As a child growing up in Plainville, Connecticut, Maurice A. Barboza was fascinated by a picture that hung in his grandmother's living room of his great great grandfather dressed in a civil war uniform. 

As an adult working in Washington, D.C. in 1978, curiosity led him to the U.S. Archives where he found the man's war records.

Eventually, Barboza traced his ancestry to a white patriot of the American Revolution.  His grandmother, his only grandparent born in the U.S., was of mixed parentage.  Her father was white; her mother was black. 

Two years later, on the suggestion of black genealogist Charles L. Blockson, he joined the Sons of the American Revolution, with ease.

Patriots Memorial Founder,

Maurice A. Barboza

The idea for The Patriots Memorial arose from a black man's search for his family's roots.