- 4 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00I'm Henry Louis Gates Jr. Welcome to Finding Your Roots. In this episode, we'll meet basketball
00:11superstars Chris Paul and Brittany Griner, two people born to play a game.
00:20I was in volleyball practice, and they were like, hey, go dunk this. And I was like,
00:24okay. So I just ran with the ball and just dunked it.
00:30Literally the next day, the coach came and was like, you come on over here to basketball
00:35when you get done today. I'm just crazy competitive, right? I don't care what it is. So if we playing
00:41checkers, if we playing chess, if we playing cards or whatnot. What if you're playing with a six-year-old
00:46child? Are you still ruthless? Absolutely. To uncover their roots, we've used every tool available.
00:55Genealogists comb through paper trails stretching back hundreds of years.
01:01That is cool.
01:04While DNA experts utilize the latest advances in genetic analysis to reveal secrets that have
01:10lain hidden for generations. My palms are sweating over here.
01:15And we've compiled it all into a book of life, a record of all of our discoveries.
01:22It's mind-blowing.
01:23And a window into the hidden past.
01:26If you was to make this into a feature film, you would look at it like that's not true.
01:32There's no way that that happened.
01:33Whew.
01:34Did you think we'd get back this far this quickly?
01:37Nah, I didn't think it would go like this.
01:39Chris and Brittany are both phenomenal athletes. In this episode, we'll explore what lies behind
01:51their greatness. Could it be that they were molded in ways they never could have imagined
01:58by the lives of their ancestors?
02:11We'll see you next time.
02:25We'll see you next time.
02:40Chris Paul is basketball royalty. The future Hall of Famer, a 12-time NBA All-Star,
02:49is one of the greatest point guards ever to play the game. Second all-time both in steals and assists.
03:00His secret? Practice, practice, practice.
03:04Chris is legendary for his work ethic and for the passion he brings to the court.
03:13Traits that were first nurtured in him by his father.
03:17When you're a kid, you take on the likes of your parents.
03:22And my dad was a huge, huge football and basketball fan. And as a kid, my dad coached us, you know. So now having kids and going to their games and seeing the people that take the time to actually
03:34coach them and go to practices and what not, my dad did that for my team, my brother's team.
03:41And it's crazy to think he still found time to go to work.
03:45Yeah, that's amazing.
03:48The biggest thing that my dad did was when I was in the fifth grade, he had a basketball court built for us at our house.
03:55Wow.
03:55Right. And when I say that, it wasn't a full court by any means, but there was this hill behind our house and actually our football coach had a cement company.
04:04Uh-huh.
04:04Right? So he came and laid down like pavement, like right down on this hill, and we put two basketball goals and it was not a full court by any means.
04:14But he basically said, if you guys love this and you really want to do it, here it is.
04:22Chris took his father's words to heart.
04:26By the time he was in high school, he was one of the best basketball players in his home state of North Carolina.
04:35And was being recruited by the top colleges in the country.
04:39An accomplishment made even more remarkable by the fact that Chris stands barely six feet tall.
04:47And back then, he was even shorter.
04:50I was always the smallest guy on the team, you know, and I was the kid that used to like pray for height.
04:59Like, when I went to bed at night, I was like, God, please just make me tall. Please.
05:04And it still hasn't happened, but you got to work with what you got.
05:09When did you first realize that not only that you were good, but that you had a special talent and you could make a career out of basketball?
05:17Right. Um, even when I went to college, I didn't know I was going to the NBA.
05:21Mm-hmm.
05:22Right? I hoped.
05:23Mm-hmm.
05:23But when I got to college, my work ethic went up just a little bit more.
05:27Mm-hmm.
05:27Right? And now, you start to have a little bit of inclination, because people can hype you up and
05:33say that you're really, really good, but you know.
05:36Mm-hmm.
05:37Right? They can't hype you up so much.
05:38Mm-hmm.
05:39But as I continued to get better, I started to say like, man, I might be able to do this for a living.
05:47Chris, of course, has done much more than just make a living at basketball.
05:53In 2005, after two years of college, he was drafted by the New Orleans Hornets and won Rookie of the Year.
06:04He's gone on to thrive in a league of much taller men through an unparalleled combination
06:12of talent and effort, becoming one of the highest paid athletes in the world.
06:20And through it all, Chris has never lost his grounding.
06:24He remains intensely grateful to the people and the game that have brought him so much.
06:34I've been in the NBA now since I was 20 years old.
06:36Mm-hmm.
06:36Right? And at 39, um, there's a lot of things that I did and experienced like when I was a child and
06:44coming up. But then when I got into the NBA, there's been a lot of things that have been
06:48taken care of for me.
06:49Mm-hmm.
06:50Right?
06:50Mm-hmm.
06:51And so, um, I didn't go through the struggles that my parents went through in trying to,
06:57um, get a house.
