American Tapestry

Michelle Obama's family saga is a remarkable, quintessentially American story - a journey from slavery to the White House in five generations. As moving as "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" and as sweeping as "The Warmth of Other Suns", "American Tapestry" traces the complex and fascinating story of Michelle Obama's ancestors, a history that the "First Lady" did not even know herself. Going back to the nineteenth century, Rachel L. Swarns brings into focus the black, white, and multiracial forebears of the nation's first African-American first lady, and reveals for the first time the identity of Mrs. Obama's white great-great-great grandfather - a man who remained hidden for more than a century in her family tree. "American Tapestry" illuminates the lives of the ordinary people who fought for freedom in the 'Revolutionary and Civil Wars'; who founded the 'Jewish Reform' movement; who endured the agonies of slavery, the displacement of the Great Migration, and the horrors of Jim Crow to build a better future for their children. Though it is an intimate family history, "American Tapestry" is also the collective story of our changing nation - a nation in which racial intermingling lingers in the bloodlines of countless Americans, and slavery remains the crucible through which many family lines-black, white, and Native American-were forged. Expertly researched, epic in scope, "American Tapestry" is a singularly American, singularly inspiring story with resonance for us all.