It would’ve been enough to discover that I come from the first mothers. That my DNA stretches back 44,000 years to East Africa. It would’ve been enough to learn that my maternal line is rare, deeply rooted, and remarkably intact. But honestly, that discovery wasn’t the end of the story. It was just the beginning. 

 

Because while the blood carries truth, history carries trauma.

 

Somewhere between the thriving lands of East Africa and the enslaved fields of the American South, something was violently severed. Slavery didn’t just take people—it took possibility. It took dignity. It stripped names, took away whole families, erased languages, buried stories, and reduced women who carried royal blood to laborers, caregivers, and survivors. Brilliance was silenced. Power was hidden. 

 

And the world kept moving as if nothing had been lost.

 

They bore burdens that would’ve broken most. Carried children on their hips and entire households on their backs. Worked sunup to sundown, then stayed up through the night—nursing babies, patching clothes already so worn they were falling apart, wiping tears, and praying prayers they weren’t sure anyone heard. They weren’t given a comfortable life. They weren’t handed opportunity. But what they did with what they had?

 

That’s the part that takes my breath away.

 

They made legacies out of scraps. Faith out of famine. And strength out of silence. No one gave them rest, so they took refuge in their faith. No one called them powerful, so they became the power—generation after generation.

 

Many of them witnessed the unthinkable—fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons taken and brutally beaten—or worse—lynched right before their eyes. Grief didn’t give them time to fall apart. They had to pick up the pieces of their pain and find a way to go on. To keep their children alive… and their hope.

 

I come from women who had every reason to give up—but didn’t. Who were told to shrink, but somehow found a way to stretch beyond themselves. They fed whole families with next to nothing. Pressed through sorrow and still stirred joy into a pot of food. And had the insight to whisper encouragement to their children while nobody was encouraging them.

 

These women weren’t soft in the way the world portrays softness. They were tender in the places that mattered—and tough in the places where it counted. Their lives weren’t perfect, but their love?

 

It lasted.

 

They endured the unendurable—and still taught us how to be kind. They kept the family together when everything was trying to pull it apart. And somehow—somehow—they gave us joy. Real joy. The kind that don’t come from circumstances, but from God.

 

And I now understand—royalty doesn’t die. It hides, not out of fear, but to preserve itself. It endures. And when the time is right—when it senses readiness—it rises again.

 

When I saw that DNA report showing my maternal line, and realized we had not only survived the unimaginable but originated from the very root of humanity—something changed inside me. It wasn’t just knowledge. It was a calling. 

 

I wasn’t just meant to discover this truth, but called to share it.