06:59Mm-hmm.
07:00Right? And working, uh, that type of job to try to accumulate wealth.
07:05All of this happened for me at 20 years old.
07:08Mm-hmm.
07:08Do you still feel joy, pleasure in the game?
07:12Absolutely.
07:13Did you ever burn out as a player?
07:16No. No. I don't think I ever burnt out as a player.
07:18But I'll tell you something wild that happened this summer.
07:21Um, I went into the house and I told my wife, I just need to go outside and shoot.
07:25Mm-hmm.
07:26Right? Just go outside and shoot because at some point you almost get programmed to,
07:32every time you go to a gym, it's to train.
07:34Mm-hmm.
07:35Right? And I fell in love with the game as a kid, just in the backyard.
07:39Mm-hmm.
07:39Right? Just playing around with my brother, practicing things and whatnot.
07:43So I went outside and just shot for 45 minutes.
07:46Wow.
07:47And just dribbled and started to use my imagination. And I won't say I fell out of love with the game.
07:52Mm-hmm.
07:53Ever. You know, but just sometimes just remind yourself why you love it so much.
07:58Right. For the pleasure of it.
08:00Yes.
08:02Just like Chris, Brittany Griner is a surefire hall of famer.
08:08A 10-time WNBA all-star and three-time Olympic gold medalist.
08:16Widely recognized as one of the greatest players in history.
08:23But Brittany's story is fundamentally different from Chris's.
08:32Growing up in Houston, Brittany towered over her peers from a young age and suffered mightily for it.
08:39I hit my big growth spur probably seventh grade until 12th grade. It was just a constant,
08:47like, uphill climb for me. Uh, seventh and eighth grade also was big on the bullying. The,
08:55you know, the girls pointing out how I look different than everybody else, literally physically
08:59coming up to me and touching my chest and saying, like, look, she has no chest. Like, she is a man.
09:04Uh, just my voice wasn't as, I guess, high pitch as everybody else's. Um, so yeah, got a lot of
09:14picking on, pointing at, like, just being told how different I am from everybody else.
09:19I recall when you said that just to have someone touch you. Yeah, that was a tough time back then. Oh,
09:24I'm so sorry you had to go through that. Yeah. Ironically, Brittany's height would provide her
09:31salvation. She started playing basketball in ninth grade when a coach saw her dunking a volleyball
09:39on a dare. Within a year, she was dominating on both offense and defense and attracting attention
09:49from college coaches across the country. That's when I really felt like, okay, I got this. Uh,
09:57I started getting a lot more, um, scholarships as well, like, flooded. And it wasn't like the,
10:04the typical, like, oh, we're just sending this out to the kids. Here's like, you know,
10:08you could come to this school. It was more like, no, we, we want you to come here. Like,
10:13you could tell it was a little bit more tailored to me. And I was like, oh, I'm liking this. This
10:18feeling wanted from going from, you know, being bullied before high school and not being the cool
10:24kid and just kind of being on the outside to now I am the cool kid. I am the athlete and people want
10:31you. Brittany Griner's superstar.
10:33Brittany's star has risen higher than anyone ever could have imagined. She led Baylor University to an
10:45undefeated season and a national championship before becoming an icon in the WNBA.
10:52She's also used her talents to impact the world well beyond sports. A prominent social activist,
11:04she's championed women's equality, LGBTQ rights, and after her infamous imprisonment in Russia,
11:14she's been advocating for Americans detained overseas.
11:23But Brittany told me that many of her greatest triumphs have occurred in private, stretching all
11:30the way back to when she was a teenager and she came out to her family. Something her father,
11:37initially, found hard to accept.
11:43He didn't want another strike against me. Already a woman. Already black. Two strikes. Now you're
11:53adding you're gay too. Like he just knew the battle that I would have. He wasn't homophobic. He wasn't
12:00scared of gay people or hated gay people. It was just, he just didn't want me to have to deal
12:05with that uphill battle. He wanted me to be able to get deals with brands and stuff because he saw my
12:12potential. And he knew that brands would hold that against me. Of course. Like, not saying that it
12:18was right, but like, I can understand, you know, because at first I was just upset. Like, why is my
12:24dad like, like, he don't love me? Like, is he disappointed in me? But it was more so he just didn't
12:31want me to have to deal with that, that uphill battle. And you could tell it didn't really put
12:37that much of a hindrance in between us because he was at literally every single game. Yeah. And now,
12:44I mean, you see us now. We're great. You can't separate us. My two guests have achieved incredible
12:50success, both on and off the court. But along the way, they've had little time to learn about the
12:57ancestors who may have laid the groundwork for their accomplishments. That is about to change.
13:07I started with Chris Paul and with his paternal grandmother, a woman named Charlena Sloan.
