Oral family tradition was the sole thread connecting Tamara Lanier to Congo Renty

Evidence

“I am descended from Congo Renty,” I began. I talked about my mother, and how I had grown up hearing stories of this extraordinary man, our Papa Renty as we lovingly called him in my house. I knew Renty as a community leader, someone who valued education and was unafraid to teach anyone interested in learning. I explained how these stories, which I’d heard my whole life, led to me finding Sasha, and to standing before everyone at this precise moment. That if it were not for my mother telling me the stories that her grandfather told her, I would have never made the connection that I was related to the man that Rentyhorn was being named for. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 310

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s stated goal: genealogy reconstructed against archives designed to prevent it — oral tradition as the surviving channel where written records were used to dehumanize.