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Boston Globe
19 hours ago
- General
- Boston Globe
A Tufts alum completed a fellowship. Lesson learned: he's related to his alma mater's founder.
In a way, the genealogical discovery has reinforced his career goals. He's pursuing a master's in history at the University of Virginia in the fall, with a focus on African American life during the Unlike many African Americans, Mosley grew up knowing some things about his family roots. He has many fond memories visiting the Lang Syne Plantation in South Carolina, where descendants of the people who labored on and around the land gather every other year to recognize their ancestors' legacies. Here, the seeds for his lifelong interest in genealogy were planted. Advertisement 'I was always interested in who my ancestors were, what their experiences were,' Mosley said. One branch of his family tree is somewhat documented. The Lang Syne Plantation is a historic landmark. Some characters in Scarlet Sister Mary , a 1929 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the Gullah people, are loosely based on a handful of his ancestors. Advertisement Mosley gained some research skills to supplement his family tree through the Within the program, students receive opportunities to learn about the communities that contributed to Tufts' legacy. 'That kind of place-based learning is really phenomenal, and creates all sorts of connections and opportunities that might otherwise be unavailable,' Field said. As a descendant of enslaved people in America, Mosley had a hunch that white people made up some branches of his family tree. But the documents available to him couldn't explain how. 'If you're doing African American genealogy in America, it's very difficult to get past that wall of slavery,' said John Hannigan, archivist and project manager for the SCL initiative. DNA filled in the gaps, Hannigan said, and 'opened up the entire realm ... back to the 17th century.' Mosley took an Jabez Weeks, a white overseer on the Lang Syne Plantation where Mosley's enslaved ancestors labored. Jabez Weeks and Mary Green, an enslaved woman, had a son, Mosley's fourth great-grandfather James. Once Mosley corroborated this, he worked backwards. He followed the paper trail of census records, estate records, and written genealogies his white ancestors left behind. He traced Jabez's lineage into North Carolina, into Falmouth, and finally landed with the Tufts family. Advertisement Mosley's family tree, like so many others, is long and hard to follow. But it goes something like this: Mary Lynde is Mosley's 12th great-grandmother. Sometime in the 17th century, her brother, Thomas Lynde, married Elizabeth Tufts, whose father is Peter Tufts Sr. Some 200 years later, Charles Tufts, one of Peter's descendants, would donate 100 acres straddling Medford and Somerville to a group of members from the Universalist Church to build what would later become Tufts University. Photo of Mary Weeks Bryant taken from a family album. A character from the 1929 Pulitzer-Prize winning novel Scarlet Sister Mary was loosely based on Bryant. (Jaiden Mosley) Jaiden Mosley Thus, 'the Tufts family are like my cousins,' Mosley said. When he made the connection, Mosley looked at his computer in shock. 'I'm caught up in my Blackness and my 'southerness,'' Mosley said. 'I didn't think I had any type of relation to New England, Boston, or Tufts.' Mosley's genealogical discovery adds more nuance to Tufts' legacy, said Heather Curtis, the director of the Center for the Humanities at Tufts. 'There's this sense that any school founded in the 1850s in the North would have nothing to do with slavery except for opposing it,' Curtis, a professor who is also a principal investigator for SCL, said. But 'just because we are in the North doesn't mean that the school and the Tufts family were not intricately intertwined with the slave trade and the slave economy.' Mosley's family story, Curtis said, is an 'incredible story' that captures some of these complexities. As Mosley pieced together his Tufts roots, he said he's had to grapple with shameful parts of his ancestors' pasts. One owned roughly 40 enslaved people. When the Civil War broke out, Jabez Weeks enlisted in the Confederate Army. Advertisement A pedestrian walked on the Tufts University Campus in Medford. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff On top of this, Mosley had to face a harsh reality: his connection to the Tufts family is most likely a product of sexual violence, a product of the one-sided power dynamic between white overseers and enslaved women in the American South. 'It's ugly history, but nonetheless, they are my ancestors,' Mosley said. When Mosley put the pieces of his family tree together, he did think about As Mosley learns more of his Tufts relatives, he hopes the contributions of his Black ancestors aren't overshadowed. His ancestors helped build a school for formerly enslaved children near where their plantation once stood. James Weeks, his fourth-great grandfather, helped organize African American voters during Reconstruction, and was supposedly lynched for his bravery. And at least two enslaved men ran away from their plantations and joined the Union Army. These stories are oral histories, family lore that Mosley has yet to support with evidence, but nonetheless stories that shape his sense of self. When exploring your family history, Mosley said, 'Just be open to the ugly, the interesting, the bad, the diverse experiences.' Tufts wasn't Mosley's first choice. But he believes in fate. 'I think I was meant to go here,' he said. Tiana Woodard can be reached at
CNBC
3 days ago
- Business
- CNBC
Why U.S. policies like baby bonds and child tax credits can't convince Americans to have kids