13:15Charlena has been Chris's biggest fan for as long as he can remember. And the two share a profound bond.
13:27My grandmother, she's everything, you know, and she, man, I'm tripping. So,
13:38she calls or texts me after every game. Oh, wow. And she's in North Carolina. Obviously,
13:45I played for the Clippers on the West Coast, all these teams on the West Coast. So,
13:51if my game starts at 7 o'clock Pacific time, that's 10, her time. Right.
13:57My grandmother watches every game. And she texts me or calls me after every game.
14:02Huh.
14:02Every game. I could pull out my phone and show you our text thread after the games. And she, um,
14:10has just always been a constant. Wow. That's a blessing. Oh, absolutely.
14:14Chris's grandmother was born in 1944 in Anderson County, South Carolina. And we were able to trace
14:26her roots in that county back more than a century, all the way to a man named James Clinkscales.
14:34James is Chris's fourth great-grandfather. We found him in the 1870 census for Anderson County,
14:46living with his parents, Zachariah and Sina Clinkscales.
14:51James Clinkscales. Dang. So, you just read the names of your fifth great-grandparents.
14:56Great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents. That's crazy.
15:00So, first of all, what's it like to see that? You carry DNA from all those people.
15:04Man, it's, um, it's wild. Uh, we had this question, uh, at our house the other day,
15:10where we was talking about if you had the choice, would you go back and learn who your great, great,
15:15great, great grand people were? Or would you rather go in the future and learn who your kids,
15:20kids, kids, kids, kids, kids are? Okay. What did you say? I said, I want to go back.
15:25Yeah. I said, I want to go back and to actually be sitting here actually going back. That's wild.
15:33Unfortunately, this story was about to take a painful turn. Zachariah and Sina were both born
15:41around 1815 in South Carolina, which means almost certainly they both were born in
15:50to slavery. Searching for evidence of their lives, we focused on a white slave owner with their same
16:02surname, Mary Klickscales. In the 1860 census, Mary filed a slave schedule indicating that she owned 13
16:14human beings. There are no names on this schedule, only the color, gender, and age of each enslaved person.
16:27But given what we knew about Chris's family, several entries stood out.
16:31One mulatto male, age 49. One mulatto female, age 39. One mulatto male, age 12. One mulatto male, age 7. One
16:44mulatto male, age 4. We strongly believe that you are looking at your fifth great grandparents, Zachariah
16:52and Sina, their three sons, as well as your fifth great grand uncle, Robert Bob Klickscales, listed there
17:02as property with no names. That's, that's crazy. So you'd be right there enslaved with your kids?
17:10Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. What would they have a four-year-old doing?
17:14You know, maybe bringing a cup of water to people. You know, they're growing into the job.
17:20So whatever the lowest level task was, they would give it, give it to the children.
17:25And as a mom, how are you able to take care of these kids?
17:31Yeah, well precisely. How do you think it was possible for Zachariah and Sina to raise a family
17:36together in enslavement? And think about this, knowing at any moment, since you had no control,
17:43They could take you. They could be taken and sold down the river.
17:46Yeah, I think about how protective I am of my kids. Mm-hmm.
17:50And I cannot imagine them having three kids, 12, seven, and four, and probably seeing the things
18:00that might have been done to them. Mm-hmm.
18:02You know, and powerless, and you can't do nothing about it.
18:05Regrettably, the relationship between Chris's family and the family that enslaved them did not end when freedom came.
18:18We uncovered a labor contract from the year 1866. It shows that Mary Klinscales hired Chris's ancestors
18:29to worker plantation under what was known as a share wage agreement. These agreements were common across the Jim Crow South.
18:40And they were not favorable to the formerly enslaved men and women who signed them.
18:45These said freed persons agreed to board and clothe themselves and to obey all orders from said owner of plantation
18:56or her agent, and also do hereby agree to work for the said Mary Klinscales in the capacity of laborers,
19:04and faithfully, honestly, diligently, and to the best of their skill and abilities,
19:09to perform such labor in the care of said plantation. Signatures. Zach, his mark.
19:15Cena, her mark. Bob, his mark. James, his mark. Wow.
19:20This is very likely the first labor contract that anyone on your entire Klink scale,
19:27branch of your family tree, ever signed. And it was the first time they were ever,
19:32at least theoretically, compensated for their work. What do you think that meant for them, that moment?
19:38You remember when you signed your contract? Yeah. This is their contract.
19:44That's a whole different feeling. Yeah, a whole different feeling. Yeah, I'm still processing.
19:52According to this agreement, Chris's ancestors were to work Mary Klink scale's land at her direction,
20:00much as they had under slavery. And they were to be paid, not with cash.
20:08But with a portion of the crops.
20:13That's crazy. I mean, you're free, technically. But does that sound like freedom?
20:19Not at all. No. And in a good crop year, share wages could offer better returns than cash wages.
