I'm Amarie, I am an artist.
My practice really revolves around just being intentional
and capturing the things that I see every day.
My mom is a huge history buff.
She is our family historian.
I was just curious about
how far back could we go
and trace our family.
And every time we started going back,
we would hit roadblocks.
I actually believe
that our ancestors are in a
genealogical purgatory.
And when you discover them,
they tell you stories about their lives,
which have influenced your life
in ways that you had no idea of.
My great grandmother
Eula Mae,
she was
like the anchor for the family.
She was a stickler for getting your education.
And I know that my mother would take
Eula Mae on Election Day.
That was something that she did not play about.
You have the right to vote,
and you're going to utilize that right to vote.
I've just always heard about this person,
and I'm a person that's really connected by the stories.
Ooh.
You ready?
Yes.
Gosh, I love it when these documents come up.
Oh, look. They have it highlighted.
Eula Mae.
Occupation.
A stemmer in
the tobacco factory.
That's hard labor.
Okay, so let's see if we can find her in the previous census.
1920 census.
She's listed.
Oh, my gosh.
Where she's showing...
...adopted!
Oh, now that is fascinating.
Let's go back one more census.
1910.
It says, "Eula M.
Daughter.
Lucy
and Curly."
So these are her actual parents.
She never
spoke of
her parents.
The past
was the past.
You know this is the farthest we've ever been able to come.
You did good!
Yeah,
teamwork!
Yes!
Let's look for Robert.
So this is
the voter
registration
books
for Georgia.
Look!
"Etchison."
He registered to vote.
I think that is absolutely fascinating.
It's just mindblowing.
Because I do understand
the importance of voting.
And I think when you see it this way,
it like puts things in a different perspective, too.
I wonder about Eula Mae.
Maybe she grew up knowing that.
Maybe.
Because that would've been her grandfather.
Right.
And she passed it down the line.
I am so excited to be on this Ancestry journey.
And I cannot believe
my mom is going to be connected
with her favorite historian,
Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr.
[ringing]
Oh!
Hi!
How are you ladies?
Hello, Dr. Gates.
My husband and I,
we watch your show all the time.
Oh, thank you.
You know it is very rare, Joyce,
for an African American of your generation
to be able
to name
their fourth great-grandmother and great-grandfather.
I didn't ever think
we would be able to go that far
back, so that was a wonderful surprise.
What I wanna know is, what was
the environment like when my fourth great-grandfather,
Robert "Bob" Etchison,
went to register to vote?
I think of it as the first Freedom Summer,
the summer of 1867 .
So it's two years after the end of the Civil War.
And because of the Reconstruction Act,
signed in March 1867,
all the black men in the former Confederacy
got the right to vote.
Women, of course, couldn't vote.
Right.
But women were right there saying,
"Robert, you got to get up and
you got to put your X on this thing!"
Right.
It was very much a communal affair.
So it was like a Festival of Freedom.
And then it all came crashing down.
And that was done through tactics of
voter suppression
that weren't race specific,
but in reality were targeting
the members of the African American community.
The grandfather clause,
literacy tests.
That's how effective voter suppression was.
I feel that there's something in our line that
makes it important to fight for what's right.
And I just can't imagine what kind of
courage and strength it would
it would take to claim that right.
And I feel
that our resilience has not been
seen for what it was,
because we never asked to be resilient,
we asked to be treated as humans.
I believe resilence is what pushes us forward.
And I think that's a true badge of honor.
That's why all of these stories need to be interwoven,
together,
so that we understand the full history
of the great American republic.
And by restoring the story of your ancestor,
you contribute to that new narrative.
We're reclaiming our history.
Yes!
Say, "My family started voting back in 1867."
Oh, there's nothing I love more
than helping people find their lost ancestors
suspended in time.