The African American Civil War Museum in Washington, D.C., will host the “More Than a Fraction: African American Heritage & Culture” presentation of Baltimore researcher and author Dr. Kerri Moseley-Hobbs.
Started in 2017 after Imagination Lunchbox, LLC published her creative nonfiction book, “More Than a Fraction,” the presentation about the research into her ancestors morphed into a presentation on African American heritage and culture.
Held in partnership with The Baltimore Times Foundation Times Community Services, Moseley-Hobbs will speak at the African American Civil War Museum (1925 Vermont Ave. NW) on Sunday, May 26 from 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
During the event, Moseley-Hobbs will talk about the research on her heritage that resulted in a documented story of her ancestors, the Fractions, and, indirectly, African Americans from Virginia and the original colonies. That research told a story of a family transported on a ship called the True Blue to American for a life of enslavement at the Smithfield and Solitude plantations in Blacksburg, Virginia. By the third generation, the Civil War began giving the Fractions and other enslaved a chance for freedom.
The “More Than a Fraction” presentation has told this incredible story at Red Emma’s Book Store in Baltimore, at Virginia Tech University for their Civil War Studies Department, at the Solitude estate in Virginia for the renaming of the Fraction cabin, and at the Central, Edmondson Avenue and Waverly Enoch Pratt libraries in Baltimore.
Moseley-Hobbs’ research documentation tells how brothers Thomas and Othello Fraction ran away from slavery to join the Union Army to serve in the Civil War for a chance to win their freedom. Moseley-Hobbs also discovered documentation, which is not included in the timeline of her book, that also tells the story of their struggles to be free after the Civil War was won, how they became landowners, how one brother became a respected train operator and how their names came to be engraved on the War Memorial Plaza in Washington.
Moseley-Hobbs is a member of the Smithfield-Preston Foundation’s board of trustees that oversees the historic estate where the Smithfield plantation was located, and continues to work with Virginia Tech University, which now holds the Solitude and the overall major land of the Preston family plantations. The Preston family was the original owners of the plantations and was considered the wealthiest family in Virginia at the time.
The last heir to the Smithfield estate was William Ballard Preston, a former Virginia state senator and as U.S. secretary of the Navy and the last heir to the Solitude estate was Williams’ brother Robert Preston.
Moseley-Hobbs is a direct descendant of Thomas Fraction, who was noted upon his death by a local newspaper as being a “well-known colored man.” “More Than a Fraction: African American Heritage & Culture” includes a very powerful Power Point presentation where Moseley-Hobbs connects the African cultures of her ancestors to the cultural norms of African Americans in the U.S. today.
The “More Than a Fraction: African American Heritage & Culture” presentation is sponsored by The Baltimore Times’ Times Community Services foundation, Imagination Lunchbox Publications and www.ThePulseofEntertainment.com. For more information, go to www.ImaginationLunchbox.com or email ImaginationLunchbox@gamil.com. To learn more about the African American Civil War Museum, go to www.AfroAmCivilWar.org. “More Than a Fraction” can be purchased at Barnes & Noble and Amazon websites.