Short film highlights Black women preserving history of ancestors who contributed to the American Revolution

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Reisha Raney is a mathematician and engineer by training, and a member of the Maryland State Society Daughters of the American Revolution.

Her short film, “She Walked Through: 250 Years Later,” was released recently for America’s 250th anniversary. Raney told WTOP the film highlights African American women whose family research pointed them to Black, white and native ancestors who contributed to the American Revolution.

“Everyone thought the story was the ancestors,” Raney said in a release announcing the film. “Then the women who went looking became the story.”

She is also the founder and host of Daughter Dialogues, which explores the lives of these descendants and helps “compile some of these studies and this research that I’m doing. And yes, they are ordinary people, but with extraordinary histories and extraordinary lives themselves,” Raney said.

“Who were they before they even opened up a genealogy record and then find out the transition that they took once they found out their history, and that their ancestors were part of founding this nation,” Raney said.

Raney said her father encouraged her to join the DAR.

“My cousin did 20 years of research before the records were even available online,” she said.

And Raney told WTOP she learned even more about her family history after she joined.

“I’m a direct descendant of President Thomas Jefferson’s grandfather through an enslaved woman named Mary,” she said.

Raney said being part of this group included a different discovery.

“I found a camaraderie of sisterhood of both my Black and white sisters. They’re some of my best friends, in fact, and they support me in all of my endeavors,” she said, noting their support encouraged her to pursue a leadership role.

“So I became the first Black state officer for the Maryland State Society Daughters of the American Revolution,” Rainey added.

While this patriotic history and the women who are preserving their family’s role in it are the focus of Raney’s film, there is another goal — steps forward.

“Everyone inherits a history. Individuals, families, institutions and even our nation,” Raney said. “A painful past should not be the end of a story. And I wanted to highlight what the Black members of the Daughters of the American Revolution are doing today.”

“Progress is telling the truth about the past and still choosing to move forward together, and that’s the hope that I have for the next 250 years for our United States of America,” Raney said.

Find more information about this film and additional stories online.

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