The Lost History of James Madison's Black Family

“Always remember—you’re a Madison. You come from African slaves and a president”

This was Betty Kearse's family motto; a way to remember that they were descended from James Madison, but also Coreen, a slave who worked on the Montpelier plantation whom her descendants believe had a child with the fourth president.

Kearse, a pediatrician and author of the book “The Other Madisons: The Lost History of a President's Black Family” talks to us today about her family's 200-year journey from a slave-holding fortress in Ghana, to New York City to a brick walkway at James Madison’s Virginia plantation. In it she tries to reconcile a past that includes Madison, a giant of early America who authored the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, along with the abuses of slavery and rape. It's a complicated story but a critical one to hear to understand the complex origins of the United States.