There is
a new museum in Charleston, South
Carolina, dedicated
to hundreds of years
of African-American history.
It's black history in global context.
And through individual stories
to show off the expanse and residents
of the museum's Center
for Family History.
Researchers traced my genealogy
and I listen as a black man
with deep roots in the American South.
I thought I knew where
my story was headed.
I was very wrong.
Very few moments in
my career have ever brought me to this.
This is when it happened
at the International
African American Museum
in Charleston, South Carolina,
which opens this month.
Six centuries of history
packed into 150,000
square feet at the historic Gaston's
Wharf Above,
40% of all enslaved Africans
would have come in through Gaston's
Wharf.
We've been referred to
as the ground zero
of importation of enslaved people
into United States.
Dr.
Tanya Mathews is the museum's
president and CEO. A space of
solemnity
or celebration Yes,
I refuse to choose
tribal art and contemporary fashion.
Relics of protest
and reports of resistance.
It's this infusion of trauma
and joy constantly
that we like to to talk about.
Here you get the full story,
but you're going
to get all the context in it.
What arguably is the best illustration
of full context
is the museum's
Center for Family History.
It's a team of researchers
with access to millions of records
that can trace
African-American lineage,
sometimes back to a slave ship
that came into this very port.
The expert
genealogist here
spent months tracing my lineage,
and this was the day of the long
awaited reveal.
Make sure you got a box of Kleenex by you
and sit there and enjoy.
That's the museum's top genealogist, Dr.
Shelley Murphy, on the laptop.
She's joining us
from the University of Virginia.
This is a tree,
just a snapshot of your tree.
And I'm following your maternal line.
Wow.
That's a lot to see in
the tree.
You see that box?
Well, that represents
David Vinny,
my great grandfather's great grandfather.
He lived in coastal Richmond
County, Virginia,
on a farm
with his wife, Judy,
and their 18 children.
And in 1871, he filed this claim
to be reimbursed
for livestock
and supplies
requisitioned by union troops
during the Civil War.
Another thing that is significant
is that he owned the land that he used on
and it was 23 acres.
Where did a man in the 1870s
so soon after the end of slavery
get the money to buy 23 acres?
Absolutely.
And and the thing of it is
I believe in question.
He said he was free born.
Well for some answers
we have to go back
more than 300 years to my great great
great great great great great
great great great grandmother Mary.
She arrived on a ship in Northumberland
County Virginia
in 17, 12 before America was America.
Her granddaughter,
my eight times great grandmother
Bess, was with her.
That's according to this centuries
old deposition that Dr.
Murphy's team uncovered.
Why a deposition?
We'll learn that a little later.
And Bess at the time
was about 13 years old.
Witnesses
apparently said they looked like
they were Indians.
Researchers believe that Mary and Bess
were actually Mantovani,
like these people
of that region of Virginia called
the Northern Neck.
We're not sure where they came from, but
Thomas Smith of Richmond County
did enslave one of Bess as children.
And that was Sarah.
And it's Sarah.
My seven times great grandmother
who changes the trajectory
of her children
and all her descendants who followed.
There was a law back in 17 05
that declared that all children
that are enslaved are free.
Their condition would be based
on whatever their mother wants.
Remember Sarah and Bess arrived
free people.
So Sarah has a lawsuit
that's filed saying We're free.
This is the actual lawsuit filed by Sarah
suing for her freedom
and for the freedom of her descendants.
And that deposition,
it was from a witness
who saw Mary and Bess arrive
decades earlier.
So in 1791, the court agreed with Sarah
and her children,
the grandchildren
and all of those relatives
who were descendants of Mary
and this are going to be free that
my ancestors
filed
and sued for their freedom.
It is remarkable.
We're not done.
And we're not done.
Okay.
We're not done. Let me get it.
Let me get a Kleenex, doc.
I know you have a box, Sheriff,
but not all of Sarah's family was free.
Before the court's decision, Sarah's
enslavers illegally sold her
daughter, Rachel,
and then Rachel was sold again.
And for the next 20 years,
unaware of the court's ruling,
Rachel and her children
remained in bondage
when she learned of the decision in 18 07
more than a quarter century
after her mother's
groundbreaking lawsuit for freedom.
Rachel filed this lawsuit
against her enslave her,
claiming
that she was
the daughter of a free woman.
And therefore,
she and her children should also be free.
And guess what?
The witnesses and things
all came through,
and they were awarded their freedom
So what do you think
this is?
Oh man.
To be an enslaved woman
suing a slave master to do it
twice in one bloodline individual.
You're lying started out
enslaved and became free to up
and to where you're at right now.
It became free
because those women fought for it.
I'm going to tell you
what, Victor, the women in your family,
it's unbelievable.
It fills in a lot of gray,
a lot of blank space.
There was nothing there.
There was an assumption.
Now, there are names, relatives
and places and stories.
It certainly fills in more of the story
of my family's place in this country.
I am so grateful to the people
at that museum.
They spent months researching my lineage
and they've given me this book.
This has the documents
copies of the documents
and maps
and death records and military records.
This is not what I expected.
It is remarkable.
It is not what I expected to ask you.
What was your mom's reaction?
Oh, man.
My mother's reaction first,
I had explained it a couple of times.
Right, because no one expected this
And it
then started this kind of scavenger hunt
for details,
planning a trip back to Northumberland.
Lizzie and Ron are still with us
to go and visit the Mattapan.
I mean, to know that
these women sued twice and one.
And in that day and age.
Yes.
For a woman
but for a woman
who'd been enslaved to sue. Yes.
I can't even imagine the witnesses
to come forward to support them.
You're from strong stock
and that's for sure.
It's the women in here during the break,
Lizzie, that it's
so difficult
to trace the lineage of African-Americans
because for centuries
enslaved people were inventory.
They didn't keep accurate birth and death
and marriage
for as much as marriage
was recognized or acknowledged.
Those records absolute.
And because of the constant
selling and reselling and loaning
and bringing back,
it was impossible to keep up.
You know what's so brilliant
about the women of your family?
Set the law that you were talking about
was designed
because of all the sexual assaults
through all these pregnancies.
And it was like,
what do we do with these mixed race
children?
They created that law
so that those children
would be born into slavery.
The fact that, sure,
the women in your family
took that law and flipped it
and flipped it. Yeah.
Brilliant.
Yeah, absolutely brilliant.
In credible research
and incredible story.
And I just found myself wondering,
with all the restrictions on curriculum
that are being imposed
in about half the country,
it will become extremely difficult,
if not impossible
for many young people
to kind of learn this story
or its equivalent.
I mean, it's
quite a moment in the country.
Our thanks again
to the International African
American Museum.
They have the resources on their website
for you to start this journey of your own.
As they continue to grow,
they will do this on a one on one basis.
But this is
a stunning
display of African American history
there at the port in Charleston.
Again, thanks to them.