GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) — As the country approaches 250 years of independence, we’re looking back at the Revolutionary War and the people whose service helped shape the nation’s history. Part of that history sits in the Triad with the Battle at Guilford Courthouse preserved as Guilford Courthouse National Military Park.
Some of that history is still being uncovered nearly two and a half centuries later through efforts to identify Black patriots who served, some in roles overlooked.
Spirit of the Piedmont 250 | Discover the history of America’s fight for independence here in North Carolina.
“It was very different walking through the park, realizing the absence of representation of the 40-plus that fought here,” said Sage Chioma, descendant of Black Patriot Ishmael Titus. “It’s bittersweet.”
Families like Chioma’s are still connecting their own histories to the Revolutionary War thanks to one family member who just kept digging.
“My cousin was a gunnery sergeant in the Marines, and when he got back after 12 years in the Marines, he spent a lot of time with his granddad, and he made a commitment to himself that he would search for the line of the ancestors and his grandfather’s siblings,” Chioma said. “And somehow he stumbled into the 1800s, and he’s the historian of our family because it’s his passion, and he just discovered the Titus line.”
She later realized she had been walking through that history for years at Guilford Courthouse National Military Park in Greensboro, which commemorates the March 15, 1781 Battle of Guilford Courthouse…