20:25But in a bad crop year, share wage laborers did very poorly. And your ancestors had very little control
20:33over how the crop would turn out. They were rolling the dice. And on top of that,
20:37people working on shares had to pay for their own food and clothing during the year
20:43while they're waiting on the harvest. Right?
20:45Yeah, so they was basically just working to stay alive.
20:49You got it. It was called slavery by another name.
20:52That's crazy.
20:53Chris, what's it like to know that your ancestors had to go through that?
20:56You know, imagine you get the news, we're free, finally, we're no longer property.
21:02And then they're thrown into a labor contract like that.
21:05It literally makes me think about how strong their minds had to be.
21:12Mm-hmm.
21:13Right? Like their will. It would have been so easy to give up.
21:17Mm-hmm.
21:18But given their situation, whether they complained or not, they figured it out.
21:28Chris is correct. Zachariah and Sina did indeed figure it out.
21:35They likely worked at least 10 hours a day, six days a week, growing cotton.
21:42But they survived. And they moved their family forward.
21:47Incredibly, by 1880, their son James even had a small farm of his own.
21:58What do you think kept your fifth-grade grandparents going? Because after all,
22:01if they hadn't gotten up, done the 10 hours in the field, there'd be no Chris Paul.
22:05Yeah. To me, it immediately goes back to, like, how they had to be wired.
22:13Mm-hmm.
22:14You know, in the perseverance, the ability to fight through, and the ability to,
22:24I can't imagine, like, being able to, I guess, see the bigger picture.
22:29Mm-hmm.
22:30And knowing that whatever they endured at the time, that hopefully it would mean a better life for their kids.
22:38Right. A better day is coming. And for my grandkids.
22:41It puts stuff into a whole different type of perspective.
22:47Much like Chris, Brittany Griner was about to gain a new perspective on an entire branch of her family tree.
22:55Following her maternal roots, we traveled from Brittany's hometown of Houston, Texas, to New Orleans, Louisiana and introduced Brittany to her third great-grandmother, a woman named Catherine Neal.
23:12Oh, wow.
23:15You've never heard this name before.
23:17Mm-mm.
23:17Well, Catherine was born around May 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War in Louisiana.
23:25In 1883, when she was about 15, she married a man named Felix Balthazar.
23:30And Felix is your third great-grandfather, your great-great-great-grandfather, Felix Balthazar.
23:37Ever hear of him?
23:38No.
23:40Did you know you had roots in New Orleans?
23:42No, I thought it was you.
23:43You do.
23:44Yeah, I didn't know that.
23:45Did you think we'd get back this far this quickly?
23:48Nah, I didn't think it would go like this. Honestly, I'm, like, shook right now.
23:56Catherine and Felix had at least nine children together, including Brittany's great-great-grandmother, Laura.
24:04But sadly, five of the children died in infancy.
24:12And in the Louisiana State Archives, we saw that Catherine's health suffered as well.
24:21State of Louisiana versus Catherine Balthazar.
24:25In this case, it is ordered, judged, and decreed that the said Catherine Balthazar
24:31be declared insane, and that she be incarcerated in the state insane asylum at Jackson, Louisiana.
24:40Any family stories about this?
24:42No.
24:42Yeah.
24:43None at all. That's wild.
24:45In 1898, Catherine was committed to the East Louisiana State Hospital, segregated state-run mental
24:51hospital located in Jackson, Louisiana. And you could see photos of it from the early 1900s on your left.
24:58Wow.
24:59Wow.
24:59What's it like to see that?
25:01I mean, that makes me very upset that somebody in my family had to go through this, and the family
25:06members had to go through this, too, seeing her in there, or not seeing her in there. I don't know.
25:13If they, you know, they would even visit her.
25:15The hospital's files show that Catherine was committed in 1898, released, and then readmitted two years
25:28later. The files also contain a transcript of an interview that a doctor conducted with Catherine,
25:37Catherine, offering a harrowing glimpse into the kind of care that she was receiving.
25:43What kind of place are you in? Kind of a storeroom? Are you crazy? That is what they say.
25:54Did you ever see any ghosts? Yes. Sometimes.
25:58Was it a white or Negro ghost? Wow. That's crazy.
26:04Is it cold?
26:05No, I was just so old. This is wild. I'm sorry. They were white.
26:11What did they say to you? They didn't say much. Try to be good. Did you ever see God? No.
26:19Those are your ancestors' actual words. How does it feel to read that?
26:25I mean, the answers to these questions are weird.
26:28Mm-hmm.
26:29And then the questions, too, though. Honestly, like,
26:35I feel like the questions are weird, too.
26:36You mean, like, do you see Negro ghosts or white ghosts?
26:40That, too. I mean, that was a weird one. I mean, that was a weird one.
