Making Peace with the Past

Tom DeWolf and I penned an article that has just appeared in the Oklahoma Humanities magazine. The them of the issue is “reconciliation” and our contribution is entitled “Making Peace with the Past.”

Oklahoma was one of the stops on the road trip we took last year to inform the writing of our book. It was a moving experience in many ways. For me, it provided an opportunity to connect with one of my ancestors — Owen Gavin — who lived in Pottawatomie County. His story is told in our article along with an account of the Tulsa race riot and our thoughts about how to use this horrific history to heal.

There are many illuminating stories in this issue and we are proud to be a part of it.

Here is the link to our article: http://www.okhumanities.org/Websites/ohc/images/Magazines/summer_2012/making_peace_with_the_past.pdf

Hilltop Haints

I just returned from the national gathering of Coming to the Table. This is the group that brought Tom and I together in 2008 and led to our collaboration in writing Gather at the Table. The group has grown a lot since then.

Sixty-five inquisitive, motivated souls gathered at Richmond Hill, a location of enormous historical importance. We spent a weekend engaging in dialogue about history, slavery, racism, and healing. As the birthplace of both America and American slavery, Virginia (not to mention Richmond) held deep meaning for us all.

Over the course of the weekend, Tom and I made a presentation about our book to an enthusiastic audience. The many compliments we received for our reading inspired hope that our book can become a best seller. I also led a genealogy workshop to teach people how to do both forward and reverse research to discover linked descendants. During my personal time, I spent several hours at the Library of Virginia, a leading research center for genealogists and historians.

The great irony for me was finding out that the man who gave the city of Richmond its name in 1737 is connected to the family I am researching in Mississippi. William Byrd gazed out over the horizon at what is now Richmond Hill in 1737 and named the town for his birthplace at Richmond-on-Thames, England. One of Byrd’s descendants, Bathia Byrd, married Charles Gavin — the great grandfather of Robert Gavin — the man who fathered 17 children with my GGGrandmother, Bettie Warfe.

It is a small world indeed when one can time travel through centuries and find such profound connections. That idea is even more poignant when considering that Richmond Hill is so near to St. John’s Church, where Patrick Henry delivered his speech that extolled: “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!” Richmond went on to become the capitol of the Confederate states. Richmond Hill is today an ecumenical retreat center focused on prayer, healing, hospitality and reconciliation.

This experience reminded me once again how powerful ancestral spirits can be. The bright ones stand with us as we attempt to heal from the traumas of slavery and racism. There was a great deal of talk about that over the weekend — along with a heap of praying and reconciling.

My takeaway from all this is the satisfaction of knowing that many people see things the way I do. Our “hidden wound” longs to be healed and there are at least 65 people on planet Earth who are committed to transformation. It was powerful indeed to sit atop Richmond Hill in unity, gazing out at a future we will help unfurl.

After processing my feelings on the long drive back home, I arrived to updated news about the Obama family being eviscerated yet again; women under assault over reproductive rights; growing outrage over the murder of a boy named Trayvon Martin and the impending trial of a soldier who massacred 16 people in Afghanistan.

When Gather at the Table goes on sale on October 9, our greatest hope is to be a beacon of light in a dark and scary world.

Ashay… ashay… to the ancestors who brought us this far.

NEW HOPE

I spent my entire day glued to the television, fully involved in sharing the home going service for Whitney Houston. I could not believe how riveted I was to the drama unfolding on the screen. At many points, there were tears in my eyes and a choke in my throat.

People who know me, know that I am not an overtly religious nor sentimental person. I hardly ever watch television. And I am definitely not a celebrity stalker, even though I have worked with many celebrities in my professional life. So what happened today surprises me more than I can tell you.

What I saw today was something oh so familiar. It was a heartfelt expression of the faith tradition I embraced in high school after early years of being a sedate Catholic. At 15 years old, there was no turning back once I experienced the comraderie of the Liberty Baptist Church family who embraced me; the rousing ministry of music by no less than three choirs (including the youth choir in which I sang); the eloquent and emotional preaching of the Gospel by our pastor, Rev. Abraham Patterson Jackson.

