Palmetto Publishing Releases Former Congressman Melvin L. Watt's Autobiography Tracing Six Generations From Slavery to Congress
Newly published by Palmetto Publishing, The Sixth Generation chronicles one Black family's unbroken 200-year journey from an enslaved ancestor captured in West Africa to the halls of American power.
Charleston, SC, July 29, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Palmetto Publishing has released The Sixth Generation, the autobiography of Melvin L. Watt, the former U.S. congressman and Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency who traces his family lineage across six generations, beginning with an enslaved woman captured in West Africa in 1789. The book is now available in print and digital formats.
Watt's memoir opens in the rural community of Dixie near Charlotte, North Carolina, where he grew up in an unheated four-room house with no electricity or indoor plumbing. From that starting point, the narrative follows his path through segregated schools, a Phi Beta Kappa undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina, and admission to Yale Law School. After graduating from Yale in 1970, Watt interned at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and then joined Julius Chambers’ civil rights law firm in Charlotte, where he practiced for more than two decades and managed history making political campaigns for others before serving in Congress and heading the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
The Sixth Generation does not present that trajectory as a simple arc of triumph. Watt writes candidly about the doubts, fears, and insecurities that racism inflicted at every stage of his life. He describes what it cost to navigate politics, law, and institutional power as a Black man in America. During 21 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, he led the effort to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act, fought to protect affordable housing, and chaired the Congressional Black Caucus. In 2013, he accepted a presidential appointment to oversee the United States housing market. Each chapter measures personal progress against systems that were not designed to foster or accommodate it.
The book enters a publishing landscape shaped by sustained reader interest in multigenerational Black American memoir. It shares thematic ground with works such as Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns, Sonia Sotomayor's My Beloved World, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Lovely One, each of which found large audiences among politically engaged readers drawn to first-person accounts of identity, class, and systemic barriers. Watt's account, which spans from the late eighteenth century to the present day, offers a rare family record that connects the history of American slavery directly to contemporary federal power. The book is positioned for readers of history, politics, law, and family narrative across all demographics.
The Sixth Generation is available for purchase online at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and MelWattBook.com.
About the Author: Melvin L. Watt (“Mel”) was born in 1945 in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina where he attended segregated public schools. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of North Carolina in 1967, earned his law degree from Yale University Law School in 1970, and practiced law in a civil rights firm in Charlotte from 1971 to 1993. He served one term in the North Carolina State Senate. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1992 and served for 21 years before being nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. He served a five-year term as FHFA Director from 2014-2019. Mel and his wife, Eulada, reside in Charlotte.
Media Contact: giveemmel5@gmail.com
Available for interviews: Author, Melvin L. Watt
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Leah Joseph Palmetto Publishing katarina@palmettopublishing.com
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