A Profound Contradiction

The past few years I've been researching my family history and building a family tree on Ancestry.com. I grew up hearing I was a descendant of Texas pioneers and was a "true Texan." I was born in 1950, and my hometown, Richardson, Texas, had a population of 1,000 people that year. I am a third-generation graduate of Richardson High School in 1968—and my graduating class was around 1,000 students. A lot of change happened during that time. In addition, I grew up with a general narrative that my ancestors were "church" people, but not just any church people. We were members of the Church of Christ, and my heritage in that movement went back to the early 1800's. So, there were two general storylines I grew up with: • Sixth-generation Texan and a descendant of Dallas County Pioneers • Seventh-generation member of the Church of Christ My search was casual until the events of 2020 and the period of the pandemic. I then did formal research on the history of two of my third great grandfathers: John B. Floyd and Moses Fuqua Mackoy who were from Kentucky. The book looks at their history of owning enslaved Black people and their history of being founding members of the Church of Christ. I tell the story of growing up in Dallas, Texas and my experiences working there until April of 2001. The book ends with the events of 2020 and the intersection of the "Black Lives Matter" movement with a Church of Christ in the Denver area. The book takes a detailed look at the history of slavery in VIrginia, Kentucky and Texas. It specifically tells about the horrible stories of the Jim Crow era in Texas and the South. The history goes all the way back to 1619. The author tells how he was taught the "Myth of the Lost Cause" while growing up in Dallas, Texas. In addition, there are long newspaper articles about both John B. Floyd and Moses Mackoy that tell contrasting stories regarding their views of slavery. It also a forthright look at Church of Christ's history with racism and slavery dealing with the contrasting teachings and beliefs of two significant church founders: Barton W. Stone and Alexander Campbell. It is a story of history, family and faith that deals with the challenge of overcoming racism. It is at times uncomfortable and calls for reflective lament.