26:44And then did you ever see God? I'm just like, okay.
26:50I'm not saying someone couldn't, but it's a very hard thing to prove.
26:59We don't know why Catherine was asked these questions or how to interpret her answers.
27:05But she would never leave the hospital.
27:13She died within its walls in 1939, more than 40 years after she was committed.
27:20How does it feel to learn this? To learn that you're, I mean, you were incarcerated. Your ancestor was incarcerated.
27:29Yeah, she was legit incarcerated is what happened to her. I mean, I hate that that happened to my ancestors. I thought I was the only one, honestly, um, that have been in like that.
27:40Um, I just hate that she had no voice. No wonder I love, maybe it's just embedded in me,
27:48the fact that I want to give people voices that didn't have voices. But maybe there's a deeper reason to why I feel like that. This could be it.
27:55Digging deeper into the past, we encountered another story that resonated with Brittany's life today.
28:08It begins over a hundred years earlier with her seventh great grandparents, a couple named Marie Kwan Kwan and Pierre Matois.
28:19Records show that Marie was born into slavery in Louisiana around 1742, while Pierre was a white man born in France around the same time.
28:37They met in Louisiana in the 1760s, when Pierre leased Marie from a neighbor so that she could work in his home.
28:47Over the next ten years, they would conceive several children together.
28:56A fact that outraged a local priest, so much so that he filed a complaint against the couple.
29:06Reading it over, Brittany began to have serious reservations about Pierre's treatment of Marie during those ten years.
29:18I mean, the fact that she was, what, loaned out, basically, to, uh...
29:23She's a slave!
29:24She's literally a slave.
29:26And, I mean, was it against her will at first, and then she fell for him?
29:30Or was it she felt mutual?
29:33Like, those are the questions that are going through my head.
29:35We don't know how it started, but we know how it ended.
29:38Okay? Please turn the page.
29:42I know I got a lot of questions when I get home.
29:46This is the same record we just showed you, only we've highlighted a different portion.
29:49Would you please read that transcribed section?
29:52Mm-hmm.
30:04One with whom she is now pregnant.
30:06Mm-hmm.
30:07This cannot happen in the house of an unmarried man and an unmarried woman without the public thinking and judging.
30:15There to be illicit intercourse between the two partners in concubinage.
30:21You got it.
30:22From, from this there has ensued a great scandal and damage to soul.
30:28Damage to soul.
30:29Damage to soul.
30:30This white man is living with his lover.
30:34They have, uh, six children, right?
30:36Mm-hmm.
30:37And this priest is going nuts.
30:39And he files a complaint against them.
30:41I mean, the priest has said, this is a sin in the sight of man and God.
30:45And they said, we got to do something about it.
30:48I know, that priest was losing in his wig.
30:50Oh, my God.
30:50We have no idea how Brittany's ancestors felt about the priest's accusations.
30:59But we do know how they responded.
31:03In July of 1778, less than a year later, Pierre purchased Marie from her owner.
31:11And then he freed her.
31:17What do you think that was like for Marie, finally, to get her freedom?
31:20I mean, I would think she would feel safe.
31:22This man has done everything for her, honestly.
31:26Like, she has a family through him.
31:28He bought her and set her free and made sure she had her freedom.
31:32Um.
31:32There are a lot more cases of a white male fathering children with a black woman who was never freed.
31:40Yeah.
31:41Now, Brittany, did he love her or not?
31:43He loved her.
31:46Although Marie was now free, she and Pierre still faced a terrible problem.
31:51They had seven children who remained in bondage.
31:56Because the law dictated that the children of an enslaved woman followed the condition of their mother.
32:02And thus were the property of her owner, even if the man who had fathered them was free.
32:11Fortunately, Pierre had a solution.
32:14He did what the law demanded and purchased each of his children and emancipated them.
32:21Securing his family's freedom for generations to come.
32:25Now, that's a story.
32:29That's a story.
32:30That's a story.
32:32That's a story I can be proud of, honestly.
32:34And it makes me think those 10 years were not hell for her now.
32:40Like, to someone that did all that and then to go by the seven children as well,
32:47to go above and beyond and do that as well, let you know, like, he actually did care.
32:51Like, at some point, his mind changed. And I can respect a family member that does that.
32:57Like, yeah, you had some bad intentions, maybe, potentially, in the beginning.
33:01But I see you made a change. I can respect somebody that makes a change.
33:08Like Brittany, Chris Paul was about to meet an ancestor
33:12who'd completely changed the trajectory of his family.
33:16The story begins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with Chris's fourth great-grandfather,
33:27a man named Peter Oliver. Chris had heard of Peter before.
33:34Indeed, he knew that Winston-Salem had long been planning to name a park after his ancestor.
33:40But Chris wasn't sure what Peter had done to deserve such an honor.
