Brister English Project

Walter English is a genealogist, historian, educator, poet, author and Lula's grandson, whose work focuses on helping descendants of American chattel slavery recover the family histories slavery tried to erase. He is the founder of the Brister English Project, an initiative dedicated to helping Black families trace their ancestry by making genealogical research tools, historical records, and education more accessible to the Black community.

Through the Brister English Project, Walter has helped more than 180 families directly reconnect with family and uncover stories hidden inside of records connected to slavery, Reconstruction, and the Jim Crow era. The project maintains a growing public database of genealogy resources designed to help Black families navigate archives such as Freedmen's Bureau records, census records, court documents, and historical newspapers. Over 160 resources and still growing.

Walter is also building a community archive through the Brister English Project. An archive created for us, by us, focused on preserving the historical materials that often live in family homes, auction sites, and institutions. The archive will preserve photographs, letters, funeral programs, obituaries, family documents, and oral histories so communities can safeguard their own history. The historical information that is being preserved and transcribed through his work with Kindex will also be made available in this archive.

Walter has collaborated with cultural institutions and universities including the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, Princeton University, Seton Hall University, Newark Academy, American Institutes for Research, and the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, where he teaches Black genealogy, archival research methods, and historical documentation. His educational content reaches more than 250,000 people across social media platforms, and his work on Black genealogy and historical records has been featured in interviews, panels, and public programs with cultural institutions, libraries, and universities. Through educational videos, storytelling, and public lectures, he teaches people how to research their ancestry while providing deeper historical context about the records that document Black life in America. In addition to his historical research, he is a poet and author whose writing explores memory, history, love, and resistance, blending archival research with storytelling to restore voices and histories that were intentionally erased.