The Last Negro

About the Book

The author connects his experience as a child sitting on the lap of a former slave with his first exposure to African slavery. He traces his family’s Scotch-Irish origins to their slave owning in Gentry County, Missouri and how their slave decided to stay with the family until her death 75 years later. The impact of the Civil War and its aftermath on Gentry County and Missouri is documented. He discovers that there may be African-Americans with his blood line and a county memory of a “lynching” in a neighboring county. The former slave serves as a ghostly presence in the county.

About the Author

Perry Treadwell describes himself as an amateur historian. “I grew up in the Midwest with strong memories of my small town and my grandparents; farm. I wrote a bit about this period in my life in Grandfather Stories.” Treadwell received his Ph.D. from U.C.L.A. and went on to teach immunology at Emory Medical School. Nominally retired, he has taught workshops in making friends and has published a book by that title. He has been a pub owner, formed a men’s support group, written for magazines and newspapers, and volunteered with the American Friends Service Committee and a hospice group.