Someone asked me if I became angry when I uncovered my family history. The question caught me off guard. I hadn't given it much thought. I explained that it brought me peace. While that's true-- very true, in fact-- it's an insufficient answer. Mostly, I expected to find nothing. Horses and dogs have better kept lineages than Black Americans. I certainly knew, though, that if I did find anything, it wouldn't be some Disneyesque fairytale, nicely tied up with a happily-ever-after bow.
I am a descendant of slavery. My ancestor's stories were stolen from them. They were stripped of their names, their culture, and their humanity. Even their own children did not belong to them. What they endured was unspeakable. The silence seeped into their bones, and became part of who we are as a people. Even once we were free to pass down our history, we didn't. My father's family tree was rooted only by his own parents and, much to my surprise, I had one of those names wrong.
I took an ancestry DNA test to see my percentages. My mother is white. Her ancestors, she advised, came from all over Europe. Not only was my father Black, but he was part Native American, as well. So, I wanted to get more details. The results surprised me. I'm not half white, as I believed. I'm sixty-two percent white. I still struggle to wrap my head around what that means for me. What it meant about my father, though, was more significant. My dad was, at least, twenty-four percent white. My father never said anything to me that indicated he was aware of that. I could of asked him, he was still alive then, but I didn't.
It's embarrassing to admit, but I spent months trying to hunt down my paternal grandfather. Harvey Rodgers was a common name in Alabama in the early 1900's. I had his birthday, his mother's maiden name, and his date of death, but I couldn't pin him down before my father's birth in 1956. He could have been any one of the Harvey's I found. He could have been none of them. I knew my Grandpa Harvey was married before my grandmother, and had children I'd never known. So, it finally dawned on my that I should check my DNA matches. That definitely should have occurred to me sooner, but I was figuring it out as I went. Still, no luck. Not only did I not find any of my dad's half siblings, I didn't find any relatives with my last name, at all. Not one Rodgers. None. I realized then that Grandpa Harvey might not be my grandfather.
How do you find someone when you don't even know their name? I caught a break because my grandmother's sister had taken the DNA test and was among my matched relatives. So, I went through the names until I found my closest Black DNA match who wasn't related to my great aunt. I didn't have to go far. After months of research, I finally tracked down my great-grandparents using historical records, my DNA results, and information from other people's family trees. I knew my grandfather was the son of Silas "Whit" Jones and Rebecca Burge. Finally, I confirmed with a member of their family that my great-grandparents only had one son together, Silas "Sonny" Jones Jr. He passed away in 2001. I found him 17 years too late.
About one month after I verified Sonny was my grandfather, my dad passed away from heart disease brought on from years of smoking. From what I understand, that's also how Sonny passed. I'm not ready to talk about my father with the world. I will save that for another time, perhaps. He was my dad, and I loved him. He was also a violent alcoholic, and a drug addict. Loving him was painful and, now that it's finally safe, I don't know how. What I do know, though, is that everything I like best about myself came from him; his generosity, his love of storytelling, his ability to talk to absolutely anyone, and the way he always wanted to be around the people he cared about-- even when they got on his nerves. Those were the gifts he gave me. Based on what I've been able to glean, I suspect he got those traits from Sonny, even though they never met.
During the funeral services, I realized there was nothing in the world that tied my dad to his biological father. It was just me, and the handful of people I'd discreetly shared the news with. I hadn't even told all of my siblings yet. My grandmother is living, and I respect that this is not just my story. It is hers, as well. I've never spoken to her about it, and I don't wish to upset her. So, she will most likely leave this world with whatever memories remain of the brief time she shared with Sonny in the Spring of 1956. This left me floundering, though, for the recognition I became desperate to find. I needed someone to acknowledge the connection. I needed it for my own peace of mind, for closure.
Sonny had other children, so that's where I aimed my unwavering tenacity-- another trait I got from my father. I admit, though, it's not often read as a virtue. After two years of exhaustive internet stalking searching, I finally found one of them; his eldest. She will never know what that first conversation meant to me. She listened as I explained how I'd reverse engineered our family trees using the DNA results, and then she told me about her family-- my family. That was it. Her acceptance filled the hole that tore open in my chest as I'd stared at the blown up images of my dad's face on the screen above the church alter the day I said my final goodbyes to him. I'd made the connection between him and his father.
I can finally shout it out to the world. Let it be known, now and forever more, that Allen Rodgers was the son of Silas "Sonny" Jones Jr., may they rest in peace. Though they did not know each other in life, I hope they've found one another in the hereafter. I imagine them sitting at a table with a glass of whiskey in one hand, bumping cigarette ashes into a coffee can with the other. In my mind, they're laughing as they exchange stories about the women they loved, the fish they caught, and all the times they narrowly escaped death before it finally caught up to them. I can almost hear my father say, "I shit you not..."
Despite my efforts, I've made predictable headway on my grandmother's side of the family. That is to say, I haven't found much other than some census records that aren't very reliable. Sonny, though, is the gift that keeps on giving. In all that internet searching, I found a ton of family history, and was even able to trace my roots back to my nearest slave ancestor on that side of the family. For Black Americans, that is a true treasure.
Sonny's mother, Rebecca Burge, was a fair woman. She was so fair, it is thought she could pass as white. Her father, my great-great-grandfather, was a man named Noah Burge. He was also very fair. In fact, it's said he was run out of an area closer to the Mississippi border when it was discovered that he was messing with the white woman there. They supposedly didn't know he was a black man. Before he married my great-great-grandmother, Lucy, he was married to Minerva McGruder, of the Alabama Black McGruders. You can find out more about them here. Theirs is a fascinating story that will also be featured on the upcoming docuseries, Soul of a Nation.
Noah's mother, Janette Powers Richardson, was born into slavery around 1842. Based on my research, it seems most likely that Janette was impregnated by a white man, Erasmus Dowen Bird (1849 - 1937). His lineage can be traced all the way back to colonial American history. After discussing it with two of Eramus' descendant's, my distant cousins, and pilfering through census records, I've come to believe Janette may have worked on a plantation near the Byrd family in the early 1870's, when she became pregnant with Noah.
Erasmus appears to have had three wives, all young women when he married them, and at least eighteen children. His last child, a boy, was born just seven years before his death at eighty-eight years old. His youngest daughter, Margaret, was born in 1920. Her son, born in the 1950's, is still alive. We've exchanged messages. We are more closely related, because there are fewer generations between us.
Though I didn't find any evidence Erasmus owned slaves, and Noah was born after slavery ended, I can't help but wonder how it all played out. Was it consensual? Was it rape? Could my great-great-great-grandmother have said no, even if she wanted to? If she couldn't have said no, then she couldn't have said yes, right? It's hard to say. I'm only certain of one thing, really. I feel powerful when I say his name. It's like I've taken back my legacy, however vile and gruesome. It's not just history, it's my story. It's our story.
I'm sharing all this because this month, Black History Month, isn't just about learning who invented the stop light, reading up on the Tulsa race riots, or reciting the "I Have A Dream" speech. For Black people, it should be about honoring the role our own people played in paving the way for us to be here today, and taking back the identities that were stolen from them-- from us. We have a responsibility to reach back through history and grab the hands of our ancestors; to bring them with us into the future. So generations to come can learn from their wisdom, and their suffering. We cannot be silent anymore. We have to remember who we are.
