- 8 months ago
Chelsea Miller, Co-Founder of Freedom March NYC heads to Williamsburg, Virginia to learn the truth about our nations founding and the legacy the city still holds today.
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00:00Hey Essence fam, so it's your girl Chelsea Miller and you know I love a good travel
00:15destination and some history and so we are in Colonial Williamsburg, yes Colonial Williamsburg,
00:22to learn about the history but also the culture and to have some fun. So come with me to experience
00:29what Colonial Williamsburg has to offer. So right now we're in the Powell House, we're in the kitchen
00:38at the Powell House at Colonial Williamsburg. The stories of enslaved people, freed blacks,
00:45are all told here. You get a chance to see how 18th century blacks would have lived, things that
00:50we would have been doing in the kitchen. So tell us what we're doing today. So today we are going to
00:57roast a chicken 18th century style and we're going to use as the base of it sweet potatoes.
01:03Take us back, take us back to what this would even feel like being here. So the person who would have
01:10been in the kitchen of course is the person who can cook, somebody who knew how to harness the fire.
01:16That's always going to be the most important part of all of this and I want people to know that
01:21everything that came through enslavement, that period, has us where we are today. Everything in
01:30the kitchen that I do at home or wherever I'm at is rooted deeply in those conversations that I've had
01:36with my elders about their elders who talk to their elders. Very nice. Okay, so I'm going to let you put
01:41this on the fire so we can see what happens next. Ms. Janice, so talk to us about where we are today
01:52and the significance of Colonial Williamsburg. Well, we're standing in the courtyard of the
01:57Benjamin Powell House, but actually where we are is sacred ground. Every space within this foundation,
02:03wherever you walk, is sacred ground. So you're talking about a capital city where the population was
02:0852.4 percent African descent. So some enslaved and a few that were free. So there's no place or space
02:15that you can walk on or approach that they wouldn't have been present. I want folks to realize that they
02:22need to come back and see the Williamsburg that's here today. It has evolved from its first opening
02:28until now and it's still evolving. It's always changing and know that those people who are here
02:33who are helping to construct the narrative and and the interpretation, we very much want to
02:38tell a fuller story, a more texturized story, more substantial, more accurate. And so we're bringing
02:43those people from the background, from the shadows to the forefront so they can be seen and heard.
02:49And we need people to come with their questions, with their curiosities and ask to hear their story
02:55and expect to hear the story. Right, and I think that there is so much power and that is a testament to
03:01our just the nature of our DNA, right, how we show up in the world. And so I think that that is so
03:06important and the fact that we are here. Slavery is not our story. You know, what came out of slavery,
03:14what continues to come out of the legacies of slavery because things were born from it.
03:18That's who we are and that's our story and that's the one that we need to be vocal in telling.
03:24Beth? Yes. I know that you've been here for 35 years. That's true. And so what has that looked like for you?
03:31And what drew you to Colonial Williamsburg? It is a little unusual for someone to stay someplace for 35
03:37years, but the perspectives that you get that change how you feel about this place and your
03:45understanding of the past is unending. I mean, there's just nothing that I can definitively say
03:51I know everything about Williamsburg or the people here. It just constantly is growing and it makes me
03:56think of things differently about the past and that just excites me and that's where I just find
04:01history to be so interesting. It is much more complex than how we were taught in school. I think
04:07that it's so important even as I'm here to know that there are folks who care, right, about making sure
04:15that we don't lose this. Being on these grounds today, I feel so blessed to be able to experience
04:26it, see it, touch it, taste it, smell it, all the things, right? And I think understanding that your
04:33history is our history, is American history, right? It's all connected. I think people should come and
04:38take that memory walk, you know, walk it back and let the grounds and the buildings and the people
04:45here who interpret evoke that feeling and that question to make you want to know more about
04:51yourself and sometimes you have to relearn your history. Make it a multi-sensory approach. Taking
04:57the sounds, the smells, the sights. Be immersed in Colonial Williamsburg when you come and see where you
05:04would have fit, you know, depending on who you are, see how it would have looked for your ancestral roots.
