Who would you be if you didn't know who you were?
You might be a standout basketball player whose talents took him on globe-trotting journey to ply his trade the world over. You might have a career that not only brings you happiness and fulfillment but opens your eyes to new ideas, new theories and new ways of viewing yourself and the world around you. The people you meet and their influence on you, and yours on them, leads you to seek and search for answers to questions you never had.
How would you start?
What would you do?
It's kind of hard to say, right? Not knowing isn't something we're taught to accept, as people. There's a market to find out, if you're so inclined, your origins and your lineage and how you came to be whomever you are.
For some of us.
For the people who hopped on a ship of their own free will and accord and came to this country, finding your ancestry is not terribly difficult. The people with ties to the first folks who came over here are rather fond of that fact (your humble narrator is, distantly, of the Meriweather clan that arrived in Jamestown before 1500 and will occasionally receive mail reflecting such status) and the subsequent immigrants who came over via the traditional ports of call like Ellis Island left an actual, literal ledger of the endeavor.
Not everyone got to arrive here in such comforts. Some came in chains, in the bowels of ships reeking to high heaven of people and waste and the reality of traversing an ocean without all the comforts of things we take for granted—plumbing, for instance, or non-perishable food, or the opportunity to not be sold into a life of bondage from total strangers to other, possibly even more evil, total strangers.
Modernity makes it possible to search for who we are and learn where we came from, but it's not perfect. There are stops and starts. If you want to travel that road, it can be difficult and lead you to some answers to questions that might make you uncomfortable. It's going to be tough. There's no telling what you might find.
Drake Reed has traveled it. And now he wants to help others do so, by hearing his story and offering his services with Sankofa Global Exchange, his genealogy company specializing in helping people of African descent affected by the trans-Atlantic slaved trade.
Since his time in Clarksville as a standout for Austin Peay State University men's basketball team, Reed has plied his trade all over the globe. In his travels, he's learned a lot, and one of the biggest eye-openers he gleaned from teammates of African descent he played alongside.
"In particular of all the countries I played in, France was the country where I played with the most African teammates," he said. "They had a lot of questions for me, and I of them. Over time, I just felt I was in a bad situation to not know my origins. They would ask questions I couldn't answer—'why do you say you're African-American, when we identify with our home countries?' or questions about slavery and racism in America. I was shocked and confused by a lot of things. As time went on, I had to figure out where I'm from. Outside of this country, no matter the race, people know where they're from, down to the city, the country, the village. I had to figure it out."
One thing Reed has never been wont to do is sit around when action is required. On or off the court, he's going to take the time to put in the work. And tracing lineage and learning about your genealogy, particularly from a time when your ancestors were considered sub-human by the people who brought them here in the first place. It requires research, sacrifice, diligence. It's basically a second job.
But it's worth it.
"An ancestral journey is powerful on every level. It doesn't matter where you from or who you are, when you start looking into the past you're really looking into the present because your DNA is complete from everyone who came before you. As you research more and more, you get different things opening up to you that were already there, lying dormant."
Reed's journey took him around this country—please listen to the accompanying podcast that dives deeper into his story, and listen to his words for the complete story of Thomas and Annie Word, because it is powerful—and across the Atlantic Ocean, to Mali. From prior to their enslavement, taken up the Senegal River to Cuba, where they were split up, to New Orleans, Galveston and West Helena, Arkansas, Reed found what he was looking for on this side of the pond and found proof he could take back to Mali to continue tracking his lineage.
His DNA test pegged him with Mandinkan heritage on his mother's side. As he began reading more about the Mandinkas, he discovered that many of the surnames he was reading about were the surnames of many of his teammates in France—"Turns out, they were descended from those kings and warriors, and I come to find out I'm playing and practicing for years against guys who were my brothers," Reed said.
Mali was life-affirming, and life-changing, for Reed on levels great and small.
"The reception I got from people was that of a long-lost relative who came home," he said. "Everyone welcomed me with open arms. I felt totally safe. We're missing this from our culture; we don't know these types of places exist, but they do and I've been there, many times.
"We come from a peaceful place, a powerful place. Mali literally means, 'The Land Where Kings Live.' I come from a place that's regal, and to not know that for the majority of my life puts me at a disadvantage mentally and spiritually. Had I known that from an early age, it could have changed my entire reality."
On the final day of his first visit to Mali, another, wholly-unexpected, thing happened to change the trajectory of Reed's life.
"The last day I was in Mali, one of my former teammates hit me up and asked me to meet with his former coach while I was there," he said. "So I go into this hotel and meet this coach, who happened to be a French coach who knew who I was and knew I could play. The coach and a man from the Malian sports federation sat down with me and started asking me questions about my history and I explained about the research I had been doing and the reason I was visiting the village. They were amazed I could prove that and were impressed I had come that far and invited me to be part of the national team. How could I say no that? This is where my ancestors are from, I'd be honored to. And right then we started working on the process, taking passport photos, working on my petition to the government to become naturalized.
"I could have met anyone, but I met them and here I am watching them get everything organized to help me. I guess they noticed that I was kind of in a daze, because they asked me what was wrong and I was like, 'You don't understand, my ancestors were taken from here hundreds of years ago and I've just been here for a few days and I'm about to get it all back.'"
The story of his genealogical pursuits almost overshadows what Reed has done internationally as a basketball player, but his lengthy overseas career with Argentina, Austria, France and Italy among his stops. He's done the same thing in his international stops that he did as a Gov—the dirty work, the banging with taller guys down low and using his sturdy build and nose for the ball to negate any perceived height disadvantage he might have. His shooting splits remained solid across the board, and he even became a sharpshooter from three when the situation called for it, hitting 40 percent from deep in 2013-14 with Souffelweyersheim in France.
He didn't go looking for the opportunity to wear Mali across his chest and represent his ancestors on an international stage, but when the opportunity arose, he couldn't turn it down.
In February, Reed helped Mali qualify for AfroBasket 2021, averaging 9.3 points and 1.7 rebounds as one of the veteran leaders of a Malian team seeking its first medal in the men's basketball continental championship of Africa since 1972. The full tournament will take place August 24-Sept. 5 in the Rwandan capital Kigali.
And here again, the basketball itself was only a sliver of a larger, more meaningful story.
"When I got to Afrobasket, to Tunisia, I was supposed to wear a jersey with Reed on the back, since as far as rules go that's my name," he said. "I had them make a jersey with Keita on the back, my ancestral last name, just as a keepsake. But they made a mistake and gave me the same uniform number as one of my Malian teammates and they didn't have time to make a new jersey while we were there so they had to petition FIBA to let me wear the jersey with my ancestor's name on the back, and that just further confirms that it's meant to be. I got to play a whole tournament with my real last name, the name that truly is the family line. There's just no words for that.
"It's something I'll never forget. I've done a lot in the game of basketball, I've won games, I've won championships, I've played a lot of big games. Nothing has amounted to this. To know who I am, my family name, and to represent it, is priceless."