In anticipation of the start of today’s service for Whitney Houston, a commenting minister reminded viewers that it was the African American faith tradition that carried us through the hard times of slavery and the civil rights struggle; that healed us in the wake the bombing of four little girls in Birmingham and, by inference, the murder of our King of Peace (Martin Luther King)  and our shining Prince  (Malcolm X). CNN commentators repeated several times that Whitney’s mother, Cissie Houston, “brought the world to church today.” And indeed she did.

Kevin Costner spoke candidly of the racial dynamic of casting Whitney in her first movie, along with sharing stories of his own Baptist upbringing (surprise!). Dionne Warwick kept viewers on the path to deliverance. Tyler Perry showed us that he is so much more than Madea (and could have a second career as a preacher). Potter’s House pastor T.D. Jakes reminded us that “love is stronger than death.”  Alicia Keys cried out to an angel. Donnie McClurkin urged us to “Stand.”  The maligned R. Kelly sang out his heart with “I Look To You.” And then…. Pastor Marvin Winans extolled us to get our priorities in order. Stevie Wonder put us notice to get our act together “quickly” because the time for change is NOW. Even the pall bearers … when they hoisted Whitney’s stunning platinum casket onto their shoulders…. Ooooooooooooooooo what a moment.   That is not all I saw, just a few of the many extraordinary moments that touched my heart.

Seeing this live, unadulterated presentation of a a real church service — one that is all too familiar to African Americans everywhere — exponentially increased my pride in being black — a member of a cultural community that has always  and incontrovertibly been an incredible example of strength, perseverance, forgiveness and spirituality.

As I digest today’s experience, it makes me think about the work Tom and I are trying to do: Bring people to the “church of reconciliation.”

I can’t help but believe that white people have a lot to learn from us. They need to stop having knee-jerk reactions… stop crucifying our black president for what he is trying to do…. stop trying to find “a great white hope”… stop living in fear that history, as heinous as it is, will come back to hurt them.

Let the world say AMEN!

Family Reunion

Gavin Road, Noxubee County, Mississippi

I just returned from a family reunion. It was attended by people, old and young, who have been getting together for more than 30 years. I had never known any of them until we met this weekend at the Elliot School of International Studies at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.  I was scheduled to deliver a genealogy presentation that would help explain how we are all related. I did my best.

Everyone at the reunion is connected, either through genetic or affinitive relationships, emanating from a Scottish immigrant named Charles Gavin. Charles arrived in America in 1695; one of a group of twelve led by his father-in-law. The group settled in North Carolina and became quite prosperous owners of land and slaves. Charles’ children spread their wings as economic opportunities became available; migrating into Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, where they also owned lots of land and slaves.

My job at the family reunion was to share what I have learned through genealogical research over the last three decades. Supported by documents that prove my findings, I put it all into an historical context that was easy for people who are not genealogists to understand. As I delivered my presentation, I was greeted with stunned silence, followed by ovations. For the first time, everyone in the audience was given the opportunity to see a coherent picture of our history and relationships. We finally had a place to “belong.”

The part of the Gavin family history that involves me (and the people at the family reunion) starts in Mississippi. Just as  Charles had come to America, they went to Mississippi as a group. They arrived sometime around 1831, after the signing of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, which ceded Native American lands to the U.S. government. The treaty created a major bonanza for people like the Gavins and they took full advantage.

In this quest for economic advancement, the ancestors I claim had nothing to celebrate. They were slaves. It was their free labor that built the Gavin franchise.  Collectively, the Gavin family owned at least 125 people in five counties. And that was just in Mississippi. Family members also had plantations in Alabama, South Carolina and Florida. After the Civil War, they even went to Brazil as “Confederadoes” and owned coffee plantations and slaves there as well.

