- 12 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Viewers like you make this program possible.
00:03Support your local PBS station.
00:15I'm Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
00:18Welcome to Finding Your Roots.
00:21In this episode, we'll meet Lizzo and Flea,
00:25two extraordinary musicians whose lives were transformed by their talents.
00:32I was weird. I stood out.
00:34Because I would write raps all the time, like when I was like 10 or 11 or 12.
00:38And I would always, like, subvert expectations.
00:42Growing up, I thought that I was never good enough, that the world was scary.
00:46But as soon as I discovered music, I thought, this is what real is.
00:50This is something to hold on to.
00:51And it just took over my life.
00:53All of a sudden, I was interesting instead of weird.
00:56To uncover their roots, we've used every tool available.
01:01Genealogists comb through paper trails stretching back hundreds of years.
01:06That's crazy.
01:08While DNA experts utilize the latest advances in genetic analysis
01:13to reveal secrets that have lain hidden for generations.
01:18Wow!
01:18And we've compiled everything into a book of life.
01:23Oh my gosh!
01:24A record of all of our discoveries.
01:26How the hell did you find this?
01:28And a window into the hidden past.
01:31You just think about, like, the little things that have to happen for you to exist.
01:38That's right.
01:40I'm actually speechless by that.
01:43I don't know why this has affected me so much.
01:45It's emotional.
01:46Someone I never knew, you know.
01:48You just feel like you know him a little bit.
01:50It's family.
01:52My two guests have performed all over the world, bringing joy to generations of listeners.
01:59In this episode, they'll step off the stage and become listeners themselves.
02:06Hearing stories about long-lost ancestors.
02:09Stories that will forever change how they understand who they are.
02:41It ain't my fault that I'm not here getting looped out.
02:45Lizzo is a force of nature.
02:49The Grammy Award-winning singer radiates an infectious charisma.
02:54And her message of female empowerment has proven both widely resonant and wildly entertaining.
03:05Watching her perform, it seems Lizzo was destined for the stage.
03:10And in a sense, she was.
03:13Born Melissa Jefferson, Lizzo was raised in Houston, Texas, in a church-going family filled with talented musicians.
03:22And she grew up wanting to join them.
03:27I knew when I was nine years old.
03:29You did.
03:29So wild. I knew.
03:30I wanted to be like the Spice Girls.
03:33So bad.
03:33And I wanted to be like Destiny's Child.
03:35And I was forming little girl groups.
03:38And my first girl group was Peace, Love & Joy.
03:41And I was like, you be love, you be joy, I'll be peace.
03:44That's our brand.
03:45And I was writing these little girl power songs.
03:49Yeah?
03:49Yeah.
03:50And then I had another girl group.
03:51Initials.
03:52And then I had another girl group.
03:53And then I had Cornwall Click.
03:55And so I was always a part of these girl groups.
03:57But I wanted to be a part of a team really badly.
04:00A girl team.
04:04Lizzo's ambitions may have been clear, but she struggled mightily to make them a reality.
04:09After high school, she became the lead singer of an experimental rock band and started playing small clubs in Houston.
04:19But her world was turned upside down when her father passed away just before her 21st birthday, leaving Lizzo utterly
04:29shattered.
04:31It got really bad.
04:34I stopped going to work.
04:35I stopped paying my car note.
04:39I stopped paying rent.
04:43Actually, my car just disappeared.
04:45Mm-hmm.
04:46Because I didn't, I think it got repoed.
04:48Uh-huh.
04:48And I remember being like, oh well.
04:52And I was homeless for a year.
04:56Oh, poor baby.
04:57I was showering at the gym.
04:58I was sneaking into the gym to use the showers.
05:00Oh.
05:01Yeah.
05:02Friends were feeding me.
05:03You descended into the Valley of the Shadow.
05:05Yeah.
05:06In the wake of your father's death.
05:07Yeah.
05:08Mm-hmm.
05:08It was rough.