05:10I really don't think that as an American we can separate out our history so we have to accept
05:16everything that has happened in the past to become who we are today and you really understand who we
05:22are today when you come to a place like Colonial Williamsburg. Thank you so much for allowing me to
05:27be in community with you all today and this will be my first time here but definitely not my last.
05:33So hold you to it. Hold me to it.
05:39Miss Liz, we are here at First Baptist Church. As soon as I stepped into the building,
05:48I felt the history. We were organized in 1776
05:52and from that point it has been a resilient situation for the African-American community.
06:03Can you talk a little bit about how that came together? There is no place in Williamsburg that I
06:11can think of that hasn't had black hands touching to help raise it from the ground up. So the resilience
06:20of the community has been overwhelming, not only for Colonial Williamsburg, its members have served on city council.
06:29So members of this church has done so much in terms of helping Colonial Williamsburg. And by the way,
06:38before it became Colonial Williamsburg, it was called Middle Plantation. But what we're trying to do is tell
06:44the true story based on what we know. When we look at churches, right, we think about the history, we think
06:51about it as a faith institution. But there are so many stories that are part of what that looks like every
06:58single day and so many tied histories. And so I couldn't help as I was walking to see some of the
07:04pictures and the images of that time. If we do not fully understand our history, then we of course
07:10cannot know where we are going in our future.
07:13Well, you make a valid point. So my mission today is to make sure I bring up somebody else
07:20so that they will go out and teach somebody else. And in my opinion, that's what you're doing.
07:25Well, thank you so much, Miss Liz. And thank you for allowing us to be in this space and to
07:32get just a taste of so much of the history that's here.
07:35Okay, y'all. So we are headed to Tipsy Beans, which is this Afro-Latina cafe that apparently
07:47has some of the best food in Colonial Williamsburg. So let's go and see.
07:55This is my love language, y'all. Food is my love language. And so Colonial Williamsburg,
08:00you have been more than good to me. This is crazy.
08:02What are you doing? Thank you. Like, I am a food critic, okay? And I was saying,
08:07these flavors, yeah, it's adding up. It's adding up. I'm like, I'm gonna have to take Tipsy Beans back
08:12with me. Okay, y'all. So I just left some of the best dinner that I've had. But you know what?
08:18We always got room for some more. We are ready to eat. Thank you. We are officially at Cookie Heaven.
08:27Welcome to Cookie Land, okay? We got our chocolate cookie. Oreo.
08:34Chocolate chip. Yeah, baby.
08:37Let them grow, okay?
08:41Superior. Mm-hmm. The brownie. Y'all need to come. Come visit so we can figure out
08:48which one's the best. So when you visit, make a video so we can batter. But yeah.
08:54Y'all need to come check this out. Top notch.
08:58Open it now.
09:01Hi, Harvey. Hi, Chelsea. Welcome to Jamestown Settlement. Been looking forward to you.
09:06Absolutely. I'm so excited to be here. I have learned so much over these past few days. And so I'm excited
09:11for you to teach me some new things, some surprises, some hidden gems. Yes, we have plenty of surprises
09:17here at Jamestown Settlement. With Colonial Williamsburg, that gets into the 18th century.
09:21But here, we're going to start with the 17th century. So it's going to connect with your
09:24experience at Colonial Williamsburg as we tell the greatest story of Williamsburg and the beginning
09:29of the African-American experience here in Virginia. I love it. So let's go.
09:42Okay, Harvey. So talk to me. We are looking at Angola 1600. You can see a lot of the skills
09:50of West Africa during the slave trade are going to be transferred in bondage to the Americans. So
09:56they knew specifically the skills that Africans had, whether it's animal husbandry, those who live in
10:01urban communities, those who live in rural communities, and they transported those skills
10:06to the Americas under bondage. So that's one way to look at these objects as a prelude as to what was
10:13going to happen with the transatlantic slave trade. Many of the artifacts in American and British museums
10:19are part of colonialism. They were taken from societies, African societies during colonialism.
10:26So there are efforts to look at repatriation of these objects to the country from which they came
10:31from so that they can hold their wealth of culture. And it's something that's being looked at and it's
10:36contested, of course, in many museums around the world. And there's a lot of African countries who want
10:42their treasures back. But I wanted to really highlight this particular depiction of the role of religion,
10:48the Christian Catholic Church in Angola. Look closely at the hair of Jesus. He has like cornrows.
