Documentary records confirmed Lanier’s oral family history of a stubborn Papa Renty.

Evidence

This tenacious little boy insisted that his enslaver provide him with a checked shirt, and his parents, astonishingly, limited the hours they would permit him to work. Echoed in these papers was my oral history, the stories of a proud and stubborn Papa Renty, but it was a bit sensational to me. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 207