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FAMILY HISTORY

While Peggy was actively involved in a historic movement, she also has an illustrious family history that is captured in select images below...

Grandmother, Mother & Aunt

This is Peggy's mother, Ellen Craft Dammond as a young girl (in the middle) with her older sister, Virginia Craft Rose (in the hairbow), and their mother—Peggy's grandmother—Bessie Trotter Craft of the acclaimed Trotter family. A family not only including Peggy's great-grandmother, Virginia Isaacs Trotter, the great-great grandniece of Sally Hemings and Peggy's great-grandfather, James Trotter, revered officer of the Civil War's famed 55th Regiment, but their son, Peggy's great-uncle and early 20th Century civil rights icon, William Monroe Trotter (brother of Bessie).  In fact, the  house of Peggy's "Uncle Monroe" is a federal historic landmark.  And as noted above, through her Trotter-Fossett family lineage Peggy is a direct descendant of Mary Hemings Bell, sister of Sally Hemings. Both are on the birth list of their mother Elizabeth "Betty" Hemings below, with Mary born in 1753 and Sally in 1773.

Ellen & William Craft

Peggy's maternal great-great grandparents, William & Ellen Craft (the namesake of Peggy's mother) are famed for escaping slavery by Ellen's impersonation as the male owner of her husband.  Their son, Charles Phillips Craft and his son, Henry Kempton Craft (who married Bessie Trotter), were respectively Peggy's great-grandfather and grandfather.

Ellen Craft

An archival image (L) of Peggy's biracial great-great grandmother, Ellen Craft, who posed as her husband's "white" male slaveholder (as depicted below) .

William Monroe Trotter

Peggy's great-uncle William Monroe Trotter was the brother of her maternal grandmother, Bessie Trotter Craft.  The founder & publisher of the historic Guardian newspaper, he was also a confidante of W.E.B. DuBois, as was one of the "Original 21" for the famed Niagara Movement (encircled photo). He also famously led the national protest against "Birth of a Nation" by D.W. Griffith.

James Monroe Trotter

Peggy's great-grandfather, James Monroe Trotter—father of William Monroe Trotter and her maternal grandmother, Bessie Trotter Craft—served in the Civil War under The Union's Company G, 55th Massachusetts Infantry.

Ellen Craft Dammond

Peggy's mother, Ellen Craft Dammond speaking with then UN Ambassador, Andrew Young, also a civil rights stalwart. Mrs. Dammond was also engaged in civil rights work throughout her life...

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