Our side of the configuration forces a confrontation with the proverbial “nig—- in the woodpile.” At least two Gavin men fathered children with female slaves. In my line, that slave woman was Bettie Warfe. She was taken to Mississippi from Virginia as a nine year old child by John Warf, an ambitious man who hoped to cash in on the frontier bonanza. He bought some land near the Gavins in Noxubee County, Mississippi and proceeded to cultivate cotton, just like them. But he didn’t do as well as they did. In the wake of the Civil War, he cashed in, selling his land and slaves. He traded Bettie to the Gavins for a horse and ventured further onward into Mississippi, where he bought a farm christened “Starvation Hill.”

My ancestor (Bettie) had 17 children with  a scion of the Gavin family. He was the nephew of  another Gavin who fathered children with yet another slave woman. His name was Gabriel. Her name was Harriett. She had four children with him. Owned by Gabriel’s father (remember Charles? Gabriel was one of his sons), Harriet ultimately became part of an inheritance. Charles’ will left his slaves to his wife Margaret. When she died in 1853, these slaves were distributed to the next generation. In 1853, Harriet and her children were broken up and dispersed to other family members (not the father of her children), where they would continue their servitude.

When both this man (Gabriel) and his nephew (my ancestor) died, the family fought tooth and nail to keep their wealth. Neither of them left anything whatsoever to their offspring. Both were adjudicated by law to be lifelong bachelors with no heirs.  My slave ancestor (Bettie) fought the estate of her children’s father for five years after he died in 1896. She was ultimately “settled” in 1902 with $125 and an admonition to “get out of Mississippi before we start treating you like the nig……s you are.”

My “little” story is just one in a cavalcade of historical rumination. African Americans have a long and arduous history that reaches from the cotton fields of the South to the industrial cities of the North. We provided the labor that built America — literally. We are the only American immigrants who did not come here by choice and, over the four centuries we have been in this land, have contributed in every possible way to the evolution of American society.

I have a hard time coming to terms with all this history. Engaging in a journey with Tom DeWolf, who descends from the largest slave trading family in American history, and writing Gather at the Table, is my attempt to find resolution and peace. Attending the Gavin family reunion is another.

Our ancestors struggled too long and too hard to be forgotten and I am firmly committed to the idea that we can empower our future by honoring our past. I can think of no better way to do that than by researching my genealogy and seeing life through my ancestor’s eyes. Tom has asked me why I don’t claim the white part of my ancestry. If you read the story above, I wonder: Would you?

Once my research led me to the GAVIN surname, a door was opened for me to journey to courthouses, cemeteries and farms all over Mississippi. Whenever I go, I do my best to walk consciously in the footsteps our ancestors left behind. I have been all over Africa, the Caribbean and America. I have been to every county in Mississippi where I found the Gavin name. I have spent days poring over books and microfilms in the research hall of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in Jackson. I have been to what remains of the Gavin family farm in Noxubee County — along the road that still bears their name. I crossed a cow pasture to explore the Gavin graveyard, carrying a machete to cut back weeds and wearing boots to deter snakes. I drove through Gabriel Gavin’s Sandy Land plantation and found a place still known as “The Quarters.” This is, no doubt, the historical location where the slaves (the ancestors whom I proudly claim and honor) lived.

Farther afield, I have walked the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where civil rights demonstrators were beaten and incarcerated on “Bloody Sunday” so that my great grandparents could exercise their right to vote. I went to Bryant’s Store in Money, Mississippi to witness where a boy named Emmett Till made a fatal mistake. I visited Tuskegee Institute, where my grand uncle (a child of rape by a white man against a black woman) learned the electrical trade. I stood at “The Forks in the Road,” a slave market at Natchez, Mississippi where my ancestors might have been bought or sold. I have been to Mocambique, where DNA testing said the genes of my ancestor, Bettie Warfe Gavin, were born.

