When Your Family History Isn’t What You Thought: Cross-Examining Your History with Steve Jensen

What would you do if you discovered that someone you admired in your family history had participated in slavery and racial violence?In this episode of Mind, Money & Medicine, Favour speaks with Steve Jensen, a former trial attorney and author of Healing White History, who turned the skills he spent decades using in courtrooms toward a deeply personal investigation of his own family history.Steve discovered that his third-great-grandfather, Charles Arden Russell, was not simply the accomplished lawyer, surveyor, county judge, and family figure he had once admired. His research uncovered Russell’s involvement in slavery and the Knights of the Golden Circle, along with records connecting him to efforts to suppress Black political power and opposition to abolition.Rather than simply documenting what he found, Steve took a different approach. Drawing on years of research into family records, historical documents, speeches, letters, and other sources, he began writing imagined conversations with his ancestors—questioning them about their actions and the beliefs they used to justify them.We talk about what it means to confront uncomfortable parts of your family history, how families can preserve both love and harmful legacies, and why Steve believes understanding history becomes different when you can put names, dates, and personal stories to it.Steve also shares how his work on racial equity, his son’s marriage to a Black woman, and becoming a grandfather to three Black children changed the way he understood his family’s history—and his own responsibility toward it.This conversation isn’t about inherited guilt. It’s about looking honestly at where we come from, understanding how the past can shape the present, and deciding what we want to carry forward.Explore Steve Jensen’s Work📖 Healing White History on Substack: Healing White History⁠Steve’s Substack includes his work on confronting family history and his framework for helping others begin examining their own.Stay Connected with Mind, Money & MedicineFollow Mind, Money & Medicine on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and subscribe on YouTube for more thoughtful conversations about identity, personal growth, relationships, health, career, history, and the experiences that shape who we become.