Two Trojans find ancestral link to each other — and the Underground Railroad

Before she officially became a Trojan, Cyan Shreve attended a USC Black Alumni Association Welcome Pinning Ceremony and made note of the name of one of the speakers: Lori Shreve Blake, senior director for career engagement at USC.

“I wanted to reach out to her partially because of her name but also because she just seemed like a really inspiring person,” said Shreve, a graduate student at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

Once Shreve started her studies at USC, she sent Shreve Blake an email to set up a career advising appointment. The meeting turned into a family reunion when the pair realized they have a trailblazing ancestor in common: Mary Ann Shadd Cary, an abolitionist who was the first Black woman in North America to publish a newspaper and one of the first Black women in the nation to earn a law degree.

“She is the rock star of the Shreve family,” Shreve Blake said. “I always knew I had this great-great-great-aunt who did marvelous things to help people be free. Mary Ann Shadd Cary for a long time has been our hero, and our connection to her has gone down the line from generation to generation.”

A pioneer in many ways

Shreve, who is writing a film about her famous ancestor, learned a great deal about Shadd Cary during her undergraduate studies at Howard University, where Shadd Cary had been the first female law student.

“It’s remarkable to be able to write something about a family member who inspires you,” she said. “I’m proud that she is my great-great-great-great-aunt.”

As they subsequently investigated their family tree, the women learned they are cousins with family roots in Buxton, Ontario. Many runaway enslaved people and free Black people sought refuge in Buxton during slavery and before Reconstruction.

Shadd Cary was born free in 1823 in the slave state of Delaware. Her parents were abolitionists whose home was a station on the Underground Railroad that helped enslaved African Americans escape from slave states in the South to free U.S. states or Canada.

The family moved to Pennsylvania when Shadd Cary was 10 because at that time in Delaware, Black children did not have the opportunity to be educated. Shadd Cary later set up a school for Black children in Pennsylvania and taught there and in other places.

She moved to Canada in 1851, a year after the U.S. Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act that mandated that all escaped enslaved people, even if found in free states, must be returned to their enslavers.

The law led to a wave of Black migration to Canada, where Shadd Cary opened a school for the growing refugee population. She taught racially integrated classes a full century before the U.S. Supreme Court desegregated public schools with its landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision.

“She is one of those people who can inspire so many in terms of what you can do to help a community despite the odds surrounding you,” Shreve said. “I think it’s important to tell the stories of these kinds of people.”

The enduring legacy of Shadd Cary

Associate Professor Allissa V. Richardson of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism said Shadd Cary was not only a pioneer because of her many “firsts.”

Richardson described her as “foundational” because she understood that the press could be a tool of liberation. Shadd Cary published her weekly newspaper, the Provincial Freeman, but started out using only her initials to conceal her identity as a woman.

“Through her newspaper work, she carved out a public sphere where Black intellect, mobility and self-determination could flourish across borders,” said Richardson, director of the USC Annenberg Charlotta Bass Journalism and Justice Lab, a Black media archive and experimental storytelling space.

“[Shadd Cary] refused the constraints placed on Black women in the 19th century and instead modeled what civic leadership could look like when anchored in courage and clarity,” Richardson said.

From Trojan Family to real family

Since meeting last year, Shreve and Shreve Blake have gotten to know each other well and even spent some time together over Thanksgiving. Shreve has also grown close to Shreve Blake’s daughter, a Trojan alumna around her same age.

“It’s really something that the Trojan Family connected us to real blood family,” said Shreve Blake, an only child. “There is this whole other arm of the Shreve family that I now know. I’m looking forward to future connections with cousins and family that I’ve never had.”

The connection might never have been made if Shreve Blake had not long ago decided to keep her maiden name.

“I’m a Shreve, and I’m a proud Shreve, and I’m an only girl,” Shreve Blake said. “I felt it was very important for me to keep my family name. Had I been Blake, we would have never met.”

Shreve said that to come to a new school and “meet someone that you’re actually related to” is something for which she will forever be grateful.

Richardson remarked that two descendants discovering their shared lineage through a moment of advising at USC feels fitting.

“Shadd Cary believed in education, in mobility and in using knowledge as a bridge,” she said. “Her legacy continues to bind generations in the work of possibility.”