There is a bitter memory associated with almost every location I have visited. Yet, every time I venture forth, I am reminded of a paradox. As bitter as the memories may be, the South is the only homeland most African Americans will ever know. And Africa is a great mystery we may never discern. No matter where we live now, these are the places that, through genealogy, should live forever in our hearts.

There is much we need to know, not only about our ancestors, but about the times in which they lived. A good genealogist is also a good historian. We know that we can’t impose the standards of our modern world on the conditions of the past. Yet, I continue to try and come to terms with the gravity of history that juxtaposes against my own personal family story. I truly want to find a place in my heart where forgiveness resides. It will be obvious from this essay that it ain’t easy.

It is high time that America get over it’s obsession with race. I know that and appreciate the call. In response, I engaged in this “healing journey” that Tom and I are on; hoping to deliver a book that will help show the way for others to reconciliation and peace. It continues to be a journey that is fraught with anguish on my side. I can only hope that I am up to the challenge.

Lawd, help me!

My Daddy Is a Cool Dude

"Big Sister"

In 1969, I was an 18 year old mother with a baby on my hip. Like every other parent, I was determined — in spite of the odds against me — to raise a child who was healthy, both physically and emotionally. I was determined to feed his body with healthy food and to nourish his evolving intellect with stories that reflected our culture. To my dismay, there were virtually no books that heralded the stories and images of black people. We were being maligned in every way and most certainly ignored by the publishing industry.

And then there was a blooming. “Black Power” was in effect. Lucille Clifton, Mari Evans and Nikki Giovanni came into the market with  books written specifically for black children; illustrated with beautiful black images. Giovanni’s Spin A Soft Black Song was the first book I added to my son’s library in 1971.

Inspired by the creativity of fellow writers and the publishing industry’s apparent change of heart, I wrote my own book: My Daddy is a Cool Dude. My husband, an incredibly talented artist, created the illustrations. The book sold well and was nominated for a Caldecott Medal. I only got one bad review — in the New York Times no less.

It’s been a long time since that day in 1975 of my first foray into publishing. There I was, an African American woman — a “ghetto girl” of “dubious distinction” whose voice was not valued or considered — the author of a book that was published to acclaim by a major publishing house (The Dial Press).

Since then, I have authored numerous magazine articles and other short form material, written by a voice longing to be heard. Yet, writing is something I have mostly done on behalf of others. It has generally been hidden behind the names of clients.

I believe I have talent and I have very definite opinions about a lot of things. I have never been reticent about arguing my point of view when I believe something is right.  But this “healing journey” I am on with Tom has challenged some very basic assumptions I hold dear … about race, culture, patrimony — many things I have never been challenged (especially by a white man) to think about. That is because it has always been a fact of life that I am black and that what I think meant little in the vast world of European domination.

Today, I am engaged in process that is difficult and painful. Just like that first book, writing Gather at the Table is an ordeal of conscience. I want to use my ability to express myself in writing… to tell the truth (my truth) … to affect people’s hearts and minds. Because our subject matter is so big and profound, that is a tall order for even the best of writers.

With this book, I am not quite sure how to communicate what I want to say. I am also not so sure about how much I am willing to share about my beliefs and feelings with others. After all, what is written and published will endure in the public domain forever. If I go against the prevailing point of view, I may be ostracized even more than is my historic inheritance.

The one thing I do know is that I can’t change anyone. I can only present what I believe to be true and hope that others will find value in what I say. In the end, people change themselves. On the issue of race and reconciliation, I continue to be intrigued by what inducement is necessary to change the paradigm. I hope we have not gone so far into the abyss of prejudice — my own and that of others — to be beyond redemption.

I have waited 35 years to write another book. I guess it took me this long to realize I have something else important to say. Dare I say it?

The Promised Land

When I was a child, many of my friends were recent arrivals from the South whose families came north during “The Great Migration.” Those of us who were born in Chicago sometimes laughed at their funny accents and country ways. There were also many children who disappeared every summer. When school let out for vacation, their parents sent them south to experience country life with their grandparents.

