ABSTRACT
American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama traces the roots of First Lady Michelle Obama starting with the DNA testing of a distant African American cousin who discovers through Rachel Swarns’s investigation that she shares blood lines with the First Lady. The centrality of racial entanglements among Blacks and Whites becomes clear when Swarns repeats the same DNA test with a White woman who is also found to share blood lines with Mrs. Obama also as a distant cousin. In telling Mrs. Obama’s family story, Swarns is able to trace the First Lady’s roots to her great great great great grandmother who as Melvinia was born into slavery and lived under those conditions through Emancipation. Melvinia gives birth to a biracial son, Dolphus Shields, and his life constitutes much of the book’s focus.
