In I am Nobody’s Slave: How Uncovering My Family’s History Set Me Free, Lee Hawkins examines his family’s legacy of trauma and bold resilience as a result of enslavement. He draws on historical data, oral history interviews, genetic testing, and genealogical research to tell a powerful story that has led to healing despite the intense trauma imposed upon the family. I had a chance to talk with Hawkins about his work.
I started by asking what the most transformative moment in uncovering his family’s history was and how it contributed to a sense of personal freedom for him. Hawkins stated, “My father left Alabama at twelve, joining one of his older sisters and her husband in Minnesota as part of the Great Migration. His mother had passed, and he was the youngest of fourteen, deeply affected by her death. Though my grandmother had little formal education, she was wise enough to make it her final wish that her children leave Alabama in the early 1960s. My aunt and her husband honored that wish, so just days after the funeral, my father was on his way to Minnesota in a 1961 Ford Fairlane with two of his sisters. Leaving his father, who couldn’t raise four teenage girls and a young boy alone, was a struggle in itself.”
He added, “My grandparents were mysterious figures. Though my father spoke lovingly about his mother, he rarely mentioned Alabama or his father, Columbus Hawkins, Sr. When my aunts who had left Alabama with him would visit in the late ’70s and early ’80s, they’d gather around our dining room table, laughing and talking. I can still remember the Marlboro smoke in the air, which triggered my allergies. Every so often, Alabama would come up, and one of them would turn to us, saying, ‘Kids, go play outside.’ But because I was curious (and rebellious, which earned me plenty of belt whippings), I’d sometimes ‘ear hustle,’ listening in. I’d hear things like, ‘That White man that daddy shot, that officer.’ This always confused me. I’d heard about Emmett Till and knew that Black people were typically the victims of racial violence, not ones to fight back. So, I thought I was mishearing, or the story was exaggerated. And since I couldn’t ask about it without revealing I’d been eavesdropping, I added it to the list of Alabama mysteries.”
When Hawkins started researching I Am Nobody’s Slave, his father began to open up about his Alabama childhood. His father wanted to let go — “release” — painful memories and knew that Hawkins wanted answers. While talking with his father, Hawkins discovered that he had been “kept in the dark about family secrets.” Many of Hawkins’s discoveries while researching were a surprise to his father.
Ever interested in finding the truth and helping Hawkins, his father reached out to his sisters and convinced one of Hawkins’ aunts, then in her eighties, to do an interview with me. Hawkins asked his aunt directly about his grandfather shooting the white man, and she confirmed that the story was true. Hawkins shared, “She said that a white town marshal had come to their house, demanding my grandfather come out. He fired a gun with my aunt and her sisters right there on the porch, only five or six years old at the time. My grandfather came out, determined to protect his daughters, and shot the marshal in the face with a shotgun.” Based on the details his aunt provided, Hawkins found a newspaper article “confirming every word of her story.” He details the intensity of this story in his book.
This story and its discovery were transformative for Hawkins because it helped him realize that Black people didn’t uniformly “sit passively under threat; many fought back.” He shares that his grandfather is remembered as “6’4″ and 250 pounds of muscle, unafraid of anyone.” To round out the story told by his aunt, Hawkins talked to many people in the small Alabama town. As a result, he shared, “I learned that these power structures weren’t always straightforward, with unique ‘rules’ rooted in a warped sense of Christianity and family values that made some crimes disappear when a white man committed them.” Hawkins grandfather was not lynched. However, he shared that his grandfather “paid a price for standing up.”
Hawkins told me that the story of his grandfather’s strength and bravery reminded him that the “South was far more nuanced than what I had learned up North.” The story also revealed where his rebelliousness came from—” the sense that if something isn’t fair, I’ll keep pushing, no matter the consequences.”
Hawkins stated, with a deep sense of confidence, “All my life, I’ve been in places where I was one of the few Black people. I’ve never felt insecure around white people or even a hint of the imposter syndrome people talk about.” He added, “Growing up, that frightened my parents because my dad’s mind was still locked in the rules of Alabama segregation. So, when I grew up in this 99 percent white suburb and went to our Black church on the weekends, my parents were very concerned that I was too confident for a Black boy—that somehow, I would get in trouble for things like being elected class president all four years or that my sister was the homecoming queen. But we were never intimidated or afraid, and we had friends—and foes—of all races and didn’t think twice about it.”
Although Hawkins never met his grandfather, writing I am Nobody’s Slave — which “challenges and resists a lot of the slavery and Jim Crow-born, white supremacist beliefs, and rules that people tried to whip into me is proof of his influence.” Hawkins regrets not meeting his grandfather or seeing a photo of him.
Given the profound impact of doing the research for I Am Nobody’s Slave, I asked Hawkins how learning about his ancestors’ struggles shaped how he relates to his challenges today.
According to Hawkins, “There are some incredibly tragic narratives in my family history, but there’s also the reality that most people who know me would have no idea what my family went through, and certainly not what I’ve gone through at some points in my life. In researching my book, I came across murder after murder—uncovering the reality that, since 1837, we’ve had a family member murdered in every generation.”
