“During the days of slavery, at a plantation in Madison County, Tennessee, a young woman of no name stood on an auction block and waited in fear to be sold.  Because of her great beauty, she brought a high price.  Her white owner used her, and in due course, she delivered him a child, a fine son who she named William ‘Bill’ Day.  She gazed upon her newborn son, smiled, and then died in a pool of her own blood. 

I know this to be true for she was my great‑great-grandmother and it is she who begins my story.”

       -- Andrea Merriweather