Covered by the Blood​

Elvie L. Barlow Sr. was always interested in his family’s history. When he began investigating that history, what he found was a story that became the book “Covered by the Blood: An African-American Family’s Journey from Slavery.”

“I am fascinated with history, especially American history,” Barlow said. “I began to discover and understand the important role my family and other African Americans played in American history. That discovery seems to unravel, the more I unraveled of my family’s genealogy, the more I wanted to dig deeper and discover more.”

The resulting book is a personal story documenting Barlow’s family from his great-great-great-great-grandmother Lydia Stephens in Charleston, S.C., to his own life story growing up in Albany, Ga.

Throughout the book, Barlow weaves historic facts with his own observations about what life must have been like for his ancestors and on the state of race relations today. Within the text, Barlow never hesitates to share his Christian faith.

In “Covered by the Blood,” Barlow takes readers through each generation to show just how far one family came from the time of slavery to great blessings in the modern era.

“Through his family’s life history Elvie Barlow has captured the tragedy and then triumph of Black Americans who endured slavery. Tracing his roots through documentation and family story-telling, readers are transported in time to a place and period in American history in which all men were not created equal. Their faith and family strength lead Mr. Barlow’s ancestors out of bondage. It is an inspirational story, to say the least.”  Gary Bonvillian, Ph.D., President, Thomas University