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In January 1867, 435 freedmen, women and children left Kingstree, South Carolina to travel by train, ship, and train again to land in Marlin/Falls County, Texas, where they hoped to build a better life for themselves and their families. In June of this year, a monument will be installed in Marlin to memorialize the names of every traveler who made this brave journey. Descendants of the Shaw family, Sharon Styles and Angela Shaw Ross, are on a mission to reveal as many family connections as possible ahead of the ceremony, through genealogical tools and research. If you recognize any of the names on this list as your ancestors, or think a name sounds familiar and might be a relation, please contact Sharon, Sharon.kay@sbcglobal.net, or Angela, honey_be_2001@yahoo. com.

Influential figures throughout black history

Richard Allen was born a slave and had a vision of being a free man. He worked on his own time cutting wood, doing odd jobs, and by the time he was 20 years old, he had enough money to buy his freedom. In his own words, “in spite of having a relatively good master, I had it often impressed upon my mind that I should one day enjoy freedom, for slavery is a bitter pill”.