then the sister of benjamin banneker. of course, any writer coming up on these stories would be thrilled and want to tell them. but i was from the side of the family that several generations ago had lost contact with our black relatives and black ancestors. and with generations of activists and people that thrived and survived. i had to grapple with the ethics of the project. i did a lot of research. i wrote an essay called white lies and fiction that posited my families denial of black presence and black genius in our origin stories that we have written out of ourselves as americans was mirrored in a larger cultural denial of black presence and black genius. i continued to do research and grapple with how i could write more about this and it years later my cousin ed lee harris saw the essay and got in touch and said, we need to talk about our family. that was an amazing moment in my life. it was a very healing moment. edie had done years of genealogical research on her own and was connected to black family members. then