"I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids--and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me."

 - Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man"

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Chuck and Florence Pickett

Photo of the couple a dinner event.

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Virginia Ford

Photo of a young Virginia Ford, who was born on September 12, 1928. Virginia is the grandmother of Charles Ross...

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Annie Arnold Smith

Photo of Annie Smith. Dandridge Smith, son of Jane and Porter, was born on August 24, 1840.  He followed in his father’s footsteps and became a blacksmith. He stayed in the Gum...

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Gum Springs Marker

Gum Springs Hwy Marker.

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Granite Marker at Mount Vernon

Photo of the wording on the stone monument dedicated to those enslaved and buried at Mount Vernon slave cemetery. The Stone reads: "In memory of the...

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West Ford, 21 years of age

This is a pencil sketched drawing of a young West Ford (artist unknown). West Ford was born abt. 1784-1787, on the Bushfield Plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia. His mother, Venus,...

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Henry Shields Robinson

Henry S. Robinson was a certified genealogist and historian. Henry was born June 18, 1930. His father, Henry S. Robinson Sr., graduated from Howard University in medicine and his mother...

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William Ford III Family

William Ford III Family Photo.

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Spring Field Talk

Linda Allen Hollis speaks at the Springfield and Central Illinois African American History Museum honoring Major George W. Ford. 

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Janet Allen

Janet Allen at Mount Vernon, 1999.

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Son, Mother, Father at Camp Butler

Tombstones of George Ford and his son Noel Ford.  George's wife Harriett is buried between her husband and son at Camp Butler National Cemetery....

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Old Tomb George Washington

Photo of Linda at the old tomb of George Washington on the Mount Vernon plantation. There are two family tombs located at Mount Vernon. The "old tomb" was the original family crypt,...

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Young James and Elise

The couple right before they were married.

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Major George Ford

Photo of Major George Ford in his military uniform.  He was a Quartermaster Sergeant when he was honorably discharged on September 11, 1876, from the 10th Calvary. He was commended in...

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Author L. A. Hollis

Author photo, Linda also writes as Linda Allen Bryant

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West Ford, young

A drawing was commissioned by the Washington family on West Ford's 21st birthday and emancipation from slavery around 1805. West was born around 1785 or 1786 to Venus, his mother, on the...

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Judith at Mount Vernon

Dr. Burton on the steps at Mount Vernon. 

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Junior Dental Class 1918

Photo of Dr. Cecil Bruce Ford from the Meharry Medical School Dental Class 1918. Early on, Meharry functioned as the Medical Department of Central Tennessee College in Nashville for people of...

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Dolores Finley Ford

Wife of C. Bruce Ford. Dolores was an outstanding and well-known educator in Galesburg, Illnois.

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Bruce and Dolores in Detroit

Bruce and Dolores in Detroit, Michigan.

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