America's fertility rate is hovering around historic lows, with approximately 1.6 births per woman over her lifetime. This is below the level needed to sustain the population, which is 2.1 births per woman. "Our population will, in the not too distant future, start to decline," said Melissa Kearney, a professor of economics at the University of Maryland. "That's why this is an issue for governments and for the economy, and politicians are starting to pay attention." The economic implications of a shrinking population are broad. For example, fewer births mean fewer future workers to support programs like Social Security and Medicare, which rely on a healthy worker-to-retiree ratio. "The concern here in the U.S. is that if we see kind of dramatic declines in fertility, we will eventually see also kind of a drag on our economy and our capacity to cover all sorts of government programs like Medicare and Social Security," said Brad Wilcox, a sociology professor at the University of Virginia and director of the Get Married Initiative at the Institute For Family Studies. More from Personal Finance:House GOP bill calls for bigger 'pass-through' business tax breakTrump administration axes Biden-era barrier for crypto in 401(k) plansFewer international tourists may lead to 'staggering' economic losses Lawmakers from both parties have proposed various financial incentives to address declining fertility. The White House is considering lump-sum payments of $5,000 for each newborn, according to The New York Times. Last week, the House passed a massive tax and spending package that includes among other provisions, a bigger child tax credit and new "Trump Accounts" with $1,000 in seed money for newborns. However, Kearney said such policy measures are unlikely to meaningfully affect long-term fertility trends. "I think the kinds of financial incentives or benefits that we're providing just really aren't enough to really change the calculus of, a trade off of ... bringing a child into one's household or family," Kearney said. "That's an 18-year commitment. It's not just a one-year cost." The issue may go beyond money. It's common for fertility to decline during economic uncertainty, but it usually rebounds once the shock ends, experts say. Surprisingly, birth rates did not recover after the Great Recession. "That kind of caught a lot of demographers around the world flat-footed, because it also didn't happen in other countries," said Karen Guzzo, director of Carolina Population Center and a sociology professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "So this goes against a lot of this demographic history that we have, which led people to start thinking, okay, what exactly might be happening?" Even with stronger economic support, experts say America faces a deeper, more complex problem: a cultural shift in how people view parenthood itself. "More and more young adults are kind of assuming that what matters for them is their education, their money, and especially their careers," Wilcox said. Watch the video above to learn more about why government efforts to raise America's birthrate have struggled to address the deeper economic and cultural challenges.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
After contributions to Virginia, international students face uncertainty due to Trump's visa changes
The University of Virginia has been a critical benefactor of international students during the 2023-24 school year, according to NAFSA. (Sarah Vogelsong / Virginia Mercury) Virginia's colleges and universities could lose millions of dollars and thousands of jobs after the federal government froze international student visa interviews on Tuesday, mounted efforts to require all foreign students to undergo social media vetting and announced plans to 'aggressively revoke' Chinese students' visas. The actions, spearheaded by Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the behest of President Donald Trump's administration, are likely to disrupt international students considering attending any of the schools in the commonwealth. Over 21,000 international students were enrolled at Virginia colleges and universities in the 2023-2024 academic year, according to the National Association of Foreign Advisors' Association of International Educators. International students contributed $807.2 million to Virginia's higher learning institutions in the same period, NAFSA reported in its latest data. Tim Gibson, president of the Virginia Conference of the American Association of University Professors, said the student visa interview pause and other changes could negatively impact international students, who have proven to make positive contributions to U.S. universities and the commonwealth, and deter international students from pursuing an education in America, including Virginia. 'They just want to learn and they come here because they want to learn from us,' Gibson said, 'and they want to learn at American universities because American universities have a stellar reputation around the world for academic freedom, for having resources to support excellent undergraduate and graduate instruction, and for having the kind of freedom of an openness to explore the questions you want to explore and to make the contributions you want to make.' George Mason University, located in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia, was the highest recipient of funding from international students, receiving $207.5 million, ahead of Virginia Tech, the University of Virginia, VCU, and Northern Virginia Community College, which rounded out the top five institutions in the commonwealth with the most financial benefit from foreign students during the 2023-24 school year. Student visas are essential for international students to legally enter, reside, and study in the United States, including at institutions in Virginia, which, if foreign students stop attending, could face financial challenges since students from outside the U.S. pay higher tuition fees compared to in-state students. Since Tuesday, the administration has directed U.S. embassies and consulates, who are responsible for issuing visas, to suspend new visa interviews for international students seeking to study in the U.S. until further guidance is provided. The move comes after the administration accused some institutions, including Harvard University, of allowing antisemitism on campus. The administration is attempting to revoke Harvard's Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, which enables the university to enroll international students. A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration's attempt to do so, after Harvard filed a lawsuit to retain the right to admit international students. On Wednesday, Rubio announced the State Department along with the Department of Homeland Security will be revoking visas for Chinese students, including those with 'connections' to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in 'critical fields.' The agencies will be revising visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People's Republic of China and Hong Kong, Rubio's statement read. Gibson said the announcement is concerning for many students, especially graduate students, because they often bring their families who attend daycares and schools in the commonwealth. 