10:54Some texture. Yes. Well, we were just at the first Baptist church yesterday. So this definitely also
11:02gives us more context on faith that we talk about when just the entire movement, right, of this Atlantic
11:09slave trade and black folks in our history. So that is powerful. And I feel like this is an act of resistance.
11:14This is a representation of an early slave cabin. At the end of the 18th century, the number of enslaved
11:21people are starting to increase. It's called the increase. And as they increase, the houses are
11:28becoming separate. So now they're creating slave quarters. Before that, you could have a white
11:33indigenous servant. You can have an indigenous person and an African all in the same building living in the
11:37same house. We are looking at also another historical site, right? So talk to us about where we are.
11:47Yes, we're at Jamestown Settlement. And this is a representation of the first three ships that were
11:52sailed here to Virginia by the Virginia Company. But eventually, the story that we tell at Jamestown
11:57Settlement includes indigenous people, Europeans, and then of course, the importation of hundreds and
12:03then thousands of Africans who were imported into Virginia. So as I'm here and I'm looking around,
12:10it's not lost on me the weight of where we are. And so when we think about black folks coming here
12:18and experiencing this, what is that like? Or how do we process it, right? How do we show up in these
12:24spaces? Well, one thing a person can do when they come here to Jamestown and see all the places and
12:30activities they can engage in. But also just looking at this river, the James River, it hasn't really
12:34changed that much. So if you were to just meditate about how people may have felt when they arrived in
12:40the quote unquote, new world and how they were afraid because it was an unknown. They didn't know what
12:45was going to happen to them. So it could also be a place of meditation and reflection. It's kind of a
12:53call to action to all of us to also be the keepers of that history and that legacy. Because I think that
12:59there's so much history even here right now, but then also so much history that we bring when we
13:04step into these places.
13:08So we are officially wrapping up, I guess, this part of the day. And so I would love for you to just
13:16talk to me a little bit more about where we are and what it means to you. So the work that we do here
13:23at Jamestown is really the parts of the beginning of that story. You know, one of the things I often
13:30hear is people will say, oh, I never learned that in school or on it. School is to teach you how to
13:33learn. It's not to stop learning, right? We have to, we have to own our education. And we have to amplify
13:42it. And we have to take part in the resources that are available to us. And museums, honestly,
13:48are one of the best ways to do that. Let's say a young black girl comes to Jamestown Settlement.
13:55What do you want her to walk away with? I want her to walk away with the reality that the myth of
14:04this was a white nation completely stripped from her mind. I want her to understand that
14:10that our ancestors were equally engaged in the development of this story, not just by our labor,
14:21but by our genius. Thank you for welcoming me. Jamestown will definitely continue to be a place
14:29that I explore and want to learn more about. That's good. Yeah, off to Yorktown. Off to Yorktown. Have fun.
14:40Harvey, so we just wrapped up on Jamestown. We are now in Yorktown. Talk to me on where we are.
14:47We're at the American Revolution Museum in Yorktown. This is where the revolution was won. And we're
14:53going to learn about the African Americans and their heritage, our American heritage established right
14:58here at Yorktown. Every time we speak, you drop a new gem. So I am ready for all the gems you're
15:04going to drop while we're here. Okay. So let's get into it. Let's go. Let's go.
15:17So now we're going to go straight into the war. And this, which I will talk about when we go out
15:22to the farm, this is that watershed moment because they wanted freedom in their time right then and
15:29now. And so one of the important battles here in the south, you've probably heard of, of course,
15:33Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill. But here in the south, the first battle in Virginia was Great Bridge,
15:40which is across, which is in the south side of Virginia, southeast side of Virginia. And so what you
15:45see here is the British. And they're charging the causeway. The causeway is like a bridge. But there's
15:51one man who's represented here as a black man. His name was Billy Flora. He became legendary. Wow.
15:59He even fought in the War of 1812. In the War of 1812, he used the same musket that I'm going to show
16:04you out there at the encampment, the brown-bass musket. Okay. So we are at another stop on the train.
