Bound by Slavery

Crisis, The, Jan/Feb 2005 by Robinson, Lori S

A journey from Detroit to a rural Kentucky plantation unites the descendants of slaves with those of the slave master who owned them

Kalimah Johnson wiped away her tears and took a deep breath before dialing Betty Wooten's number. The phone rang and rang. When no one answered, she left a message:

"I'm Kalimah calling from Detroit, a descendant of slaves from Kentucky. Apparently your family used to own my family, and I'm trying to trace my roots. I need your help."

Then she hung up and waited.

A few hours later, Wooten returned home and noticed the light flashing on her answering machine. She pushed play and heard Johnson's voice.

The September 2004 voicemail was like none she had ever received.

Wooten says the message was "exciting," but also "like getting kicked in the stomach." She adds: "Although I had always known this had been my family's history, nobody ever talked about it."

Before Wooten could return the call, Johnson phoned a second time. Neither woman knew what to expect. The facts of their families' shared history were painful. Almost immediately, though, they developed a comfortable repartee by phone.

Soon plans were made for Johnson to make her first-ever trip to Kentucky. The pilgrimage would be Johnson's boldest step on a quest to dig up the roots of her family tree. A spark to uncover per heritage had ignited 10 years earlier. It would propel Johnson to Georgetown, Ky., to the land of her enslaved Black ancestors and into the arms of descendants of the White plantation owners who held her family in bondage more than a century ago.

GETTING STARTED

In the 1980s, the decade when Chuck D described rap music as Black people's CNN, Johnson was known around Detroit as Nikki D, a pioneer in the local hip-hop scene. Friday nights she still spits provocative poetry at the Meetery Eatery, a Black-owned Internet deli-cafe. Her reputation as a storyteller at family gatherings dates back to age 5. With her griot status firmly established, it's not surprising that she would be the member of her clan to delve into genealogy.

Her search for her roots began in 1994 in her Social Work 351 class. Johnson was an undergrad at Wayne State University when she got an assignment to create a genogram, a diagnostic tool used by counselors. The project called for documenting positive and negative family patterns, including gender roles, educational values and disease.

Johnson already knew that her great great grandfather had served in the Union army during the Civil War. But she didn't know much more. She turned to Julia Mae Turner, her aunt, for help. She had questions about their family tree and she knew that Turner had answers.

When Johnson paid a visit to her now-late aunt at her two-family flat in the Highland Park area of Detroit, the petite woman with a blond Afro led her to her lavender master bedroom. There, Turner pulled out a wooden trunk with a white top that had belonged to her late great aunts Minty and Sinta. Among other keepsakes, the trunk contained a photocopy of a one-page document dated 1907. It read: "This certifies that Joseph Anderson enlisted from Scott County, Kentucky, in 1864, to serve three years or during the war." The document went on to describe the history of his unit, the 116th Regiment U.S. Colored , Infantry, and other details about Anderson's life.

The document was an invaluable treasure that aided Johnson in completing her assignment.

"What I noticed in our genogram was that we had mental illness that kept repeating itself throughout our generations in our family," she says. Before her death in 1998, Johnson's mother spent time in psychiatric institutions. Anderson, Johnson's great great grandfather, died in an infirmary in Washington, D.C., in 1912. Because he had no record of a physical illness, Johnson believes he also suffered from mental illness. And Anderson's daughter Bertha, Johnson's great grandmother, died in the Hospital for the Insane in Steilacoom, Wash., in 1929.

"I'm wondering if slavery had any impact on the mental health status of my family," Johnson says.

"I think almost every human being has a need to know, 'Why do I have this particular personality trait?' or 'Why is my nose shaped this way' or 'Why do I have this particular pain?'" says Carolyn Corpening Collins Rowe, national president of the D.C.-based Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society. "People are looking for answers."

Rowe, whose organization was founded in 1977 and teaches people how to research their family history, adds: "Just an interest in knowing from whence we came is a primary motivation for genealogy."

A host of other motivations spurred Johnson into genealogy, not the least of which is concern for young people in her family and community. "I want the generations behind me to know where they came from," she says. "I just think it's really important as part of our identity, as a part of our history in this country."

Eric Sheppard, who lives near Baltimore, couldn't agree more. "Black people need to understand that we are descendants of slaves that built this country, and it's time for us to honor them and cherish them," says Sheppard, who in 2002 founded with his wife the Slave Descendants Freedom Society, a nonprofit organization that educates people about genealogy and supports initiatives seeking public recognition for the contribution of slaves. "If you haven't done your research, you don't even know who your ancestors are and what they did."