancestors.
AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2
KATHLEEN HENDERSON
Kathleen Henderson was selected from more than 2,000 applicants who responded to a casting call to participate in AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2. Henderson was born in Middletown, Ohio, and grew up with her two sisters and brother outside Dayton, where she lives today and is the director of First-Year Student Engagement at the University of Dayton – the same university where her grandmother was a cook when Henderson was young.
Among the stories of her ancestors revealed in AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2 is that of her paternal great-great grandparents, Dennis Jackson and Julia Mason, who were married twice in Kentucky – once in 1864 in an unofficial slave wedding, presided over by a black minister and a white land owner, and again in 1874 as free people. Henderson also learns that her third great-grandparents are found in the estate inventory of a slave owner named Abraham Van Meter, a proponent of gradual emancipation and, it so happens, a cousin of the Abraham Van Meter who owned and then freed some of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s ancestors.