I moved with my family to Houston in the mid-1950s, after being born in Mississippi to a newspaper clan (father, grandfather, and grandmother). After an initial degree from the University of Houston, I married a B-52 pilot (my “starter” marriage!) and moved to Abilene, Texas, where I directed the housing authority, developing Section 8 and public housing programs. Later, after moving back to Houston and divorce, I wandered a bit, spending time in public relations, marketing, museum work, and the hospitality/food business, and met/married Herman Kluge, a Houston musician, writer, and corporate real estate/facilities executive. With him at my side, I started graduate school in my early 40’s, and, after finishing a Ph.D. in archaeology at the University of Cambridge, have spent the next three decades as an historical archaeologist, specializing in the community/public archaeology of the African Diaspora. This work involved working collaboratively with descendants (in Houston’s Freedmen’s town and elsewhere) to use archaeology to build more critical understandings of both past and present. Together, we searched for ways to use archaeology to explore how racism, classism, and white privilege are both rooted in our bloodstained histories and continue today. (Yes, CRT is involved! 😉).