Descended Author Talk with Keith Rushing (Washington, DC)

Apr 30, 2025 @ 7pm | Location: Politics and Prose at The Wharf, 610 Water St SW Washington DC, DC 20024

Apr 30, 2025 @ 7pm
Location: Politics and Prose at The Wharf, 610 Water St SW Washington DC, DC 20024
Hosted by: Politics and Prose

Join us for an author talk with Keith Rushing in conversation with author Rion Amilcar Scott. In his new book, Descended: Searching for My Gullah-Geechee Roots, a mysterious name prompts Keith to go on a journey to discover his family's past where he uncovers more than expected.

It began with a name. Sancho. Gleaned from the memory of his oldest living relative, that name set author Keith Rushing on a quest to recover his family's story.

Rushing came to learn that Sancho was an African name, a common practice among the Gullah-Geechee communities of the South Carolina and Georgia Sea Islands. He found that Sancho had been born into slavery on Hilton Head Island and later fought as a soldier in a war for self-emancipation. Rushing learned that after that war Sancho had become a small landowner. Above all, he discovered that his family's story was richer than he had ever imagined.

In Descended, Rushing recounts his own journey of discovery, and in the process unfurls a dramatic story about the transformation of Hilton Head. Descended is a story about family, place, and the desire to understand where we have been and where we are going.

Keith Rushing is a former reporter who worked at newspapers in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and California and now works as a communications strategist for an environmental nongov-ernmental organization. He has written blogs and commentary for the Huffington Post and Ebony.com among other online publications. Rushing grew up in Queens, NY, and now lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and two children.

Rion Amilcar Scott is the author of the story collection, The World Doesn’t Require You, a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. His debut story collection, Insurrections, was awarded the 2017 PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the 2017 Hillsdale Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. His work has been published in The New Yorker and a number of literary journals. He teaches Creative Writing at the University of Maryland.

View host event page.

Hosted by Politics and Prose.