05:09And my mom, you know, I know she feels bad because she's like, please just come home.
05:14Like, you can just come home.
05:15Mm-hmm.
05:16Mm-hmm.
05:16But it was so hard.
05:18I remember, I remember in the dark, and I was laying there, I was thinking, and I was
05:22like, why is everything so hard?
05:24I was like, is this like God trying to warn me to get out of this situation?
05:32Mm-hmm.
05:32Or is this God trying to make me stronger by enduring this situation?
05:38Mm-hmm.
05:38I didn't know.
05:40Lizzo's questions would soon be answered.
05:44In 2011, she moved to Minneapolis, drawn by the city's vibrant music scene, and ended up in a girl group
05:52called The Chalice, with a sound that was more in line with her talents.
05:58The group's success would attract the attention of one of Lizzo's idols, Prince.
06:05And Prince gave her the chance to turn her life around.
06:11He was like, I want you to be on this song.
06:14And he had us in the studio, played the song, and he was like, you know, it's your song.
06:20Just pretend it's your song.
06:22And I went so crazy on that song, boy.
06:25But I said, I'm going to rap, I'm going to sing, I'm going to squall.
06:28I'm going to give it to you.
06:30And I did.
06:31Uh-huh.
06:31And he was like, I could offer you the world.
06:33You know what I mean?
06:34And was like, but you can't cuss.
06:36You can't talk about anything negative.
06:38Mm-hmm.
06:39And I remember being like, huh, no cussing, no negativity.
06:43And that became the catalyst of me making positive music.
06:47Hmm.
06:48I started, because I used to talk about like, uh, I'm anxious, I'm broke, I'm tired, I'm
06:54uh.
06:55It was always this negative stuff.
06:57Mm-hmm.
06:57And I remember being like, my mom being like, if you're going to talk about being broke and
07:01tired, you're going to be broke and tired.
07:03And I was like, yeah, whatever, mom.
07:05I like your mom.
07:05Right.
07:06Yeah.
07:06So I tried to start talking about more positive things, but it was really ego based.
07:12But then once it was like, no, don't cuss.
07:14Don't talk about nothing negative.
07:16Mm-hmm.
07:16I started making positive music, and that's how I got to where I am today.
07:22My second guest is Michael Balsery, better known as Flea, the legendary bassist of the
07:29Red Hot Chili Peppers, one of the most successful rock bands of all time.
07:36Over the last four decades, Flea and his band have packed stadiums around the world and sold
07:43more than 120 million records.
07:47But the man who's brought so much joy to so many people came to his calling almost by accident.
07:56Flea was born in Australia and might never have found music at all were it not for his
08:02parents' troubled marriage.
08:05My real father, my biological father, you know, had a suit, briefcase, went to work every
08:11day.
08:13When we moved to New York when I was four, he worked at the Australian Consulate as a
08:17government official of some kind.
08:18Customs, I think he did.
08:20I never quite understood what he did.
08:23And my mom left him, remarried when I was seven years old, and to a jazz musician.
08:32And he started having other jazz musicians come over for jam sessions.
08:36Wow.
08:37And they'd all set up in the living room and play.
08:39You know, we'd have food and we'd want to be drinking, smoking weed, playing bebop, you
08:42know.
08:43And these guys are just going for it.
08:46You know, bebop.
08:50It's very cerebral, very sophisticated, very emotional, spiritual, physical music.
08:56Right.
08:57And the first time I saw it, if you would, like, disappear right now or start walking
09:02on air or turn into a pig, it wouldn't be any more amazing than how that made me feel
09:07when I was a child.
09:08I remember just, you know, rolling around on the floor laughing because I was so overwhelmed
09:13with joy.
09:15The joy of that moment would soon lead Flea to take up the trumpet, but it would also
09:21lead to something much darker.
09:24In 1972, when Flea was nine years old, he moved yet again, this time to Los Angeles, where
09:33his stepfather attempted to launch a music career and ended up in the throes of addiction,
09:40casting Flea's family into chaos.
09:44It was terrifying to be in our house.
09:47I used to sleep in the backyard out in the garage.
09:51It was too scary to be in the house.
09:53He was, you know, he was emotionally very unstable and violent and would destroy the entire
10:02house.
10:03And, you know, my mom would leave him.
10:05We'd always go back.
10:06We'd run and go stay in a motel somewhere and I'd come back.
10:09The police would take him away.
10:10I'd come home and it'd be cops outside with guns.
10:13You know, it was just scary because you didn't know when it was going to happen, what was
10:16going to happen next, you know?
10:18And so when I was 12 years old, I'd be out to three in the morning, four in the morning
10:21out on Hollywood Boulevard, you know, running around, stealing stuff.
10:26I started getting high when I was about 11.
10:29I started smoking pot.
10:31Mm-hmm.
10:31And as my teenage years went on, I got into all the hard drugs and all of that.
10:36Mm-hmm.
10:36And at the time, it's funny, I didn't think of it as quelling pain.
10:39Mm-hmm.
10:40Because I didn't know what it was to not be in pain.
10:43Fortunately, Flea would find other ways to handle pain, and he's been drug-free for decades.
10:51But his path to happiness began on the same streets where he tried to lose himself, in
10:56a chance encounter with a kindred spirit, a classmate named Hillel Slovak.
11:03Hillel went on to become a fellow founding member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a guiding
11:09light in Flea's life.
11:13We met him.
11:14We were hitchhiking one day in the street, and he drove by and picked us up.
11:17And that was it?
11:18Yeah.
11:19And we just kind of became inseparable.
11:21Mm-hmm.
11:21And one day, he was like, you know, our bass player, he's just not serious.
11:25He doesn't believe in it.
11:27And why don't you learn how to play the bass?
11:29And I was so happy.
11:31I couldn't believe.
11:33Huh.
11:33Why?
11:34That he asked me.
11:34Um, I think I always felt kind of like an outcast and like I didn't belong.
11:40I always felt kind of removed from what I saw as like the center of what was happening
11:45in school and social.
11:46I was just kind of an outcast.
11:49That's how I felt.
11:50And he asked me to be a part of something.
11:52Mm-hmm.
11:53And I went out and got a bass the next day.
11:55I think my friend's dad had an extra bass.
11:56Let me use it until I could figure out getting one on my own.
11:58And, um, literally two weeks later, I was on stage in a nightclub in Sunset Boulevard performing.
12:05Wow.
12:05Two weeks from the day I started.
12:06That's amazing.
12:07Yeah.
12:08That is amazing.
12:09You know, acting like a rock star, posing and prancing around.
12:12And that changed my life forever.
12:16My two guests found fame when they were young.
12:18And they've never let it go.
12:20But living in the limelight means living far from your roots.
12:25And both came to me with fundamental questions about those roots.
12:30It was time to provide some answers.
12:35I started with Lizzo and with a mystery at the heart of her family tree.
12:42Lizzo's father, Michael, grew up knowing little about his own father, Lizzo's grandfather, a man named John Andrew Franklin.
12:52What have you heard about him?
12:55The only thing I've heard is we don't know his ethnicity.
13:00Mm-hmm.
13:00We don't know who his parents are.
13:04Mm-hmm.
13:04There's a story that he's Puerto Rican.
13:06There's a story that he's white.
13:07There's a story that he's super light-skinned.
13:09Mm-hmm.
13:11You ready to find out?
13:13Yes.
13:14Please turn the page.
13:15This is crazy.
13:17This is your grandfather's application for Social Security.
13:20It's dated February 10, 1940.
13:23Would you please read the transcribed section?
13:26John Andrew Franklin, age 18.
13:28Mother's full name, Hattie Caldonia Cunningham.
13:32Mm-hmm.
13:32Father's name, Calvin Columbus Franklin.
13:37Have you ever heard those names?
13:39Never heard those names.
13:41Now that we knew their names, we set out to learn more about Lizzo's great-grandparents.
13:47And we soon encountered something puzzling.
13:50In the 1930 census for Malden, Mississippi, we found Lizzo's great-grandmother Hattie.
13:58She's listed as being black and single, and she's raising seven children, including John, all on her own.
14:06So why wasn't John's father, Calvin, with the family?
14:11His death certificate, filed in Memphis, Tennessee, over a decade later, contains a clue.
14:20Would you please read the transcribed section?
14:26Certificate of death, full name, Calvin Columbus Franklin, race or color, white.
14:32There it is.
14:33There it is.
14:34Your great-grandfather was a white man.
14:39Whoa.
14:41How does that make you feel?
14:45I just want to know what happened between them?
14:50What's the story?
14:50Mm-hmm.
14:51You know?
14:52You hear about things like that back then, and you assume something negative, you know?
14:59Mm-hmm.
14:59You don't assume it was out of love, you know?
15:02And I hate that that's where my mind went, to something like rape or, you know what I mean?
15:11But your grandfather knew the name of his father.
15:13He knew the name.
15:15If you had a child after you were raped, it's difficult for me to imagine you're going to tell your
15:23child the name of your rapist.
15:25What's their story, Dan?
15:29We don't know what exactly happened between Hattie and Calvin.
15:34There are no records to tell us.
15:36But Calvin's obituary, published in Memphis on December 31st, 1943, shows that he was a man of many secrets.
15:47Mr. Franklin was born in Malden, Mississippi.
15:49He leaves his wife, Mrs. Virgie McConnell Franklin of Memphis.
15:53Wow, look at this.
15:55Two daughters.
15:56Mrs. Russell J. Hennessy.
15:58Mm-hmm.
15:59And Mrs. Winston Jackson, both of Memphis.
16:01Six sons, C.O. and J.C. Franklin of Memphis.
16:04J.B. and C.E. Franklin of Jackson.
16:06Mississippi Staff Sergeant Thomas J. Franklin of the Marine Court.
16:10And Private Claude J. Franklin of the Army.
16:13There's your great-grandfather.
16:15According to this obituary, at the time of his death, he was a married man, married to a white woman.
16:21And they had eight children, two daughters and six sons.
16:24Those children are your grandfather John's white half-siblings.
16:29Wow.
16:29John himself, of course, was omitted from the obituary.
16:36So, he had an affair with your great-grandmother.
16:39Right.
16:40Do you think Calvin's wife and children knew that they had a mixed-race half-sibling?
16:44Probably not.
16:45Yeah.
16:46But we know from the documents we gathered that your grandfather knew who his father was.
16:51Yes.
16:52We also know from this obituary that Calvin moved away from Malden to Memphis in 1922, the very year your
16:59grandfather was born.
17:02Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho. Scandaloso.
17:08We can't be certain that Calvin's move was the result of John's birth, but it seems highly likely.
17:15And as we dug deeper, we noticed something that shed a little more light on the relationship between Lizzo's great
17:22-grandparents.
17:24The 1920 census for Mississippi, recorded about two years before John was born, shows that Calvin and Hattie lived just
17:34a short distance apart.
17:36And that Calvin was already married at the time.
17:42So, he was cheating on his wife.
17:44Ah.
17:45We don't know if any of John Andrew's siblings were also fathered by Calvin.
17:50We don't know.
17:51We found an online obit that refers to Calvin as the father of John's older sister, Evelyn.
17:57Stop.
17:58Yeah.
17:59So, multiple kids?
18:01That's from the obituary, which had been, you know, somebody in the family has to put down who was the
18:08father and who was the mother.
18:09And she had seven kids.
18:10Yeah.
18:11Two of them.
18:11So, if there were two, that means they had a relationship.
18:14That's a relationship.
18:15Yeah.
18:16That's a situationship.
18:18Please turn the page.
18:20Oh!
18:23Who is that?
18:25That is your great-grandfather.
18:26That's Calvin?
18:27That is Calvin Columbus Franklin.
18:29That is your father's grandfather.
18:34He had blue eyes.
18:37Oh, my gosh.
18:40Oh, my gosh.
18:43I've had, like, you know, like a, like, Spidey sense, like, my whole body, like, when I saw him.
18:51Wow.
18:54This is wild.
18:57This is crazy.
18:59What's it like to see that?
19:01Okay.
19:01All right.
19:02Now that I've gotten over the white man of it all, his energy, he gives, like, I can see, I
19:13can see he's got, like, a puppy dog eyes type of thing.
19:15Mm-hmm.
19:16And I can see.
19:18Why she would fall for you?
19:19Why she would like him.
19:20Yeah.
19:20He got the suit on, down.
19:23This is wild.
19:25This is so wild.
19:29Unfortunately, this story was about to take a painful turn.
19:33Digging into Calvin's roots, we discovered that Lizzo's white family traces back to the 1700s, through Mississippi and South Carolina,
19:44and includes at least three men who owned slaves.
19:49Leaving Lizzo to puzzle over this very complicated, newly found branch of her family tree.
19:59I have a lot to process with the white side.
20:02Mm-hmm.
20:04Um, but I don't feel like there's that much white side.
20:06It's just a little.
20:07It's a little.
20:08I got way more black side.
20:10But, um.
20:12Did, when you were growing up, did anybody ever get on you?
20:15You think you white?
20:16You act white?
20:17Oh, yeah.
20:18I acted a lot.
20:19They were right.
20:21Don't play with me.
20:22That is true.
20:22All the white girl allegations are true, honey.
20:25Yeah, it's, it's, you know.
20:27How much resolution would this have brought to your father to know?
20:32How would he be feeling right now?
20:33I think that he would have, um, gotten a good laugh out of, uh, this one right here.
20:40He looked, he looked apologetic.
20:43He looked like, I'm sorry.
20:45Yeah, you should be.
20:48Like Lizzo, Flea grew up knowing little about his paternal roots, but for very different reasons.
20:56His father, a man named Noel Balsery, moved back to Australia when Flea was eight years old.
21:02And the two had a distant, often strained relationship for decades.
21:07In no small part due to Noel's struggles with alcohol.
21:12And although they were at peace by the end of Noel's life, Flea still wrestles with his father's memory.
21:21What do you miss most about him?
21:24You know, I miss, I always kind of hoped that our relationship could be better and deeper.
21:31And, um, I miss kind of just the hope that it could be what it could be, you know?
21:38And I think when he died, one of the things that was really hard for me was that it didn't
21:42get to what I always kind of my dream relationship with him.
21:46You know, the sense of ease and comfort and, uh, humor and, you know, the things that you want when
21:52you spend time with someone.
21:55But he was such a strange character of a man.
21:59And, um, yeah, and I, I, yeah, he was, he was funny and nutty and, um, and when you get
22:08him in the right time, you know, my father really drank a lot, so you'd have kind of catch him
22:11in the right moment, you know, how it is with alcohol, you know, kind of on the way up or,
22:16um, he would, he'd be, you know, really funny and charming, you know, I miss that, yeah.
22:24Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the gaps between them, Flea and Noel rarely discussed their shared roots.
22:32Flea knew that Noel's father, Clifford Vincent Balsery, had also battled alcoholism.
22:38And he'd heard that Clifford had been a difficult man.
22:43But when we began to research Clifford's life, we found that a crucial part of his story had not been
22:49passed down.
22:50It begins in Australia's National Archives with a World War I enlistment record.
22:58To the recruiting officer at Melbourne, I, Clifford Vincent Balsery, hereby offer myself for enlistment in the Australian Imperial Force
23:07for active service abroad.
23:10Consent of parents or guardians for persons under 21, father's signature Edwin A. Balsery, mother's signature Emma Balsery.
23:19How the hell did you find this?
23:24I take it you've never seen this?
23:26No.
23:26Clifford enlisted in March 1917.
23:29He was just 18 years old.
23:31Now, what were you doing?
23:32You were 18 years old.
23:34Smoking weed, hanging out at the park.
23:37What's it like to learn that your ancestor at that age did this?
23:41It's intense and very much like my father to do that.
23:46You do your duty, no matter what.
23:48My father really believed it.
23:49And my father was also very, like, nationalistic.
23:52Like, Australia Day was a big day.
23:54You know, he's very patriotic in that way.
23:56And, you know, we've always gone with America.
23:58We've always gone with, you know, with England.
24:00You know, you don't question these things.
24:02These are the alliances that make us who we are.
24:04He really believed in that.
24:06And it very much makes sense.
24:08I mean, yeah, it adds up in my mind that that's something that my father's father would have done.
24:16As it turns out, Clifford was not the only person in his family who was eager to serve his country.
24:23Records show that his older brother, a man named Leonard Balsery, had enlisted two years before him.
24:32So, I have a great uncle named Leonard?
24:35There you go.
24:36Wow.
24:37He enlisted in July 1915, when he was 18 years old, two years before your grandfather.
24:42And you've heard nothing about this.
24:44No.
24:45What's it like to learn that you're related to not one, but two Balseries who fought in World War I?
24:53It's amazing to know, you know, it can't help but, like, open up in my imagination, like, what was it
24:59like for them?
25:00They had been in Australia, like, living a very provincial, rural type of life, I'm sure, in Australia at that
25:07time.
25:07And they got on a ship.
25:09Where did they go?
25:10Right.
25:10They go all the way to Europe?
25:12You know, wow.
25:13The two brothers would indeed find themselves in Europe, but not in a way that either of them likely hoped
25:20or imagined.
25:22When Clifford enlisted, Leonard was already in France, serving on the infamous Western Front.
25:30Months later, Flea's grandfather would board a transport ship, seemingly bound to follow in his brother's footsteps.
25:39But by the time Clifford arrived, Leonard had made the ultimate sacrifice.
25:47Casualty was sitting on the side of Vesthoek Ridge in the open.
25:51A shrapnel shell exploded near Casualty, killing him instantly, and went immediately to his assistance, but he was beyond all
26:00aid.
26:00He was buried near Vesthoek Ridge, but I do not know the exact spot, so that's my Uncle Leonard, my
26:06great Uncle Leonard.
26:07Yeah.
26:08He got killed.
26:09Yeah.
26:10Wow.
26:11He was 20 years old, Flea.
26:13Oh, man.
26:15What's it like to learn that?
26:17I mean, I'm grateful for it.
26:19It's unbelievable that you unearthed this.
26:21I don't know how you guys find this stuff.
26:25Yeah, I'm crazy, man.
26:30It's emotional.
26:31Someone I never knew, you know, and just reading the first part, I just feel like you know him a
26:40little bit all of a sudden, you know?
26:41Sure.
26:42It's family.
26:45Leonard died in September 1917, near Ypres, Belgium.
26:50He was buried in an unmarked grave near where he fell.
26:56Less than a year later, his brother Clifford would arrive in the same place, heading into a nightmare.
27:10In August of 1918, Clifford's division joined other Allied forces in what became known as the Hundred Days Offensive, an
27:20all-out effort to break through Germany's trenches and end the war.
27:26The offensive would prove a success, but it came at an enormous cost.
27:32It's estimated that the Allies suffered over one million casualties, including more than 25,000 Australians, some of whom Clifford
27:43likely knew.
27:47So, how do you think it affected him?
27:49Without doubt.
27:50Like, you don't come home the same.
27:52No.
27:53You can't come back normal, or the way that you left.
27:55No.
27:56Plus, your brother's dead.
27:57Yeah, no, your relationship to life and to what human beings are capable of changes forever.
28:03Yeah.
28:03From what I know from my dad, he drank a real lot, and that it killed him at a, you
28:10know, he didn't live long.
