Welcome to the website of author and journalist Bill Sizemore.
Bill Sizemore spent eight years researching and writing the story of his slaveowning Virginia ancestors, their slaves, and the descendants of those slaves.
The author's great-great-great-grandfather was a small-time tobacco farmer in Mecklenburg County, Virginia. In contrast to large planters with hundreds of slaves, he was far more typical: He owned fewer than 20. The book traces the lives of generations of African-Americans who descended from his slaves, up to the present day.
Recent Blog Posts
A new, diverse take on slavery’s legacy
Slowly but surely, Americans are coming to grips with the painful legacy of slavery, our nation’s original sin. I told the story of my slave-owning…
See you at the Norfolk Author Fair
I’ll join about three dozen local authors hawking books at the second annual Norfolk Public Library Author Fair at the Slover Library in downtown Norfolk…
For Ralph Northam and Virginia, this could be a teachable moment
Here’s an op-ed I wrote for my old paper, The Virginian-Pilot, about Virginia’s current unpleasantness: I feel Gov. Ralph Northam’s pain. As a fellow…