I was not one of those children. Although I have undeniable roots in Alabama and Mississippi, I was not born there nor did I have grandparents in those locations to spend my summers with. I didn’t visit the South until I was a married woman with a child of my own. I have been making pilgrimages back at almost every opportunity since.

My journeys take me to a lot of old courthouses, cemeteries and farms. As a genealogist, I believe the best way to appreciate the truth about my ancestors is to walk in their footsteps. And that is one of the things I did during my most recent excursion with Tom DeWolf.

Together, we visited the courthouse in Forrest County, Mississippi; a county named for Nathan B. Forrest, a Confederate general and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. We also went to Money, Mississippi where we saw the dilapidated remains of the general store where Emmett Till purportedly whispered at the proprietor’s wife, Carolyn Bryant. We walked the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma where civil rights demonstrators were beaten and incarcerated on “Bloody Sunday”; Tuskegee University, whose buildings the KKK had a habit of burning down and Clarksdale, where, as late as 1997, the high school prom was a segregated affair. (No wonder Clarksdale is known as the place where the blues was born.) We went to Charlottesville, Virginia where 80 of Thomas Jefferson’s 200 slaves were held in bondage — including some of his own children. In Richmond, we experienced ghostly chills as we walked the Slavery Trail. In Tulsa, Oklahoma we relived “the single worst incident of racial violence in American history” which involved  the entire black part of town being burned to the ground in  a fit of white rage.

Almost every location we visited has a bitter memory associated with it. Every time I go South, I am reminded of that and the paradox that the South, as bitter as the memories may be, is the only homeland most African Americans will ever know.

It is interesting to note today that African American people are engaged in a reverse pattern of migration. They are pulling up stakes in northern cities like New York and Chicago to return to places like Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia.

One thing my elders used to tell me is that Southerner’s were not hypocrites. They let you know straight out where you stood. That place was at the back of the bus, in the balcony of the theater, drinking at the colored water fountain and standing in line while others were served. In the north, they played a game of saying you were equal and that color didn’t matter, even though it did. We were last hired and first fired, paid less and expected to do more, given the dirtiest and most menial of jobs, redlined into conclaves where integration was a myth and educated to the point of only functional literacy.

I have a hard time these days gauging whether and how much things have changed — South OR North. A recent Pew Center poll (April, 2011) of Mississippi Republicans reported that 46 percent think interracial marriage should be illegal. At the same time, Mississippi leads the nation in growth of interracial relationships. According to Census Bureau data, the figure went up by 70 percent between 2000 and 2010. The nation’s mixed-race population is also growing dramatically, with the South leading the way. In Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee, this population expanded by more than 50 percent. I am not sure what this translates into in terms of actual numbers. If you start with two people, a 50 percent increase would take that up to three.

I am not advocating here for interracial relationships or reverse migration. The gist of the matter is that, in spite of all the bitter memories, my ancestral paths keep leading me South. In almost every town, I haven’t needed a GPS to find the ancestral homestead. At virtually every cemetery, I feel like I’m holding a dowsing rod as I discover graves of ancestors I may not even have been looking for. I feel very much at home with my former in-laws in the little town of Tallassee and enjoy riding back roads during deer season with my shotgun in tow.

If my son weren’t so committed to living in New York with my grandchildren, I might be on the midnight train because, after all is said and done, where — exactly — IS the promised land?

 

HOME

Ooooooooooooooo what a trip!!!

Tom and I just arrived back in NY state after a grueling 22 day journey of  5,867 miles through 21 states.

I am SO HAPPY to be back to the place I call home these days. Upon arrival, I leapt out of my Jeep with joy! After making sure my key still fit in the front door (it did), I hugged my obviously ecstatic but ungrateful Khatsi (she cooed and then swatted me) and embraced my house. I walked through all the rooms, opened all the windows, fed my neglected plants, watered my dry garden, fired up the aromatic oil dish and (thanks Tom), unloaded the car. (Oh, yeah — just to be honest — somewhere in that process, I made a strong welcome home vodka cocktail.)

