Hey, hey, what's up? It's Gustav Ariano, and today we're turning over the mic to one of my awesome LA Times colleagues.

Erin Logan covers national politics in DC Bureau and brings us a story of a family's heirloom and how it made its way to the Smithsonian.

When I was in grade school, I envied my classmates who would go on tangents about their family tree.

Their ancestors came to America from Europe, Asia, and other places around the world.

They had pictures and birth records and family heirlooms.

All I could offer is that I came from sharecroppers in the deep south,

and they were enslaved on plantations in Mississippi and Alabama.

And then before that, they came to America in shackles and on slave ships.

Beyond that, I don't know their names or even where in Africa they came from.

It's all a black hole.

That's a common experience for the descendants of enslaved Americans like me.

Our family history was taken from us through kidnapping, family separation, and violence.

So when I learned about the story of the Diggs family, I was intrigued.

This is their journey.

We are walking through the lobby.

It's very fun, very clean, clear.

In April, I met Denise Diggs at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

in Washington, D.C.

She said follow her.

Oh.

She didn't tell me that.

She said wait here.

...