[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. For our last 15 minutes today, we'll end the show with a Juneteenth call-in for descendants of enslaved Americans. On the question, what have you learned about your ancestry through modern genealogy tests or family stories, and how has it affected your sense of yourself in today's world? 212-433-WNYC. Again, what have you learned about your ancestry through modern genealogy tests or family stories, and how has it affected your sense of yourself in today's world if you are a descendant of enslaved Americans?

212-433-WNYC. Tell us some of your story. Tell us some of your family story and how it informs who you are. 212-433-WNYC. Call or text 212-433-9692. The context, of course, as we celebrate the holiday today, we also commemorate the struggle for emancipation. It was on this day in 1865. If you need a quick refresher on the holiday, that Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War.

That's the essential piece of history that Juneteenth recognizes, but the popularity of the holiday over these past few years since it became an official national holiday, and, of course informally for many people for a long time may have encouraged some of you who are descendants of enslaved people to research your family's history.

We're inviting you to call in and share something about what you've discovered and how it informs who you are today. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. You can also text the short version if you prefer. One of the reasons we asked this year is that Axios recently reported as one way into this, "Never before in US history have descendants been able to easily access so many historic family documents online. Thanks to improvements in technology, AI, DNA tests, and genealogy websites." You know that's going on. Who's taken advantage of any of that in recent years? 23andMe, whatever, anybody work with Henry Lewis Gates, who, of course, does this for part of the core of his work? 212-433-9692.

Henry acknowledged that exploring such records can be extremely painful. In this particular context, they're records of human auctions, places of enslavement, even the language you might encounter while uncovering some of your family history can be triggering for intense emotions. Maybe you want to reflect a bit on that as you call in, the connection and the sorrow. Maybe you found some stories of the joy of liberation of what your ancestors went on to achieve, any of those things.

212-433-WNYC, 433-9692, but it's a Juneteenth call-in for descendants of enslaved Americans on the question, what have you learned about your ancestry through modern genealogy tests or family stories and how has it affected your sense of yourself? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692 and we'll take your calls right after this.

[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to your Juneteenth calls on family history stories or with family history stories, things learned through modern genealogy tests or just handed down in your family. Chris in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Chris.

Chris: Hi. Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Got you. Just fine.

Chris: My ancestors in Greenville, Alabama were given 300 acres of land by their slave owner because they took care of him when they didn't have to I think the slavery and that land's been passed down. My dad now owns 12 acres of that land. My ancestors, when they were there, they actually built a house on the land that's now a historic landmark in Alabama. I've been able to go and look at the house and go on the land that my ancestors worked on. When I was 13, my dad took us for a family reunion, and actually ended up meeting the descendants of the slave owner that owned my family.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. What was that like and how did it affect you?

Chris: My dad didn't do a very good job of explaining what was happening. At 13, I wasn't sure how I should approach the situation. I couldn't tell if I should be upset at those people because I remember just seeing six kids that were my age sitting in the kitchen and I'm like, "Are they my white-- Or should I be upset with them or what?" I wasn't really sure what to do at the moment and even now, I'm not really sure how. It was just an interesting moment that gives me something to reflect on. I can understand [unintelligible 00:05:40] in that I can go to a piece of land that has direct connection to my family.

Brian Lehrer: Great story, Chris. Thank you so much. Harold in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Harold.

Harold: Hi.

Brian Lehrer: Got a story for us?

Harold: Yes. I recently discovered some of my ancestors by doing a Google search. I learned that my great-great-grandfather had been enslaved by Governor Francis Pickens of South Carolina, and he, after emancipation, amassed through working a total of about 110 acres in rural South Carolina. Whenever he would have a child, a male child, he would buy a piece of property so that at the end, the male children would help him to farm the land and harvest crops, et cetera, et cetera.

Knowing this about him, he was a pillar of the community. He even helped to physically build a couple of buildings of a local school that he sent his last daughter to and she was my great-grandmother. It just makes me walk a little taller. I'm always aware of who I am. I have a strong sense of who I am, and it just hearkens back to getting all that information.

Brian Lehrer: Beautiful, Harold. Thank you very much. Lisa in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Lisa.

