Sign-In
Cart
Growing Up Betts: Ludie's Legacy
Paperback
Biographies GeneralHistorical Figures
Publisher Price: $29.99
Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
Published: Oct 20 2026
Pages: 166
Weight: 1.00
Height: 0.45 Width: 8.00 Depth: 10.00
Language: English
Your ancestors survived the unimaginable. Do you know their names?
You carry a legacy forged in resilience, rooted in the red clay of Mississippi and shaped by generations who endured the Middle Passage, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and beyond. But if you are among the millions of African Americans whose family records were lost, destroyed, or never created, the faces behind that legacy may remain invisible. For the descendants of Ludie Wilson Papa Betts, Sr., that invisibility ends here.
Growing Up Betts: Ludie's Legacy is the culmination of decades of devoted research by Pamela Lee, granddaughter of Flora Mae Betts Lee. Inspired by Alex Haley's Roots and fueled by quiet conversations with her grandmother recorded on index cards, Lee pieced together the sprawling story of the Betts and Bowden families of Guntown and Byhalia, Mississippi. At the heart of this living document stands Papa Betts: a man who built his own home, fed his neighbors, raised his family on land he owned, and survived every threat a hostile world could level against a Black man in the Deep South. Through census records, interviews, family trees, and intimate personal memories, Lee breathes life into ancestors who were never meant to be remembered, making the invisible beautifully, defiantly visible.
Inside these pages, you will discover:
- Detailed genealogies of the Betts, Bowden, and extended family lines spanning generations
- Firsthand stories and memories that reveal the personalities, struggles, and triumphs of your forebears
- Historical context connecting one family's journey to the broader African American experience in Mississippi
Because they lived, laughed, loved, and endured, you are. This is your history. This is your village.
Also from
Lee, Pamela
Also in
Biographies General
Bluesland: Portraits of Thirteen Major American Blues Masters
Pete Welding (ED.)
Toby Byron (ED.)
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man
Trump, Mary L.
Hardcover
The Children of Athena: Greek Intellectuals in the Age of Rome: 150 Bc0-400 AD
Freeman, Charles
Hardcover
Make It a Double: From Wretched to Wondrous: Tales of One Woman's Lifelong Discovery of Whisky
Sackier, Shelley
Hardcover
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Isaacson, Walter
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
An Enemy Such as This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents Over Three Centuries
Correia, David
Hardcover
Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
Cooper, Christian
Hardcover
Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Womens Political Culture, 1830-1900
Sklar, Kathryn Kish
Paperback
The Secret Life of the Savoy: Glamour and Intrigue at the World's Most Famous Hotel
Williams, Olivia
Paperback
The Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
Wittman, Robert K.
Kinney, David
Paperback
The Badger: The Life of Bernard Hinault and the Legacy of French Cycling
Fotheringham, William
Paperback
Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paperback
The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry
Cherington, Gretchen
Paperback
My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love
Dessa Wander
Hardcover
Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Giuffre, Virginia Roberts
Hardcover
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Lawson, Jenny
Hardcover
Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Dohrn, Zayd Ayers
Hardcover
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Paperback
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
Colloff, Pamela
Hardcover