From slavery to today: The Black women who shaped America

"If you don’t understand the history of Black women, you don’t understand the history of America." Those words from Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison open Sasha Bonét's debut memoir, "The Waterbearers". The New York writer traces three generations of Black women in her family: her grandmother Betty Jean, the daughter of formerly enslaved people in Louisiana who went on to raise eleven children; her mother Connie, who sought a middle-class life in majority-white Houston; and Sasha herself, now raising her daughter Sofia in New York.

What begins as an intimate family story becomes something much bigger: a journey through slavery's legacy, racism, motherhood, violence, love and the ways trauma and resilience are passed from one generation to the next. Bonét also places her family history alongside the lives of other Black women who challenged the roles imposed on them, including artist and filmmaker Camille Billops, singer Betty Davis and civil rights figure Recy Taylor.

In this interview with Eve Jackson, Sasha Bonét talks about the women who shaped her, the uncomfortable truths of family history and what she hopes to pass on to her daughter. "The Waterbearers" is available now in English and French.

Sasha Bonét is appearing at Paris's Festival America this week.