He added, “Most of them were murdered due to entrepreneurship and success. Studying our history helped me understand that Jim Crow was not just segregation; it was apartheid. If a white person wanted your land, they would sometimes gather a mob and plot to kill the patriarch to seize it. I had family members killed in that tragic way, leaving the family to move, start over, and rebuild. They were extremely hard workers. There’s the old folk hero, John Henry, famous for his legendary competition against a steam-powered drill to prove the strength and endurance of human labor. I was influenced most by my maternal great-grandfather, my grandfather, and my father, each of whom was a John Henry in my eyes.”
While growing up, Hawkins was not aware of the tragedies that his ancestors endured because they “simply pushed through, kept working, and maintained a positive mindset.” He knew his father had endured something very difficult because he regularly had nightmares. Despite these challenges, according to Hawkins, “Anyone who knew him, or any of my patriarchs, saw them as optimistic, kind people who just kept pushing through. They were all born men, and they all died men. They never let Jim Crow destroy their optimism or their love for America. My father enlisted in the Air Force just three years after the Civil Rights Act passed. Although Alabama had treated him like trash, he still served his country in the Vietnam Era Air Force. He still loved America.” From his ancestors, Hawkins learned the “work twice as hard” mantra, but they also “instilled in him faith and optimism.”
For those who long for the past and see it as a better time, Hawkins doesn’t agree. He shared, “I have a lot of white friends who tell me, ‘America just isn’t the America it was in my parents’ generation; it’s much harder now.’ But studying realities like slavery, apartheid, redlining, and racial covenants has taught me that isn’t the case for me as a Black American male. My grandfather would turn over in his grave if I were to strive to work as a laborer on the railroad like he did. He believed that all work is noble, but as a proud Black American, he believed that we had to advance every generation. My research into racial covenants showed me property deeds that said, ‘this property should never be sold to a Negro, a Jew, or anyone of Mongolian descent.’ Seeing that, I could never say that life was better back then than it is now for me.”
Hawkins admits intense struggles in his family and “intergenerational effects associated with these tragedies.” Still, he continues — like his family — to be “hardworking and optimistic” while facing these obstacles. He often thinks about what his family endured when he thinks about complaining. Although Hawkins feels the pressure and has an “ongoing desire” to “redeem the sacrifices of the previous generation,” he also realizes that he has “the luxury to prioritize self-care when I feel exhausted and to sleep in, instead of working two full-time jobs like my grandfather.”
Hawkins has been a journalist for decades, and his work on the Tulsa Massacre has received much critical acclaim. I wondered how his training and experience as a journalist impacted his approach to writing this family history. He shared, My work as a journalist helped me in so many ways that were not immediately obvious to me. I think it made me unafraid to just call strangers or unfamiliar family members up or jump on a plane to go see them, and it taught me how to interview people about trauma with the sensitivity of striving to do it without re-traumatizing them. I think it gave me an investigative intuition, a respect for deadlines, and a deep appreciation for storytelling and reading.”
The last topic I discussed with Hawkins was the journey of inner healing, which the books seem to be about. I asked him what healing practices or moments of resilience helped him reconcile the painful aspects of his past. He noted that he was achieving goals during most of his early thirties. However, he was also “incredibly sad because I had started having recurring nightmares. This dream was about a time when I was playing a handheld video game, and I showed my father I’d scored a touchdown. He body-slammed me to the floor and yelled, ‘Do it on the field!’ I was eight years old, and I had no concept that my father was really telling me that there was no time for fun and games and that I needed to grow up and become a man. That was what Alabama had taught him.” Hawkins added, “He had been babied a lot of his life—sheltered from all the murders and other family secrets—, but he didn’t want me to have that experience because he felt it had damaged him, that he had been thrown into this cruel world without any preparation. So, I became the pre-teen with the briefcase. And I never saw the belt whipping and body-slamming as ‘abuse,’ because just about every other Black kid I knew was getting beaten—and a lot of white kids too—and I knew my dad loved me, so it didn’t damage me.” However, as Hawkins got older, things changed, and he shared, “what my mind was OK with, my spirit rejected.” He began having frequent nightmares, brain fog, and dizziness — things he could no longer ignore.
I Am Nobody’s Slave explores how Hawkins dealt with his father. In particular, he had to “develop strategies to deal with the brain dysregulation that can happen when you start thinking over and over about tragedies or difficult memories.” He had to “fight inflammation and all of it, and I did it through prayer and meditation, therapy, exercise, writing and singing music as a musician, listening to it or going to concerts, and spending time with family and friends, or writing books or podcasts.” He elaborated, “I believe finding my purpose—researching and telling these stories—has helped me tremendously. I stopped having nightmares years ago.”
Based on his research, exploration, and reflection, Hawkins offers essential advice for all readers regarding moving past childhood tragedy and trauma. He stated, “The first step to doing it is giving yourself permission to accept that things that happened during childhood were not your fault and that you don’t need to internalize blame that is not yours to carry or feel guilty about pointing it out.”
Overall, Hawkins’ I Am Nobody’s Slave is a personal journey and a profound exploration of resilience and survival in the face of generational trauma. He unveils a legacy of systemic violence, resistance, and enduring hope. His discoveries challenge monolithic narratives of Black passivity and illuminate the complex, often unspoken ways families endured and resisted oppression. Hawkins connects these revelations to his present identity, reflecting on how his ancestors’ sacrifices and optimism inspire his perseverance and success. Through the lens of a journalist and descendant, Hawkins not only reclaims his family’s history but also confronts the lingering effects of intergenerational trauma, showing that healing is an act of defiance in itself.