How a history teacher discovered her storied Minneapolis roots

How a history teacher discovered her storied Minneapolis roots

Barbara Hilyer had never been to Minneapolis before this week. But her journey to the city to speak about her book, “Legacy Lost: Passing Across the Color Line,” is a kind of homecoming.  In 1882, Hilyer’s great-grandfather, Andrew Franklin Hilyer, became the first African American to graduate from the University of Minnesota. He went on to become a prominent civic leader in Washington, D.C. His son, her grandfather Gale Pillsbury Hilyer, Sr., f…