Dr. Wanda Tucker's family roots span from Virginia to Angola

Dr. Wanda Tucker is fortunate among Black Americans.

- KAREN JUANITA CARRILLO

That is because she is among the few who can trace their roots to a specific ancestor from Africa. But it was a collaboration with a news organization that allowed her to make the connection that the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade sought to break centuries ago.

The Tucker family history from Angola to Hampton, Va. had piqued the interest of a USA Today journalism team led by reporter Deborah Barfield Berry. The news organization's "1619: Searching for Answers" project was covering American history and in 2019, asked if they could travel with Dr. Tucker to Angola to write about her return to the land of her ancestors.

Tucker's family has long traced its legacy to Anthony and Isabella, the parents of William Tucker, the first African child born in what would become the United States. The two were kidnapped from the Kingdom of Ndongo in what is now Angola and thrown aboard a ship named the San Juan Bautista, bound for Mexico. When that ship was attacked, they were rerouted to Virginia aboard the English-owned White Lion ship. According to census records from the time, they were enslaved in Virginia by Captain William Tucker.

"At that time, the [Angolan] government had no knowledge of my family as descendants," Tucker explained to the AmNews. "So it was surprising, you know, for them and for the administrators as we went from province to province."