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 slave owner (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 (2nd row from the top, 4th image). 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...