I'm watching African American Lives on PBS, a documentary featuring the ancestry of prominent African Americans. The show features famous entertainers like Chris Rock and Tina Turner and prominent business and community leaders. Usually, when people look up their ancestors it's a happy occasion to learn where you came from and who you're related too. This is not so if you were born black in America.
I found out just how hard it is to figure out who your ancestors are last year when I looked up my grandfather on my father's side. It was so exciting to see his name in the government records, stating who he was married to and listing all of his children including my dad. My excitement was short lived, however, because that one census entry was all I found.
There was nothing at all before that one entry; it was as if he came from nowhere and suddenly appeared as a grown man with children. Watching African American Lives, I discovered why. Until after the Civil War, blacks weren't listed in the census because they were were slaves -- property. To learn anything about slaves, you have to examine property records, and even then you won't find names -- you'll find descriptions. We were listed with the cows, mules, pigs, chickens and other livestock.
It's in these records that we discover the true horror of slavery. We see how black people were valued, how they were sold and bought, how families were either preserved or broken up depending on the whim of an owner or circumstances. If an owner needed money, selling a slave was a way of getting some ready cash. Slaves were passed down in wills. The documentary also reveals the history of race mixing and asks the question, was every incident of race mixing under slavery rape? It also asks, what effect has this history had on the African American community today?
Seeing such accomplished people reduced to tears by discovering the fragments of their past tells me that the impact is great, even today. I was both fascinated and saddened watching the unraveling of these ancient documents and listening to the fates of these people. It was not about how hard they had to work or how they might have suffered physical hardship; it was about the emotional toll exacted by being treated like chattel.
This is what should be talked about during Black History Month. It's of little importance that George Washington Carver discovered hundreds of ways to use the peanut. What's amazing is that he managed to get the opportunity to have any freedom of self expression at all. The resilience of the human spirit it took for him to become a scientist is astonishing, and that's what is truly to be celebrated. As Chris Rock says during the special, it's amazing that any of us has managed to do anything at all given our history.
Next time you're enjoying that discussion with friends about where you come from, just remember that most African Americans have no answer to that question. And even if you ask them, realize that you're generally asking which state their family comes from -- not which country.
It's this history that needs to be remembered each February because it's a testament to the human spirit that African Americans survived and even thrived in post Civil War America even in the face of incredible discrimination, threat of harm and denial of opportunity. This is the legacy that should be proclaimed, celebrated and honored. It's a heritage to take pride in, and one that every African American child should be proud to carry on into the bright future our ancestors struggled to create for us.
Follow Robin Quivers on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rqui
All in all I think the U.S. Federal Government should have a small box on the voting booth to let us donate some money to keeping a registry for African descendents and to employ a team of people who are willing and expert at DNA tracing and family tree building. I think as a nation it would help heal.
And think of the rich stories and families who would be moved and healed by the project ?! I know it would make me feel good to see them reconnect with their blood lineage.
I know this will sound bad in some form to somebody being politically correct but I'll say it anyway. I often thought God might have seen the direction of the U.S. and decided that he wanted everyone to be represented in this experiment. He wanted all his children to "be there" and fly the banner of Freedom. Think what other continents see when they see a whole nation of free successful good loving African descendents here in the U.S. Think what that does to their psyche and their spirit. It must be an massive beacon of hope.
Maybe God just wanted to make sure America had a soul.
Certainly there were a lot of slaves. There was also an awful lot of money in the Freedman's Bank - enough that it was worth the time and trouble to conspire to rob it and shut it down. Isn't it time that the entire history of blacks in the US is told truthfully instead of portrayed as an unmitigated tragedy? How will a people ever rise up when they are told generation after generation that they have always been non-persons, chattel, losers? There's something wrong with an "education" that teaches more about slavery than W.E.B. DuBois. Terribly wrong.
I can tell Ms. Quiver's where her forefather'scame from. It was West Africa where they were kidnapped by slave hunters who sold them to slavers who held their unhappy charges in fortress like compounds along the west coast of Africa, near the armpit. All of this trade was done by black Africans, as were the dealers along the coast. Then white slave traders usually from England or northern Europe arrived, they purchased Ms. Quiver's family and took them west. Only 3% came to what was to become the United States. The remainer went south to Cuba, and points below. There they were put to work on plantations where they contracted tropical diseases and died.
However the slaves who came here, while they suffered terribly, but as Ms. Quiver's correctly writes, they "thrived". Arguably no other single group of people have had as much influence upon our culture as former and freed slaves. Indeed we should not forget the suffering these resolute and courageous people endured. However, while it may sound harsh to mention it, the best thing that ever happened to Ms. Quiver's was that her forefathers were sold into slavery.
I'm working on it. But here's what we know. Slavery was wrong. It was wrong on many levels and in this we agree. It is also true that slave families who came here were eventually freed, many by their "masters". While it was hard many former slaves prospered. Black Americans have enriched our culture in many ways and in this we agree. It is also true that black people living here are, generally, better off than they would be if they were living in the Congo. Why do I say this? It's because life in the Congo is terrible. Disease, civil war, an abject poverty rule in the West African jungle.
In short a black person living here experiences a much better life than does a black person living in Africa. I've been there. I would much better be here.
BTW: there was a movement in the US to allow American Blacks to return to Africa. They made a nation for them. It's called Liberia. Don't go there either.
It might not have been so bad to be the trusted groom or the butler in his fine suit, but most slaves were field hands. I have no fond memories of the baking, humid American summer heat. (Whenever I think of it I pray that there is a heaven for folks who suffered so much at the hands of other men.)
By "the south" do you mean Kentucky, Mississippi etc.. ? Your probably right but Wisconsin used to be "the west". There are numerous homogenious German enclaves there.
Texas is the "southwest" or the Outlaw state. There are several large communities of germans living in Texas. New Braunfels for just one.
Don't ignore the conditions that influence behavior today, fix them.
Slavery goes down as one of the biggest atrocities in human history; if not the biggest considering how prolonged the institution lasted. A lot of people don't like being reminded of this but it's a fact and we have to own up to it. You have to take the good with the bad and while America is the best country in the world, we treated people horribly. Attitudes get passed down from generation to generation so blacks are still paying a price for the fact that they were considered chattel. It takes a long time to change attitudes. But, with education and the courageous acts of many, attitudes are changing. So, it is getting better. And, while it's not where it should be, it's getting closer and closer. And, any adversity will be overcome if you keep at it.
Who does that? The history of slavery and Jim Crow is taught in schools. They put on TV specials. There is Black History Month. Awareness is welded into the American psyche. All this is as it should be.
So why do you continue to spread this rubbish?
C'mon. The truth.
You can not trace genes paternally. The germ doesn't go that way. You trace it matrilineally, which means following last names will throw you off of the path, if you follow the last name of male gender. The only reason women take men's last names, is because we men have egos.
As far as finding out your lineage, I find that finding out your true history is just as awesome. Black history did not start with the kidnapping (slavery). Melaninated people weren't just in what is now called, "Africa." They were all over the place, including in America, way before Columbus even learned how to do the backstroke. It's amazing, when you discover the truth within reality. It makes you radiate, truly.