From Humble Roots to Universal Honors Anita Hill’s Ancestry Traces Back to New Boston

By P.A. Geddie Bowie

County

(home

to Texarkana, New Boston, and De Kalb, Texas) is one of only three known counties in America that documented the actual names of its enslaved residents in 1850. Everywhere else, they were only listed by age and gender.

As Henry Louis Gates, Jr. points out in an episode of “Finding Your Roots“ on PBS TV, that rare occurrence in New Boston, Texas, led to finding the ancestry of attorney, gender equality leader, and author Anita Hill.

“You have won the genealogical jackpot,” Gates tells her during the show, “because some county clerk or census taker decided that it was important to write down the names of the enslaved people on a slave schedule. But only in three counties (the other two were in Tennessee and Utah) in the United States in 1850 did that happen. And it happened where your great great grandfather was living and that’s why you are able to see his name. That is a miracle.”

Anita was happy to see the names of her ancestors, Grandison and Penny Lewis.

“I can’t explain it,” she said. “It really just goes to something deep inside me that feels like I’m connected. This is like winning the lottery.”

Anita was born July 30, 1956. Not only were her great great grandparents enslaved, but her maternal grandfather Henry Elliot and all of her great-grandparents were all born into slavery in Arkansas.

Her parents, Albert and Irma Hill, were farmers and she was raised as the youngest of 13 children in and around Okmulgee County, Oklahoma. They had no running water or indoor plumbing until she was 12 years old.

Her mother encouraged her to be optimistic about her future and wanted her to go to college. Anita became valedictorian of her high school class, got a degree with honors in psychology, and studied at Yale Law School getting her degree with honors in 1980. She began her law career in Washington D.C. and a few years later became a university professor. In 1989, she became the first tenured African American professor at Oklahoma University.

Professor Hill became a national figure in 1991 when she accused U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. Her testimony inspired generations of women to speak out against harassment and led to more women in U.S. politics.

Professor Hill is currently at Brandeis University in Massachusetts teaching social policy, law, and women’s studies.

She’s written several books including Race, Gender and Power in America: The Legacy of the Hill-Thomas Hearings (with Emma Coleman Jordan); Speaking Truth to Power; Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home; and Believing: Our ThirtyYear Journey to End Gender Violence.

She has received numerous awards and honorary degrees and even has a planet named in her honor, 6486 Anitahill.

From humble beginnings to universal recognition, Anita Hill continues to advocate for women and all human rights.