Hashaw, Tim 1954-

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Hashaw, Tim 1954-

PERSONAL:

Born 1954.

ADDRESSES:

Home—TX.

CAREER:

Investigative journalist.

WRITINGS:

Children of Perdition: Melungeons and the Struggle of Mixed America, Mercer University Press (Macon, GA), 2006.

The Birth of Black America: The First African Americans and the Pursuit of Freedom at Jamestown, Carroll & Graf Publishers (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Tim Hashaw is an investigative journalist based in Texas who has written two books about racial injustice in early America. Children of Perdition: Melungeons and the Struggle of Mixed America traces the history of a group of Americans of mixed racial ancestry, typically European, African, and American Indian. Hashaw, who has found Melungeon ancestors in his own family tree, "delves into psychology and the development of racism both historical and modern," according to an Internet Bookwatch reviewer. His follow-up book, The Birth of Black America: The First African Americans and the Pursuit of Freedom at Jamestown, focuses on an aspect of American history that is often overlooked—that of some of the very first enslaved Africans to arrive on American soil, as early as 1619—as well as subsequent decades of African American history. A contributor to Publishers Weekly found the book "an exciting story of crime on the high seas and a fascinating social history of 17th-century black America." BookPage reviewer Ron Wynn remarked that Hashaw "closely scrutinizes and evaluates a time and series of happenings about which far too many contemporary citizens know absolutely nothing." Describing the book as "notable," Gilbert Taylor commented in a review for Booklist that "Hashaw greatly expands on the central facts encountered in textbooks."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 1, 2007, Gilbert Taylor, review of The Birth of Black America: The First African Americans and the Pursuit of Freedom at Jamestown, p. 25.

Internet Bookwatch, September, 2006, review of Children of Perdition: Melungeons and the Struggle of Mixed America.

Publishers Weekly, November 20, 2006, review of The Birth of Black America, p. 48.