'Now they're threatened with deportation for no reason other than paranoia, racism, and xenophobia,' Gibson said. 'Even just making a threat has irreparably harmed the international reputation of our universities and colleges.' In a statement on Tuesday, NAFSA said the latest action by the Trump administration is another 'misguided' and 'deeply troubling attack' against international students, who are facing arrests, visa revocations and threats to their ability to enroll in certain U.S. institutions. The association said it's also a waste of taxpayer funding to screen students who are already subject to extensive background checks, compared to business visitors and tourists. 'If the administration believes enhanced scrutiny is necessary, it should be applied uniformly — not selectively to students who have long contributed to American classrooms, communities, and cutting-edge research,' a NAFSA representative said. 'Moreover, there is no urgent justification to halt visa appointments while internal policy updates are considered. This only adds unnecessary delays, fuels uncertainty, and damages our reputation as a welcoming destination for global talent.' This week's actions aren't the first issues concerning international students the Trump administration has weighed in on. In January, the administration directed U.S. diplomats and consulates to refer certain student and exchange visitor visa applicants to its fraud prevention unit for mandatory social media checks, through two executive orders focused on protecting the country from foreign threats and combating antisemitism. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
3 days ago
- General
Harrison Ruffin Tyler, preserver of Virginia history and grandson of 10th US president, dies at 96
CHARLES CITY, Va. -- Harrison Ruffin Tyler, the last living grandson of U.S. President John Tyler born 83 years after his grandfather left the White House in 1845, died. He was 96. The cause of Tyler's death on Sunday was not immediately released. John Tyler was 63 years old when Harrison Tyler's father, Lyon Gardiner Tyler Sr., was born. And Harrison Ruffin Tyler was born in 1928 when that father was 75 years old and the presidential grandfather had been dead for more than 60 years. The grandson was known for preserving his grandfather's plantation and nearby Civil War fort. In a statement, Annique Dunning, the executive director of Sherwood Forest, a national landmark of President Tyler's residence, said the president's grandson, whose brother died in 2020, was a 'beloved father and grandfather, he will be missed immeasurably by those who survive him.' 'He will be remembered for his considerable charm, generosity and unfailing good humor by all who knew him,' Dunning said. Over the course of his life, Tyler preserved Sherwood Forest, his grandfather's plantation that enslaved dozens of people, including 43 people in 1860, just before the Civil War began. The grandson also helped restore and maintain Fort Pocahontas, a Union fort during the Civil War. Tyler's grandfather was a Democrat nicknamed the 'Accidental President' after unexpectedly assuming the presidency when President William Henry Harrison died in office. President Tyler was the first vice president to gain control of the White House in the wake of a death. The University of Virginia's Miller Center described the president as 'the last gasp of the Old Virginia aristocracy in the White House.' He had married twice and had 15 children, including Lyon Gardiner Tyler Sr. The time between the president's birth and his grandson's death spans 235 years.
3 days ago
- Politics
Harrison Ruffin Tyler, grandson of 10th US president, dies at 96
CHARLES CITY, Va. -- Harrison Ruffin Tyler, the last living grandson of U.S. President John Tyler born 83 years after his grandfather left the White House in 1845, died. He was 96. The cause of Tyler's death on Sunday was not immediately released. John Tyler was 63 years old when Harrison Tyler's father, Lyon Gardiner Tyler Sr., was born. And Harrison Ruffin Tyler was born in 1928 when that father was 75 years old and the presidential grandfather had been dead for more than 60 years. The grandson was known for preserving his grandfather's plantation and nearby Civil War fort. In a statement, Annique Dunning, the executive director of Sherwood Forest, a national landmark of President Tyler's residence, said the president's grandson, whose brother died in 2020, was a 'beloved father and grandfather, he will be missed immeasurably by those who survive him.' 'He will be remembered for his considerable charm, generosity and unfailing good humor by all who knew him,' Dunning said. Over the course of his life, Tyler preserved Sherwood Forest, his grandfather's plantation that enslaved dozens of people, including 43 people in 1860, just before the Civil War began. The grandson also helped restore and maintain Fort Pocahontas, a Union fort during the Civil War. Tyler's grandfather was a Democrat nicknamed the 'Accidental President' after unexpectedly assuming the presidency when President William Henry Harrison died in office. President Tyler was the first vice president to gain control of the White House in the wake of a death. The University of Virginia's Miller Center described the president as 'the last gasp of the Old Virginia aristocracy in the White House.' He had married twice and had 15 children, including Lyon Gardiner Tyler Sr. The time between the president's birth and his grandson's death spans 235 years.