33:51The answer lies in the archives of a North Carolina branch of the Moravian Church.
33:57In 1786, this church purchased Peter from a slave owner in Virginia,
34:04and then baptized him, likely at his own request.
34:12And who gives the name?
34:13The Moravians.
34:13The Moravians.
34:14Yeah. Now, we don't know if he said, I want to be Peter, or if they said, your name is Peter.
34:19But he got the name from the Moravians.
34:20Yeah, in that moment of baptism.
34:23Initially, he was known simply as Negro Oliver.
34:27Then when he's baptized, he takes on the Christian name Peter.
34:31And after 1786, he's known as Peter Oliver.
34:34How do you think he felt that day?
34:36Probably felt about as normal as he possibly could.
34:40Mm-hmm.
34:40I mean, as normal as you could in 1786.
34:44Mm-hmm.
34:44But to actually have a name and not be called Negro?
34:47Right, right, right.
34:49It's wild.
34:53The Moravians were unusual in that they allowed enslaved people into their congregations.
35:00And treated them as religious, if not necessarily, as social equals.
35:07Providing opportunities generally unavailable to other enslaved people.
35:14For Peter, these opportunities would prove life-changing.
35:19Roughly a year after his baptism, he was purchased by a master potter named Rudolf Kreist.
35:26Pottery was a valuable craft at the time, and Peter would rapidly excel at it.
35:34Becoming one of the only documented African American potters of his era in all of North Carolina.
35:42This is wow.
35:45What's it like to see that?
35:47Man, it's just so much connectivity.
35:50Mm-hmm.
35:51Right?
35:51And you realize everything happens for a reason.
35:54And the stories that we sort of all tell about ourselves were always connected to something,
36:00something that came before us.
36:02And it's amazing to hear, right?
36:05Like, this is a different connection with Peter Oliver than just sort of like a park being renamed in our hometown.
36:13And even though I wasn't in slavery or anything like that, like, the way he used pottery is kind of how I looked at the game of basketball.
36:22That's right.
36:23You know what I mean? And it's been able to take me and my family outside of our hometown and show us the world.
36:29Mm-hmm.
36:30A skill at which he excelled.
36:32Yep.
36:32And which the society placed value on.
36:36For sure.
36:39Moravian records show that by 1799, after just 13 years in their congregation,
36:45Peter had not only mastered pottery, he'd also joined a choir and a firefighting team.
36:55And he'd done something else as well, something that must have required extraordinary effort.
37:03Chris, he'd also learned to read and write.
37:06He was different.
37:07He was a bad brother, man.
37:09Yeah.
37:10Especially because reading and writing was sort of forbidden.
37:14And so when, it makes you wonder, when was that taking place?
37:18Who was teaching him?
37:19Right.
37:19Well, his master was saying, obviously, he's so bright, let's teach him to read and write.
37:25Right.
37:26He probably said, look, I'm more valuable to you if you let me learn to read and write.
37:30For sure.
37:30You know, did the rope-a-dope on him.
37:33We didn't have time to do all this.
37:34Yeah.
37:35Yeah.
37:35Unfortunately, despite everything he'd accomplished, Peter remained enslaved.
37:44But that was about to change.
37:48In 1800, he was sold yet again, this time to a Moravian man who lived in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
37:57And we believe that Peter himself pushed for this sale.
38:01So why the Pennsylvania?
38:04Please turn the page.
38:07Chris, you're looking at an amazing document.
38:10It's an affidavit presented to a man named Frederick Kuhn, one of the associate judges in Lancaster
38:17County.
38:18Would you please read that transcribed section?
38:20Peter Oliver verily believes that he is entitled to his freedom by virtue of the laws of Pennsylvania,
38:28having been held as a slave by virtue of the said bill of sale in this commonwealth,
38:34and that deponent is not confined or restrained of his liberty for any other cause whatsoever,
38:41and further saith not.
38:43Signed, Peter Oliver, sworn before me, June 13, 1800.
38:49He goes to a judge and says, your honor, I believe that I am a free man in the commonwealth
38:57of Pennsylvania.
38:57And that was part of probably why he got sold up to Pennsylvania.
39:00So, that's right.
39:01Right.
39:02They were enabling his freedom.
39:04Yep, yep.
39:05Because Pennsylvania had abolished slavery.
39:08Had abolished slavery.
39:09Right.
39:10And North Carolina didn't abolish slavery till the Civil War made it abolish slavery.
39:15They did him basically a favor in selling him up north.
39:19That's right.
39:20Isn't that amazing?
39:22Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
39:27There is a final beat to this story.
39:30In 1802, less than two years after winning his freedom in Pennsylvania,
39:37Peter returned to the South, got married, and settled on a four-acre farm that he leased
39:44from the Moravian Church outside of Salem, North Carolina.
39:50Wow.
