Family members Richard B. Jones and JoAnne Blackwell point out where Arthur Ashe Jr.'s name is found on the massive Blackwell-Ashe family tree. (Photo by Jay Paul)
After getting up at 3:30 a.m. today at her New Jersey home, JoAnne Blackwell packed the memories of more than 5,000 of her family members into a black wheeled suitcase, boarded a train and brought them back to Virginia, for good.
Blackwell and three other relatives arrived at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture late this morning and unfolded a 9- by 11-foot canvas that traces the 1735 arrival of a woman named Amar and her daughter Tabb from West Africa on the ship Doddington. The two were traded for tobacco outside of Yorktown and enslaved. Eventually Tabb was separated from her mother and sent to a plantation in Lunenburg.
“This tree started in Virginia, and now it comes back to Virginia,” Blackwell said, looking over the large, hand-written family tree that was painstakingly researched by her cousin Thelma Doswell — the first African-American to be board certified as a genealogist.
This tree, which contains a leaf for Arthur Ashe Jr., debuted at a family reunion in 1971 at the USO Club in Blackstone, and Doswell passed away June 12, 2012.
Photo by Jay Paul
“I am honored to be here today and provide you as much information as I can,” said family historian and Lunenburg native Richard B. Jones, who mentioned that the family had tried before to have the tree hang at the museum. “I almost fainted when I heard we would have it here,” Jones said. “And I know Thelma, my father and all the co-founders of our family reunion are probably jumping for joy.“
(Doswell’s first, but smaller 6- by 9-foot tree that includes 1,500 names is at the Library of Congress, though it is not on display.)
“We will take great care of it and treasure it,” VMHC CEO Jamie Bosket told the family. The tree will be part of more than 100 pieces in the exhibition “Determined: The 400-year Struggle for Black Equality,” which will open June 19.
The tree’s journey to the Virginia Museum of History & Culture began in September through some research for a Richmond magazine story.
While working on December’s Arthur Ashe Jr. commemorative issue, I read about Doswell’s tree in John McPhee’s 1968 book, “Levels of the Game.”
One piece of information led to another, and I ended up on a Sunday phone call with JoAnne Blackwell; she later provided a photo of the 6- by 9-foot tree for December’s Arthur Ashe commemorative issue.
After learning that the family was having a reunion in Richmond in July and knowing that the “Determined” exhibition would open the month before, the idea of the tree being in the VMHC’s collection hit me.
I emailed Bosket about the possibility, and then I called JoAnne about VMHC and its upcoming exhibition.
Fast-forward to the acquisition ceremony this morning.
“I’m so happy that it has found a home other than my closet,” Blackwell said with a laugh. “It needed a home, and most of our family is here in Virginia and can now see it.”
Along Arthur Ashe Boulevard, just renamed by City Council on Feb. 11.