Lisa: Hi. Thank you so much for having this discussion. Family [unintelligible 00:07:18] has it that my grandpa Stone escaped and swam across the Suwanee River to freedom where then he was able to garner enough money, he was a barber, and came back to get more of his family members. I actually have a photo of him in my office and he looked like a white man. You would never look at him-- Black people can tell, but just looking, you would not know that was-- He looks white. For me, when I think about that type of fortitude, the fear, I say to myself, "You can do anything. No is not an option. Just move forward and win and grab the grass ring." It's very powerful for me.

Brian Lehrer: Lisa, nicely told. Thank you very much. Khalil in South Orange, you're on WNYC. Hello, Khalil.

Khalil: Hi, Brian. It's Khalil Gibran Muhammad. Happy to be back with you. I wanted to share that my--

Brian Lehrer: Wow, I'm so honored that you called in today.

Khalil: Of course. My great-grandfather was born Elijah Poole from Sandersville, Georgia. He later became Elijah Muhammad. On my mother's side of the family, my great-grandfather was a man named Eugene Gavin who was from Mississippi. My mom assumed he was a white man his whole life, and he married a Black woman and they had biracial children, but the actual story that a cousin of mine found through census records was that Eugene Gavin was actually the grandson of a Confederate soldier and Mississippi plantation owner.

Brian Lehrer: Wow.

Khalil: The great irony is that on one side of the family in Georgia produced one of the greatest Black nationalist leaders of the 20th century and on the other side of the family is a more typical story of the way in which Black people come from the mixture of European and African blood through coercion and race and such.

Brian Lehrer: How do you integrate all that into your own sense of identity?

Khalil: It just reminds me that the work that I do professionally as a scholar of race and racism is to illustrate that these divisions are man-made constructions for the purposes of power, of domination and oppression and what we make, we can unmake.

Brian Lehrer: Khalil Gibran Muhammad from Harvard these days, formerly the Schaumburg Center and connections to our last segment with Tiya Miles since the Schaumburg Center gave her the Harriet Tubman Award in 2021 for her last book. Now she's back with her new one about Harriet Tubman, and now you called in with your connection to the Harvard Kennedy School.

Khalil: [unintelligible 00:10:09] colleague, she's wonderful and I'll just say Brian I'm headed to Princeton in January so hopefully I'll see and hear much more of you.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, that's great that you'll be back in the immediate area. Khalil thank you so much. Deborah in Jersey City, you're on WNYC. Hi, Deborah.

Deborah: Hi, Brian. I was cleaning one day and I came across an old book from a reunion on my mother's side of the family so I started scanning through it and I found out that several of my ancestors on my mother's side actually owned slaves, whereas on my father's side, they were slaves because I took a DNA test several years ago and found out that I was 40% European. Someone has traced our history back on my mother's side and we all actually descended from a man that had two sons that came from France.

I was really taken aback by it. I haven't skimmed the whole thing because when I hit that I had to sit down for a moment. Unfortunately, my mom is no longer with us so I just had to sit down and think about it. I actually did a post on Facebook on my page because that was the only way that I could I guess come to terms with it. There's nothing I can do but acknowledge the fact that part of my heritage was people that owned other people. It's tough but you just learn to-- You have to acknowledge it and move on. That's really all I can do.

Brian Lehrer: I've heard stories of people who get shocks like this when they do the genealogy tests and they need counseling. There should be not just the information but guidance along with it on how to process what might be some shocking information. Did your mother know?

Deborah: My mother died when I was 13 but if you look at my mother, she looks white so she probably knew. That side of the family actually had people that could pass. They're from Louisiana, a small place called Palmetto which I've been to a few times. That side of the family is actually having a reunion this year but I'm not going, but it was just a bit shocking they're all light-skinned. I think that's where my light skin comes from because I'm very, very light-skinned, but it's just sometimes I feel like I walk in two worlds.

I walk in worlds where part of my ancestry were slaves and part of my ancestry they were slaveholders, but somewhere the universe connected the two and the best thing that I can do is just, because I didn't learn this until my late 50s, the best thing I can do as a human being is just acknowledge the fact that that's a part of my history, part of my ancestry. Offended? Yes. Call it out? Yes, but that's all I can do. I can't change it.

Brian Lehrer: Deborah, thank you so much. We're out of time in the show so we have to leave it there, but a poignant way to end this call in on family histories on Juneteenth.

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.