Frequently Asked Questions

Slavery in the US ended over a hundred years ago. Why are we bringing it up? Shouldn’t we leave the past in the past?

On a number of levels, how we look at ourselves and the world is based in experiences and stories that happened in the past. Our experience shapes our reality and stories and behaviors are passed down through generations. So history is often very much in the present, and it doesn’t disappear until it is addressed. Our brains literally form pathways that establish thought patterns. As a result our behaviors become repetitious. In order to change behaviors resulting from unhealthy thoughts, we need to address those original distressing thoughts. Many of the prejudices and racism go back to the behaviors and assumptions people held during the time of slavery.

“The legacy of slavery is very insidious.The threads are like a tapestry- they’re everywhere. The social roles continue to thrive on a very subtle level perhaps. But that is why it has continued to have an economic impact. The legacy of slavery has not gone away and it is not always getting better. I think the social boundaries and divisions that were initially developed that allowed slavery to thrive are what we are still dealing with.” ---Diana Redman

Why would someone who is a descendant of a someone who enslaved people want to own their history and meet someone from the other side?

“It's been invaluable to me to learn about the history of slavery, which is a huge part of U.S. history, and to learn about my family in relation to all of that. What have I gotten from the experience so far? I have a larger family and more friends; I'm more grounded in reality; I don't have skeletons in my family closet that I have to fear and try to pretend aren't there; I understand more about where I come from so I understand myself better; and I have a unique contribution to make towards the ending of racism. On the one hand some of the truth is painful to look at, on the other hand it's very liberating to do it. I feel freer, more powerful, more grounded, more informed, and have even more love in my life than I did before. It's changed my life only in good ways. I can understand how it would seem difficult to some people, especially if they don't have any tools or perspectives to help them deal with the hard parts. That's one thing I appreciate so much about Re-evaluation Counseling. It's given me the perspective that all people are good, and only hurt each other after having been hurt first and not allowed to heal, and it's given me the tools to reclaim my own ability to grieve and heal in other ways and to help other people do the same. It's helped me see that I can both love those who enslaved, and not dodge any of the reality of what they did. Both are so important to healing some of the rifts in our society.” - Susan Hutchison

Why would someone who is a descendant of someone who was enslaved want to look into their history and meet someone from the other side?

“I would want to find the other side of my family because I would love to follow the trail no matter where it went because I feel like all of that has an influence on what made me who I am. Cut flowers can’t thrive because they’re cut off from their roots. I think that part of the quest for connection is to have that flow of culture. And I think even on a larger scale, humanity wants to know about his origins. So, I know that, for example, on my mother’s side I have a great grandmother who was full-blooded Cherokee and her name was Molly Mary and they talk about her as being a corn cob, pipe-smoking, tough as nails woman, and I can see some of the influenced that that had on my mom and sisters who sometimes exhibit some of those characteristics.” Harold Fields

“[It’s important for the two sides to come together] because we’re related- we’re cousins. I think by coming together we can show people how to live, to show the progress that we have made. It’s like we have paved the road and why pave a road if no one is going to use it. We’ve paved the road and we want to see others follow through that path.” Ever Lee Hairston

How does one initially meet someone from the “other side”?

There are a variety of ways people meet each other. Here are three examples:

When I started [research into the Moncure family], my major goal was to try to connect seven branches of my Moncure family, the black ones, who didn’t know each other, and to give them a name and to put something in documentation for my black family so that they would have a sense of value of who they were. We always knew we were connected to the white Moncures. I connected with a couple of white Moncures because they were amateur genealogists. I started with 1920s and I just kept backing up. There wasn’t any time that I went to anybody and just said, “hey I want to be part of your family.”-----Pat Moncure Thomas

In reference to Henry Wiencek’s process of writing the Hairstons; An American family in Black and White.. “[Henry’s writing of the book] opened up dialogue in the Hairston family. It got family members talking, giving us the opportunity to share some of our resentments, to talk about things that had been tucked under the carpet for years and years. The book reached out to people who would have never discussed some of the stories that it contained.” --- Ever Lee Hairston

“I was on the internet one day on a chat room and this person wanted to know if there was anyone out there who had heard of a Peter McArthur. I have a Peter McArthur who was my great great great grandfather. So I wrote to them and told them about this. Then I got an answer back from a lady named Gwen who lived in Chicago and her maiden name was Mc Arthur and she said that her descendents were slaves on a McArthur plantation. A lot of her history isn’t written down, so we talked on the phone and I found out information for her. Talking with Gwen and finding information has been helping me find a little bit more abut my family. So that’s how it started. I had never met her and was anxious to meet her.” ---Sandra Smith

What are the challenges and obstacles to coming together?

For most people, coming together isn’t easy. First of all, many people in the US know very little about their ancestors. Many white immigrants did not want to talk about the traumatic experiences they were leaving to make the journey to the US and many white descendants do not want to look at the privilege they experience based on the color of their skin or the effects being slave owners had on their families. For those whose ancestors arrived in bondage, there is additional trauma from the magnitude of the disaster experienced by those original ancestors who experienced kidnap, bondage and on-going dehumanization. On a practical level, there are additional obstacles. During slavery, public records did not record people who were enslaved nor their countries of origin. The records that remain are first names (sometimes just ages) of enslaved people listed in tax records and wills and sometimes private records, usually in the possession of the white families. For African American’s whose ancestors were enslaved, this makes tracing ancestry beyond a few generations difficult.

In addition to the challenges associated with learning about ones own history, shame, guilt, and denial as well as many still segregated places of work, worship and neighborhoods work to keep people from looking at the past much less facing someone who represents the other side of that history. Immediate family can also be an obstacle. Sometimes peoples’ family members oppose someone else in their family making these connections.

In spite of these obstacles, courageous and resourceful people are figuring out how to make the connection with their past and people from the other side.