Celebrating Juneteenth: WSU professor shares her remarkable genealogy journey

For years, Wayne State University professor Dr. Kafi D. Kumasi carried a family story she knew was remarkable but could not fully prove.

Her late mother often reminded the family that Kumasi's children would become fifth-generation college graduates - an achievement that would be extraordinary for any American family but especially significant for an African American family whose ancestors endured Jim Crow and the long shadow of U.S. slavery.

The story had been passed down through oral history. The question that lingered was whether the historical record could verify it.

WSU professor Dr. Kafi D. Kumasi

"So I was like, well, I know that from oral history - how can I document that?" Kumasi recalled.

The search led Kumasi deep into archives, libraries and historical collections across Detroit, where she uncovered not only evidence of her own family's educational legacy but also overlooked chapters of Black Detroit history. What started as a personal genealogy project soon became a journey through generations of Black excellence, community leadership and resilience.

As Wayne State marks its annual Juneteenth holiday observance - highlighted by its June 17 panel discussion "Centering Stories of Resilience: A Centennial Celebration" - Kumasi's experience illustrates why genealogy has become such a powerful part of the university's ongoing Juneteenth programming. Through the Campus Genealogy Project, an initiative led by noted genealogist Dr. Carolyn Carter and supported by Wayne State's Office of Inclusive Excellence, cohorts have been encouraged to explore family histories that were often fragmented by slavery, discrimination and the absence of official records.

"We celebrate Juneteenth to honor the resilience of the ancestors whose stories and traditions guide us," explained Dr. Donyale Padgett, vice provost for inclusive excellence.

For Kumasi, a professor in the School of Information Sciences, the project arrived at exactly the right moment.

Genealogy expert Dr. Carolyn Carter led the WSU Campus Genealogy Project that helped Dr. Kumasi and others extend their research into their family histories.

A native Detroiter and trained researcher, Kumasi already knew pieces of her family's story. She knew her maternal grandfather, Dr. William Francis Goins, graduated from Wayne State's medical school in 1941. She knew her family traced its roots to a remarkable lineage known as the Descendants of the Hill Sisters - three women from Alabama whose families helped shape Black professional life in Detroit during the Black Bottom era.

What she did not know was how much of that history remained hidden in archives.

At the Burton Historical Collection inside the Detroit Public Library, Kumasi discovered original medical diplomas, photographs, family correspondence and records documenting the accomplishments of relatives whose contributions had largely faded from public memory. Among them was Dr. Daisy Hill Northcross, Detroit's first Black board-certified female physician and co-founder of Mercy General Hospital. (Hill and her sister, Lillie Hill Robinson, are among local leaders memorialized in a mural on a 375-foot-long wall near WSU's Scott Hall that celebrates African American progress in medicine.)

But the documents revealed more than accomplishments. They exposed the difficult choices Black families faced as opportunities slowly expanded during the era of segregation and integration.

One letter especially illuminated a tension within her own family. While conducting research at the Burton Historical Collection, Kumasi discovered correspondence written by Gloria Northcross, daughter of Dr. Daisy Hill Northcross. In the letter, Gloria described family expectations surrounding her uncle, Dr. Goins, after he completed his medical training. Following medical school, Dr. Goins completed his internship at Homer G. Phillips Hospital in St. Louis because Detroit's white hospitals would not accept Black medical trainees. By the time he finished his training, however, new opportunities were beginning to emerge at previously segregated institutions. At the same time, family members expected him to return to Mercy General Hospital - the hospital founded and operated by his aunt, Dr. Daisy Hill Northcross, and her husband, Dr. David Northcross - to fulfil an obligation to the family institution and the Black community it served.

The letter revealed a broader dilemma facing many Black physicians of the era. For Dr. Goins, the decision was about more than where he would practice medicine. It was about balancing family and community obligations with professional opportunities that previous generations had been denied. His experience reflects the difficult choices many Black doctors faced during this transitional period as integration opened new doors beyond the institutions Black communities had established in response to segregation. In many ways, progress expanded individual possibilities even as it threatened to weaken some of the very institutions Black communities had built to survive exclusion

"There was this conflict," Kumasi said.

"We celebrate Juneteenth to honor the resilience of the ancestors whose stories and traditions guide us," explained Dr. Donyale Padgett, vice provost for inclusive excellence, who developed the idea for the Campus Genealogy Project.

Kumasi said the story illustrates a larger reality that many Black families experienced during the mid-20th century. Progress created opportunities, but it also raised difficult questions about responsibility, community and the meaning of success.