39:52He goes back to North Carolina, which is why your family is from North Carolina.
39:56Why my family is from North Carolina.
39:57Yeah.
39:57So, he went up to Pennsylvania.
40:00Got his freedom.
40:01Got his freedom.
40:01And said, I'm going back home.
40:02Came back down.
40:04So, he must have loved North Carolina, because me, I would have stayed in Pennsylvania.
40:10What do you make of this?
40:10It's even more meaningful now, because, of course, you know of your immediate family.
40:17I always knew that I was born and raised there, but knowing that, it traces back all the way to...
40:221802.
40:23It's amazing.
40:24Yeah.
40:25And to move away and to come back, what he demonstrated is exactly why they put in a park and all of that.
40:37Yes.
40:38In Winston.
40:38Yes.
40:39Yes.
40:39You know, and the importance of this is, I mean, I remember my mom getting on Zooms with the family
40:44members or whatnot, talking about Peter Oliver and me. I'd be like, okay, okay.
40:49You know, but you don't know what you don't know.
40:51No, of course.
40:52Right?
40:52So, to hear all of the information that I heard today, it makes me understand why.
40:58Yeah, he was a go-getter.
41:03We'd already traced Brittany Griner's mother's roots in Louisiana, a place she'd never associated
41:10with her own family.
41:13Now, turning to her father's ancestors, we found ourselves on more familiar terrain,
41:19Brittany's home state of Texas.
41:21The story begins with Brittany's great-great-grandfather, a man named Henry Adams.
41:30Brittany knew that she has relatives who still carry the Adams surname, but she had no idea where
41:37it came from.
41:38We tried to learn, and ended up back in the slave era, pouring over the estate records of a white Texan
41:52named Thomas Adams Sr.
41:56They list 36 enslaved human beings.
42:01Among them is a boy named Henry, worth $125.
42:08A sight that caused Brittany to recoil.
42:14I mean, seeing a value placed on any person is just, it's like, I can't even really imagine it.
42:22I can because I know the history, the sick history, but to see that, it's just, I mean, it's just a boy.
42:29It's just a kid.
42:30Henry was around two months old.
42:32And I got a seven-month-old at home.
42:36I couldn't imagine him being born into this, like.
42:44And the Adams Sr. disease.
42:46Yeah.
42:47So, got the name from slave owner.
42:50Yep.
42:51There's your great-great-grandfather, Henry, listed as the property of a white man named
42:56Thomas Adams Sr., given a value in an estate record.
43:01Just like you would do a sofa, or a cow, or a horse.
43:04I'm literally going to say a cow, a pig, an animal.
43:08Yeah.
43:10That's just sad.
43:10I mean, two months old.
43:13I mean, like, ain't even started life yet.
43:17No.
43:18Already belonging to somebody else.
43:23Thomas Adams Sr. was one of the wealthiest men in his county.
43:28When he died in 1859, he was worth around $40,000, or roughly $1.5 million in today's money.
43:41A big part of that wealth was human property.
43:48And as we combed through his estate records, we came upon Henry's parents,
43:54Sam and Pallas Adams, as well as a curious detail.
44:00According to this record, Sam was 32 years old and Pallas was 12.
44:05And they already had a child, your great-great-grandfather, Henry.
44:08But we puzzled over this.
44:10We don't know if Pallas's age is correct there.
44:13Yeah.
44:13Her age on census records suggests that she was about 25, not 12.
44:18So we can't be sure.
44:19Okay.
44:20But it's possible that Pallas had Henry before her 13th birthday.
44:24I mean, it's possible.
44:26I mean, it wouldn't be uncommon back then.
44:28It wasn't like they'd care.
44:30I mean, people had kids way earlier.
44:31But that's crazy to think that she had already lived that much life at 12, 13.
44:40This story was about to take an even more troubling turn.
44:43Thomas's estate records were filed in January of 1859, meaning that his slaves were divided up amongst his heirs more than six years before the abolition of slavery.
44:59Which raised a chilling question.
45:04So what do you think happened to your family?
45:06Were they able to stay together or were they split up?
45:08Oh, they all got split up.
45:09I mean, they probably took joy in.
45:11I know some people took joy in splitting up families because they didn't want them to be together or have a sense of all you're supposed to do is work.
45:19I don't need you worrying about your wife, your kid, or any of that work.
45:22So I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't split up every single person on here.
45:27Please turn the page.
45:28Let's see.
45:30This is the same estate inventory we just showed you, only we've highlighted a different portion.
45:36Would you please read that transcribed section?
45:39To Abel Adams, Pallas, age 12 years.
45:43Mm-hmm.
45:44To Harmon Adams, Henry, age two months.
45:49Mm-hmm.
45:50To Thomas Adams, Jr., Sam, age 32.
45:55You were right.
45:55Your family, even the two-month-old baby, separated from his parents, your ancestors were split up among three different sons of their enslaver.
