VIRTUAL: The Other Madisons: The Lost History of a President’s Black Family (Book Talk)

September 1, 5:30-7 p.m.

Betty Kearse, Author and Eduardo Montes-Bradley, Film Maker

Sponsored by the Program in African American History

About the Book
The Other Madisons has garnered strong reader and editorial reviews. It earned an International Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society’s Book Award for Nonfiction and an Outstanding Book Award from the National Association of Black Journalists. The Other Madisons was listed by Smithsonian Magazine as one of the top ten best history books of 2020, by Kirkus as one of the best nonfiction books of 2020, by Parade as one of the 24 best memoirs of 2020, and by “Good Morning America” as one of the 7 Best Books to Read for President’s Day (2021). Kirkus described The Other Madisons as “A Roots for a new generation.”

About the Author
Bettye Kearse is a writer and retired pediatrician living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her essays, commentaries, and personal narratives have appeared in the anthology Black Lives Have Always Mattered, the Boston Herald, Mental Floss, Time Magazine, the New York Times, and other national publications. Dr. Kearse is a descendant of an enslaved woman and President James Madison. In March 2020, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt published her memoir The Other Madisons: The Lost History of A President’s Black Family. In this deeply personal memoir, Dr. Kearse reveals the obstacles, internal and external, she confronted while becoming her family’s oral historian, one determined to tell the whole story.

About the Filmmaker
Montes-Bradley is an independent filmmaker. He has produced and directed over forty biographical portrayals of distinguished artists and intellectuals including Rita Dove, Jorge Luis Borges, Julian Bond, and Alice Parker. Other relevant works in his prolific career as a filmmaker are “Samba on Your Feet”, a unique approach to Afro-Brazilian cultural traditions through music, and the evolution of Carnival. Eduardo’s “Che: Rise and Fall”, was released by National Geographic, and it’s been embraced by the critics as “one of the most relevant accounts of the life of the legendary Che Guevara”. On the same path of historical figures, he produced and directed “Monroe Hill”, a biographical approach to the life of James Monroe in times of the French Revolution deserving of an award by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, and “Evita”, a one-hour in-depth portrayal of the woman and the myth behind Argentina’s influential first lady. In addition, Montes-Bradley has collaborated creating award-winning photo-exhibits and documentaries for the University of Virginia, Museo de Bellas Artes, UNESCO, Ixtatán Foundation, University of Virginia, James Madison’ Montpellier and The Ron Brown Foundation. Montes-Bradley resides in Charlottesville and is currently working on Black Fiddlers, a documentary about the African experience on the birth of American folk music.

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