This road trip was unlike any other I have ever taken in my life. To say that  we experienced and learned a lot would be a gross understatement. From the backwoods of Alabama through the byways of Mississippi to the tidewaters of Virginia…. almost every stop was a revelation.

I had hoped to be much more prolific along the way. When we embarked on our journey, I promised myself that I would overcome my habitual writer’s block and produce reams of reportage. I really wanted to share a blow-by-blow account of it all. But there were just so many things to do, see and think about that my vow quickly fell by the wayside. The emotions of so many profound moments consumed my resolve.

I literally slept in “Miss Ann’s” bed; figuratively hoed cotton like a sharecropper; prayed at Dr. King’s grave; retrieved slave transfer documents; overturned historic tombstones; walked in the footsteps of people sold “down river”; sang the blues; ate like a pig (and then petted one) and found respite at a monument to reconciliation.  Whew!

I am hoping to be more prolific now that I am back at “home base” — the nest that gives me comfort as I try to unravel the evidence of historic mysteries that have made me laugh, fume, weep and sigh my whole life long.

This journey is at the heart of what Tom and I are trying to write…. to share…. to express…. so that others will not have to drive so far for so long to so many places with a simple goal of finding peace.

It is amazing grace that brought us here. I need that peace be still so that I can untangle what I have learned.

Know All Men By These Presents

Sometime around 1811, Sylvester Dunn relocated from South Carolina to Amite County Mississippi. He was one of the very first settlers of the new American territory carved out of the Choctaw nation. The fact that Sylvester had the benefit of a free land patent and free labor surely contributed immeasurably to his success on the frontier.

Gavin Road - Noxubee, Mississippi

On the 19th day of September 1822, Sylvester signed over Bess (32) and her child Caesar (13), Zapheniah (4), Lanah (2), Rachel (30) and her child Milly (8), Anne (7), Charles (5) Prinney (45) Tony (50), and Sophy (an old woman) as collateral for a loan of $1133.32 from the Bank of Mississippi.

On the same day, he signed for a second mortgage on 650 acres of land plus Jack (45), Phillis (40) and her child Cynthia (20), Carolina (19), Enery (16), Jack (14), Ben (10), George (8) Saul (5), Simeon (14), Chaney (20), Friday (7), Susan (5), March (22), Sarah (26) and her child Sain (10), Kate (8), Raymond (5), Jane (4), Lucy (35), Little Sarah (17) and her child, Laney (19), Doll (13), Jefferson (12), Charlotte (9) and Aron (25).

Sylvester made good on his borrowings by 1829, when he paid off both loans. In 1830, he was the master of a total of 28 people.  By 1831, however, he was on the dole again. This time it was Messrs. Davis and Maxwell who loaned him $687.96 against his land and many of the same human beings he had promised as collateral to the bank back in 1822.

Fortune smiled quickly this time. Sylvester paid off his debt in a mere 24 months. His fortunes were on an upswing. He took the opportunity to express his “natural love and affection” for his children by giving them slaves “forever, together with any future increase arising from said negroes.”

To his recently married daughter Mary, he gave Sandy (21), Lauler (5), Abel (12) and Nancy (a small girl).

Her sister Elizabeth got Ig(?) (a black boy about 22), Ann (a girl about 16), Bob and Charles (about 4 or 5).

To his son Alexander he delivered George (19) Raymon (16), Cate (16) and Dick (3).

To Martha, he gave Isaac, Moriah and Legatt along with her children Jim, Char, Elvira and Lafayette.

Joseph was gifted with Jack (25), Aaron (16), Charlotte (16) and her mulatto boy child Edward.

Robert seems to have died, so he passed along two treats to his children, Bolivar and Harriet. To them he gifted Paul (a boy about 16) and Rachel (about 4).