16:10So explain to me where we are, Harvey. We're at the Treaty of Paris. The war has actually come to an
16:16end. Yorktown was a decisive battle. Didn't quite end the war, but they had to establish a treaty.
16:22But before Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Serge Ernestuth, and all the others from the 1800s,
16:28there were two generations of people and the American Revolution people who established those
16:33institutions. Incredible. So it's time for us to go and see visually what this looks like. Yes,
16:39yes. I'm interested to see if you can handle a musket. Oh, I don't know if I can handle a musket,
16:44Harvey, but we're going to put it to the test. I want to see if you can be like Billy Flora.
16:48Okay. Okay. No promises. All right. Let's head on out. Okay.
16:55Yeah, now we're coming to the encampment here at Yorktown in preparation for the siege of Yorktown,
17:02which is the decisive battle of the American Revolution. If you remember, at Jamestown, I said one of the
17:07first laws to mention the word Negro is that Negroes should not own firearms or carry firearms.
17:14Well, now for the American Revolution, almost 5,000 black men would fight with a firearm. It's
17:20called the brown musket. Would you like to feel the weight of this musket, this brown best musket?
17:24I'll give it to you. Okay. I want to make sure I'm holding it right. Yes. Oh, this is heavy. It is.
17:29Now I'm going to show you a quick maneuver. It's called charge your bayonet. So your officer,
17:35a white officer would say, charge your bayonet. And you would say, huzzah. Okay. You want to try?
17:40Jumpscare. I don't know if I was doing as close to how you were doing it, but let's see what happens.
17:45You're going to take one step. I need to put some bass in my voice. Yeah.
17:48I'll put some bass in your voice. Okay. Charge your bayonet. Huzzah. Recover.
17:54Charge your bayonet. Huzzah. Recover. Very good. Oh, we did that. Okay. I think I'm ready. Yeah.
18:01For whatever's coming. Okay. So let's go and find out more about their stories. Okay.
18:06Yeah. Let's do that.
18:10Well, if you remember at Jamestown, when I talked about the increase of Africans being brought to
18:15the colonies, well, this is the increase. This is the time when Virginia is a slaveholding society.
18:22And that slaveholding society is going to give birth to a culture of protest
18:26by the founding fathers as well as the enslaved. So they seemed like there was no light at the end
18:31of the tunnel. But the revolution, all that you saw in the museum, everything that has to do with
18:36the American Revolution was that light in a tunnel that opened up possibilities. For the first time,
18:41enslaved men, women, and children can make a decision. The American Revolution provided that window
18:48for them to take action, to use agency.
18:50They still took that chance. I'm saying we know that there's at least that possibility,
18:56that sliver of hope for better. And why not chase it? And I think that that is something incredibly
19:02powerful that when people come here and get to see this, they can grapple with so many different
19:09parts of not only the history, but also I think the very human experience, right? And the challenges
19:15that I think a lot of us face, even today, with questions about our future and where we're going.
19:21Thank you, Harvey. You're welcome. You're welcome. And it has been a pleasure. It's been a pleasure.
19:25Yes, it has. And come back. I definitely will. And I'll bring some friends with me.
19:29Yes, please do. Thank you. All right.
19:34Hey, Essence fam. So I just wrapped up an incredible trip and journey of going to Colonial Williamsburg,
19:43Yorktown, Jamestown. And as I stand here right now, I can definitively say that the person that I was
19:53when I came yesterday is not the person that I'm leaving now. I have learned so much about our history.
19:59I've learned so much about hidden truths about who we are. And I think in beautiful places, it's also
20:06important to remember that we can confront the ugly parts, but not have that define us. And that can be
20:12something that serves as a part of how we tell our story, but it does not end our story. And so I want
20:19all of you to come here and experience it yourself. I want the young black girls to come out here and
20:25know that they can take up space. I want the mothers to come out here with their kids because we know
20:31what they're teaching the schools is a little bit questionable sometimes. Okay. So we need to take them
20:35back to community, back to church, like historical first Baptist church, and we need to make sure
20:41that we're creating more of these spaces for us. So I will definitely be back. And I hope that you guys come with me.