46:03Pallas goes to Abel, Henry, to Harmon, and Sam to Thomas Adams, Jr.
46:12Inhumane.
46:13Mm-hmm.
46:13It makes me look at the people that we got this name from.
46:17Like, we literally took a name from these inhumane people.
46:21Mm-hmm.
46:21It makes me look at the name Adams so different.
46:24And I know there are some really good Adams out there on my side of the family, but it makes me look at that name differently of where we got it from.
46:30Happily, Brittany's ancestors were able to reunite when freedom came.
46:42In the 1870 census, they were all living together in the same household.
46:48But this census also tells us something far less joyful.
46:55Just a few doors down from Brittany's family lived a man named Fabian Adams, one of the sons of Thomas Adams, Sr., the very same man who had enslaved them.
47:09How about that?
47:11While Fabian didn't inherit any of your ancestors from his father's will, the fact that the families were living so close five years after the end of the Civil War suggests that your ancestors, even though they were free, still had to work for the people who had held them in bondage.
47:27Oh, 100%.
47:28When I saw the occupation, farmer, white, and then I see farm labor, farm labor, oh, yeah, they was definitely still working there.
47:35Can you imagine living next to the people who used to own you?
47:38And not getting paid properly either, probably.
47:41Sharecropper.
47:42Yeah.
47:42Here, boy, put that X there, you know?
47:45That's all, they just, the new, new age slavery, that's all it was for them.
47:49Like, that's crazy to still live there, just the trauma of that, knowing, because they, I mean, they lived it.
47:55They were separated, brought back, spread out through the siblings, brought back together.
48:00Fabian didn't own any, but he's definitely benefiting from y'all working there now.
48:04And, you know, like it or not, and it shouldn't surprise us, but most formerly enslaved people stayed
48:11where they had been enslaved because they didn't have a choice.
48:13They couldn't read, they couldn't write, that was illegal.
48:16The system was rigged against them.
48:17Yeah.
48:18Where were they supposed to go?
48:19With what money?
48:22Britney's questions are good ones, and the answers would prove sobering.
48:26Her ancestors would not leave the county where they'd been enslaved for almost a century.
48:35But that doesn't mean that they wouldn't make progress.
48:40By 1910, less than 50 years after the end of the Civil War, her great-great-grandfather,
48:47Henry, had not only managed to become a landowner, but his children had too.
48:53And seeing the journey of her family laid out from slavery to freedom would prove deeply moving to Britney.
49:04Your people are survivors. Do you feel a connection?
49:06I feel a deep connection.
49:10It just makes me understand myself a little bit more.
49:15Like, knowing my background, my history, you think you're blazing your own path in life,
49:20but you're really kind of like reliving some of the things and some of the choices,
49:25even places where you're living, that your ancestors went down.
49:29Yeah.
49:29And it's kind of cool to walk the same road that they walked in the same sense.
49:33It was a hard road they walked, but I mean, I wouldn't be here today if they wouldn't have
49:38walked this road. If any of these little small things would have changed,
49:42a husband not been somebody's husband, they would have fought, they would have ran,
49:47you know, tried to escape. That could have altered everything and I could not be here.
49:53That's right. Poof.
49:54Yeah. You know, as much as I want all this to change and just be all happy-go-lucky
49:59without this happening, I might not be here right now.
50:03That's right.
50:03So I'm super appreciative of this information, that's for sure.
50:10I know my family is going to be very appreciative of this.
50:12What's your father going to say?
50:13He's going to be blown away. I already know. He's going to be shot. He's going to be like,
50:18what? He's going to try to figure out how y'all figured all this out.
50:26The paper trail had now run out for each of my guests.
50:31It was time to show them their full family trees.
50:34Oh my goodness.
50:36Now filled with names they'd never heard before.
50:41This is awesome.
50:43Yeah, I'm going to put this up in my house. Thank you. Thank you.
50:47For each, it was a moment of joy, offering the chance to connect with the women and men
50:55who laid the groundwork for their success.
50:58To see this is the wildest thing ever. I think it just makes, makes me appreciate things a lot
51:09more, right? Even though I know I should already, but just understanding what many generations have
51:17went through before me in order for me to be sitting right here with you.
51:22My ancestors had some fight in them, um, to, to make it through, to push through living next door
51:31to the people that had them enslaved, to being put in a, an insane asylum and having to deal with that
51:39and cope. It definitely helps me understand me a little bit more.
51:43Yeah.
51:44My fight, it all comes from, from my family. Everything that I've been through, everything
51:49I've gotten through, how I've gotten through it. It makes sense.
51:53That's the end of our journey with Brittany Griner and Chris Paul.
51:58Join me next time when we unlock the secrets of the past for new guests on another episode of Finding Your Roots.
Comments