"There was a sense of social responsibility," she explained. Black professionals were expected to use their education and talents to serve Black communities, particularly those with limited access to medical care and other resources. Yet many also sought opportunities that previous generations had been prevented from pursuing.

The result was a complicated balancing act between honoring institutions built during segregation and navigating new possibilities that emerged through integration.

For Kumasi, the research became more than a family tree. It became a lens through which to understand larger historical currents - migration, segregation, education, professional mobility and the responsibilities Black families carried as they navigated a changing America.

"It's not just a story of my family's genealogy," she said. "It's kind of a story of where you can find more deep stories about your family's legacy in the archives and museums."

Those discoveries would continue to unfold as her research led her into Wayne State's own archives, yielding surprising discoveries much closer to home.

At the university's Walter P. Reuther Library, Kumasi located institutional records confirming her grandfather's inclusion in Wayne State's 1941 medical school graduation ceremony. She also found traces of her family embedded throughout the university's history.

WSU's Walter P. Reuther Library has provided a rich source of historical information for Kumasi and others in the Campus Genealogy Project.

One discovery particularly moved her: an old South End article about her father, the late scholar and author Dr. Kandi B. Kumasi, who taught at Wayne State during the 1980s and later became better known for his work at Wayne County Community College. The article documented the grief he experienced after the murder of Kumasi's sister in 1990.

"While I didn't find his teaching schedule or anything like that," she said, "the library and archives do provide a space for us to actually document some of the things about our family's history."

Another revelation involved famed medical pioneer Dr. Remus Robinson, one of the first Black doctors in Detroit to gain admitting privileges at a white hospital and another descendant of the Hill Sisters. Robinson, who is Kumasi's third cousin, also served as president of the Detroit Board of Education during the period when Wayne State transitioned from a college into a university.

Kumasi argues that history has overlooked the significance of his role.

"You could argue that he's the first Black president of Wayne State," she said, noting that the Detroit school board oversaw the institution at the time.

The research also revealed how interconnected Detroit's Black professional and educational communities were. Robinson later played a role in the appointment of Clara Stanton Jones - often mistakenly referred to as Clara Stanton Burton - as the first Black director of the Detroit Public Library. Kumasi notes that Robinson knew Jones through his service as president of the Detroit Board of Education, which at the time also exercised governance responsibilities over the Detroit Public Library system. Their professional relationship reflects the close ties between Detroit's educational, civic and cultural leadership networks during that era.

For Kumasi, these discoveries reinforced the value of genealogy not simply as ancestry research, but as a form of historical recovery.

"The importance of genealogy for African Americans is unique because a lot of our history was erased in that period of the transatlantic slave trade," she said. "We are innately looking for where we come from."

That search, she said, can be emotionally powerful.

"It's very soul-fulfilling work," Kumasi said. "There's a sense of satisfaction in being able to name and identify the stories of your ancestors and the trials and tribulations."

Kumasi credits Carter's workshops with expanding her understanding of genealogical methods and helping participants navigate specialized archives and databases. Carter introduced cohort members to national genealogical repositories, conferences and research strategies that extended beyond traditional library science training.

"She was a wealth of knowledge," Kumasi said.

That influence is now helping shape the next phase of Kumasi's work. Carter invited her to present portions of her family's history at an upcoming conference focused on Black contributions during the Civil War era.

As Juneteenth celebrations continue to evolve nationwide, Kumasi believes genealogy offers Black Americans a powerful means of connecting freedom to identity, memory and responsibility.

"After emancipation - after Juneteenth - where do we start?" she said. "If you see education was one of the first things that African American communities sought, it shows we have always had a thirst for knowledge, a thirst for bettering ourselves."

That commitment to preserving memory now extends into her own household. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kumasi organized a large Zoom family reunion that brought together relatives from Detroit, California and Belize. She displayed old family photographs onscreen while elders shared stories about previous generations.

The goal, she said, was to ensure younger generations understood the shoulders they stand upon.

"What is our obligation as the living ancestors of our forefathers and mothers?" Kumasi asked. "I would challenge people just to take some interest in your ancestors, to keep their legacy alive."

For Wayne State's Juneteenth observance, that message resonates far beyond a single family.

Genealogy, Kumasi believes, is ultimately about restoring continuity - reconnecting names, sacrifices and experiences that history tried to erase.

And sometimes, in the quiet corners of an archive, pieces of the past waiting generations to be rediscovered finally find their way home.