Honoring the enslaved; empowering their descendants.
The Sons & Daughters of the United States Middle Passage is a national hereditary society dedicated to cherishing and uplifting the memory of the men, women, and children who survived the Middle Passage and American slavery.
Who we are
We are a lineage society. Membership is open to those who can prove descent from an ancestor of African descent who was enslaved in the United States before the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in December 1865. In tracing our lines, we recover names history tried to erase and carry them forward for the generations still to come.
What we do
We help descendants document their ancestry through a growing searchable archive and the guidance of our members and registrars. We gather each year at our annual conference and awards banquet, we build community through local chapters, and we keep memory alive through projects of remembrance — a community quilt, the preservation of slave narratives and spirituals, and a permanent registry of the ancestors we honor.
Why it matters
For many families, the record of an enslaved ancestor is scattered, fragile, or unrecorded. Bringing those records together — and standing together as their descendants — is both an act of scholarship and an act of love.