Wednesday, February 28, 2024

The Unspoken Vows

 

Things aren’t always as they appear. My grandfather took a civil rights case to the Florida Supreme Court and was characterized in the press as “a Negro World War I veteran.” My great-grandfather was named by W.E.B. DuBois’ The Crisis magazine as “the first Negro banker in Florida.” And my great-great-grandfather was a field slave on a plantation near Hartsville, South Carolina before emancipation. I apparently got my last name from the same place as my light skin - the white plantation owners who raped my great-great-grandmother.

No comments: