First Confirmed Descendants of Enslaved Person Who Helped Build White House Speak to ABC News
Calvert Ambush helped build the North Portico of the White House in 1829. In a groundbreaking discovery, ABC News and American Ancestors identified the first confirmed living descendants of an enslaved individual who worked on the White House.
Discovery and Interview
‘Good Morning America’ co-anchor Robin Roberts spoke exclusively with Jackie Smith Sullivan and her daughter Ashley Swain as they learned Swain’s fourth great-grandfather, Calvert Ambush, helped build the North Portico of the White House in the summer of 1829. ‘There’s a piece of him that’s inside of me,’ Swain said. ‘To understand whose blood is running through my veins…’.
Genealogical Search and Breakthrough
Researchers from American Ancestors spent over two years searching through records to find enslaved individuals who worked on the White House with traceable family lines. The team eventually identified Swain, a neuroscience Ph.D. and mother of three in Atlanta, marking a first-of-its-kind genealogical breakthrough. ‘This is needle in a haystack stuff,’ said Yale professor Vincent Brown.
