May 21, 2021
Trenton, New Jersey – It is with great pleasure that we announce Mr. Ric Murphy, scholar, author, activist – the Sons and Daughters of the United States Middle Passage Service Frederick Douglass Service Award.
According to its Founder and President, Dr. Evelyn McDowell, Murphy emboldens the commitment of Frederick Douglas to community, family, and the struggles of African Americans by exploring the rich contributions made by African Americans in United States history and beyond. Through his leadership he has uplifted thousands by has sage advice, sense of purpose to the community and groundbreaking work on the arrival of the first documented Africans in English America in 1619. From his original work, Freedom Road: An American Family Saga from Jamestown to World War, published in 2014 to his recent writings, Murphy captures the essence of the goals and objectives of the SDUSMP by preserving the “memory of our freed and enslaved ancestors and to the education and historic preservation of the artifacts and landmarks of slavery in the United States of America and its economic, psychological, and cultural impact on today’s society.”
About the Frederick Douglass Service Award.
The award is named after Frederick Douglass who was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, gaining note for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings before and during the Civil War. The award is one of the most coveted, perhaps the most prestigious of the SDUSMP awards recognizing the work of our members and community leaders for uplifting our enslaved ancestors and their descendants.
About the SDUSMP
The Sons and Daughters of the United States Middle Passage (SDUSMP) is a lineage society dedicated to the memory of our freed and enslaved ancestors and to the education and historic preservation of the artifacts and landmarks of slavery in the United States of America and its economic, psychological, and cultural impact on today’s society.
The objectives of the organization are Historical, Educational, Memorial, and Patriotic: to promote the connection of descendants of the Forced American Heroes, the enslaved people of African descent, to their ancestors through genealogy research; to proclaim, through education, the role played by the Africans forcibly brought to United States in creating our nation, including their endurance of the cruelties of American slavery, their resourceful intellect; their extraordinarily strong will and spirit, and their connections to their descendants who have gone on to make our country greater. We want to especially commemorate the connections to all military soldiers; to educate the nation and world about the contribution of the enslaved and their descendants; to cherish and to strengthen the family ties among the members of the SDUSMP; and to collect, protect, and preserve the materials necessary for a complete history of slavery, and to mark the places of the sacrifice of these men, women, and children; our ancestors. This includes, but is not limited to, historically significant sites such as churches, battle sites, freedom trails, grave sites, plantations, and museums. Lest we forget.