I offer this information as poignant evidence of just how pervasive, lucrative and insidious slavery was. It is said that the Bank of Mississippi was a virtual cash machine for planters. And one man, Sylvester Dunn, availed himself of their good offices to sustain ownership of at least 28 people, whom he traded back and forth whenever he needed cash. It was on their backs that his personal wealth was built. And that was on top of the free land patent he received from President James Monroe as “bounty” for military service.

The heart searing reality is that all of this historical information circuitously routes back to me. Sylvester Dunn was the father of Mary Gordon Dunn who married John Edward Gavin in 1831 and moved to Noxubee County, Mississippi. They were the parents of Robert Lewis Gavin, the white man who fathered 16 children with my African American great great grandmother, Bettie Warf.

John Gavin emulated Sylvester’s personal industry. After similarly migrating from South Carolina, John and his eight brothers all started accumulating slaves. Collectively, they owned more than 100 people by 1860. It is undoubtable that Sylvester Dunn’s other sons-in-law brought even more human beings to the trough.

1860 Slave Census - John Edward Gavin

Knowledge is but one of the fruits of this “healing journey” Tom and I are on. These are the most complete records I have ever found on any one person in either of my family trees.

How am I supposed to feel right now?

At the Crossroads of Liberty and Commerce

The Amite County Courthouse in Liberty, Mississippi contains something I’ve not seen before: slave records. Reading accounts from the early 1800′s of the sale or transfer of ownership of black people among white people is profoundly startling. Knowing that some of these transactions involved people related to my writing partner Sharon Morgan compounds the impact significantly.

We’ve also examined “colored” records (marriages, etc) that were kept separate from those of white people — much as everything else was kept separate; at least on the surface. The effort to maintain the appearance of separation in records, cemeteries, accommodations, and so on, did not prevent co-mingling when it came to making babies (a difficult subject that I’m certain we’ll deal with more fully in the future). Sharon, as with the vast majority of black people whose families date back to the days of slavery in the United States, is descended from both black and white people.

Wherever we go on this journey, I’m struck by the hypocrisy, cognitive dissonance, and virtual insanity that resided in the minds of white people that embraced, supported, and benefited from, the system of slavery.

I first read official slave records in a town named Liberty. Seriously? Liberty?

Our nation’s founding documents proclaim that all men are created equal. Of course that was a lie. The men who engaged in the enslavement of others were focused on personal gain, not liberty.

It was my turn to drive when we left Liberty. We passed a crossroad on the narrow, two-lane highway that would take us to Natchez and the antebellum home where we would spend the night;  a magnificent home built from the profits of slavery. I was initially reluctant to visit such homes or any plantations on this trip. I’m glad now that Sharon insisted that we do. (She wrote about our experiences at Linden House in her post Syllabub and Sweet Tea.)

A quarter mile past the crossroad, I stopped the car, turned around, and returned to gaze at the most ironic signpost I believe I’ve ever come across. Robert Johnson made no deal with the devil at the crossroads near Liberty. White men did. I can’t stop thinking about the bullet holes in the stop sign.

BLOODLINES

As we reached Alabama yesterday, our first stop was with family in Tallassee. It was my first chance to hug the newest members of the Morgan clan.

Zion & Z'riyah

Although Morgan is my married name and I have been divorced from Mr. Morgan for many years, I continue to consider my in-laws and their children as part of my extended family. In genealogical parlance these are called “fictive” relationships.

In black families, we are known to adopt people as daughters, sons, aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters, brothers… all types of relationships that are not based on blood but on emotional connection.

I sometimes wonder if this proclivity emanates from the historical fact that so many of our blood relationships were severed and lost as a consequence of slavery. I often wonder about the children who were sold away from their parents, the marriages that were disallowed, the families, villages and nations that were torn asunder.

I KNOW my eight great grandparents were not all only children. Who were their mothers and fathers? Where are their brothers and sisters? Where are the children of their brothers and sisters? Are there children born before Emancipation that disappeared into history?

I marvel at the magnanimity that enables us to put new feet in the shoes of the lost. And I thank God our children will never have to face the anguish of the disappeared.