Many scholars argue that eugenicistsвЂ™ efforts to prove what they already believed - that humans can be bred into a superior race - have hindered understanding of the diversity of the human genome. In modern classrooms, the work of eugenicists is often divorced from its origins and motivations, presented as morally neutral. The endeavor reached a low point with the rise of the eugenics movement, leading to many scientific and statistical methods that continue to be used today. Scientific advances in human genetics have largely prioritized the biology of people with European ancestry. The enslaved people who built and staffed the White House: An afterthought no more Their quest is focused on the Guerrero, an illegal slave ship that crashed along the coral reef off the coast of Florida in 1827. Archaeologists and scholars suspect thousands more dot coastlines beneath the surface.ДЄmong those searching for the vessels of the Middle Passage is a group of teenagers working with Diving With a Purpose, an international organization dedicated to preserving the heritage of the African diaspora lost to the oceansвЂ™ depths. Of the more than 10,000 slave ships that made voyages during the transatlantic slave trade, only five have been identified worldwide. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)ДЄs the international slave trade was outlawed in the early 19th century, many slave ships were repurposed for piracy, leaving little evidence of their former lives as vessels for human cargo. (Universal History Archive/Getty Images) RIGHT: The deck of a ship used to transport enslaved people. John Kimber holds a whip in a mid-18th-century scene on a British slave ship, depicted by Isaac Cruikshank in 1792. But the ClotildaвЂ™s discovery in August revealed the enslaversвЂ™ actions and highlighted the perseverance of the people onboard, giving their descendants a sense of validation and clarity that few descendants of slaves in America have experienced. The shackled Africans released onshore became the founders of Africatown.ДЇor generations, the lost ship left a hole in the story of the historical community. The captain had set fire to the vessel to avoid detection, causing it to sink into the Mobile River. The schooner that carried the enslaved Africans, called the Clotilda, is considered AmericaвЂ™s last known slave ship.ДЄs an artifact of American history, the Clotilda was lost for generations. They were carried from the West African nation of Benin in an illegal smuggling expedition financed by wealthy American businessman Timothy Meaher in 1860, decades after the transatlantic slave trade was abolished. Unlike most descendants of enslaved people, the residents of Africatown - a predominantly black community in Mobile, Ala. вЂњYou can find them through tax records, estate records, slave schedules and wills,вЂќ said Mary Elliott, the вЂњSlavery and FreedomвЂќ curator for the National Museum of African American History and Culture. To penetrate the brick wall, black Americans frequently must rely on the names of their ancestorsвЂ™ owners. Genealogists refer to this as вЂњthe brick wall,вЂќ an obstruction in African American lineage that dates to 1870 when the federal Census began recording African descendants - 250 years after they were first hauled in chains to what would become the United States.Д«efore then, their lives existed on paper only as another personвЂ™s property. Family trees go dark after five or six generations, a reminder that 150 years ago, black people werenвЂ™t considered people. But for Americans descended from enslaved Africans, the roots of their ancestry are often a mystery. The mosaic of hyphenated heritages preserves cultural connections beyond the United States, lineages that build pride and a sense of belonging. For many Americans, blended ancestry is an integral part of their identity.

History of black america