as if you haven’t had enough cnn headlines these past days, the news site is reporting that the great, great grandfather of the late senator strom thurmond owned the great grandfather of the rev. al sharpton.
strom thurmond is best known as a staunch advocate of segregation and was political bed buddies with trent lott. he also holds the record for the longest filibuster in the senate. against which bill do you ask? only the civil rights act of 1957.
oh yeah, apparently strom enjoyed dipping in the kool-aid (no put in intended) every once in awhile. his family just came out and admitted that he also fathered a child with his black housekeeper.
i admit that i am slightly hesitant by the thought of actually knowing which family owned my family. while the miracle of science continues to astound, the sheer reality of such truth may weight on my brain for a very long time.
two words for the reverend, though: thats deep.
Brittania
Interesting. I recently decided to trace my family tree using ancestry.com. Using ancestry.com’s resources and my mother, I was able to trace all the way back to one set of great great grandparents, whom were born in 1878 and 1880. I will probably hit a dead end at that point because their parents were probably slaves since there were no free blacks in that part of Mississippi at that time. Mississippi did not keep names of slaves. I considered whether I should try to figure out whom the slave owner was or just stop at my great great grandparents. Im just not sure what I will do at this point, but the possibilities are certainly interesting.
February 26, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Fredric
i’ll have to check that out, ancestry.com.
was there any apprehension in seeing if you could determine the family that owned your ancestors? what kind of feelings does that prospect create?
February 27, 2007 at 5:50 am
Brittania
You should check out ancestry.com. Two week free trial gets your far. As far as the slave owner, frankly, the slave owner is not my ancestor and I honestly don’t believe they deserve the honor of having me research their existence. That being said, it was very disappointing to get cut off from researching my ancestry so soon (at least that particular part). I am still hungry for information and just wasnt ready to accept that that was the end.
On the flip side, I wonder if I learned about the slave owner, if I might also learn more about my own history, i.e. when my family came over, from whom were the last names taken etc. Researching was a really good thing though, I have always known my ancestors were slaves, but my research made that reality more real to me than it has ever been.
February 28, 2007 at 8:46 am
YBP
I agree about not really feeling the need to find out who your ancestors’ slave owners were, but it would tell you where you got your last name from. What I would want to know is what country my ancestors came from and when. I think I might give the site a try too.
February 28, 2007 at 1:42 pm
YBP Guide — the importance of the history of slavery
[...] wrote earlier last week about possible link of al sharpton’s ancestors to segregationist strom thurmond’s family and how ‘deep’ it was to come to that realization. if you read the comments in the [...]
March 4, 2007 at 5:10 pm
YBP Guide — affirmative action for whites
[...] and aborigine), the history of america, coupled with images like katrina, amadou diallo, and strom thurmond flow into a concept i was introduced to (and spoke about) in high school: affirmative action for [...]
March 23, 2007 at 10:03 am
Clarityx
thanks guys, ancestry.com is exactly what i was looking for
March 29, 2009 at 3:47 am