28:11And, you know, perhaps the trauma of that, he must have seen a lot of, you know, people being blown
28:17up and killed and stabbed and shot and dianetted and whatever they did.
28:21Maybe that's, you know, a birth of a lot of trauma, you know, that, you know, back then I don't
28:26think you got, you know, I've got stress disorder after the war or whatever it is, you know.
28:33You know, PTSD didn't exist as a concept.
28:35PTSD, yeah.
28:35Yeah, get over it.
28:36Yeah, be a man.
28:36Especially in Australian culture.
28:38Oh, yeah.
28:38Yeah, there's none of that.
28:40Yeah.
28:40No coddling.
28:42Clifford was honorably discharged on October 2, 1919, more than two and a half years after enlisting.
28:52He was just 20 years old and had survived some of the worst combat in the history of war.
29:00He would eventually receive multiple medals for his service, but it's not at all clear that he ever recovered from
29:08the stress.
29:11Do you think your father knew any of this?
29:13He must have.
29:15He must have.
29:16And he might have, like, I feel dopey, like he might have, like, dropped a little bit here and there
29:22and I didn't really get it, you know.
29:24Uh-huh.
29:24I'm wondering, like, what, anything that he said that I missed, you know.
29:29Or maybe he didn't want to talk about it.
29:31It could be, yeah.
29:32You know.
29:33It was too painful to him to talk about or I just don't know.
29:36I just, there's so much all unknown to me.
29:38Uh-huh.
29:39Has it changed anything about the way you now think of your father?
29:46It makes me understand him better.
29:49It doesn't really change my opinion of him or, you know, what kind of man he was.
29:53It makes me understand more.
29:54Uh-huh.
29:55Like, you talk about trauma being handed down and I think about how much, like, my sister and I were
30:00often kind of angry with him.
30:02Uh-huh.
30:02Over what we saw as, you know, dysfunctional behavior and anger and trauma.
30:07Like, how much he was doing the best that he could with what he had.
30:11Uh-huh.
30:12And what was handed down to him.
30:14We'd already traced Lizzo's paternal roots back two generations in the Jim Crow South.
30:21Now Lizzo was hoping we could go further, back into the slave era.
30:27In the archives of Mississippi, we found Lizzo's fourth great-grandparents, a couple named Ambrose and Susan Dangerfield, as well
30:37as their daughter Susan.
30:39They're all listed as property in the estate records of the white man who owned them.
30:47Chattels and personal estate of Nathaniel H. Hugh in Knoxby County, deceased.
30:53Ambrose valued at $600.
30:56Susan valued at $200.
30:58Susan valued at $325.
31:02Chattels is crazy.
31:05Mm.
31:09$200?
31:13What's it like to see that, to see your own flesh and blood listed as property with a value put
31:20next to their names?
31:22I think there's a certain gravity that you feel.
31:26Because we, as black people today, are far removed from chattel slavery, just because of time, but also the erasure
31:43that's starting to happen in our schools, where they don't teach it anymore.
31:49It's starting to be suggested.
31:51It's starting to be like, oh, they were indentured servants.
31:54Right.
31:55They were immigrants.
31:56Right.
31:57No.
31:57They were stolen.
31:59Mm-hmm.
32:00Seeing something like this makes it, it brings me right there.
32:06Mm-hmm.
32:07It, like, closes the gap.
32:08Mm-hmm.
32:10Between 1865 and today.
32:13Mm-hmm.
32:13Right.
32:13And it's like, it's heavy.
32:17Mm-hmm.
32:18It's very heavy.
32:21This story was about to take an unexpected turn.
32:26Lizzo's ancestors were enslaved by a man named Nathaniel Hugh.
32:30He owned vast plantations in both Mississippi and Virginia, and kept hundreds of people in bondage.
32:39But when he died, his will suggests that he was not exactly a typical slave owner.
32:49Whoa.
32:50Tenth item.
32:52I emancipate and set free my slaves in Virginia, and set those free to be sent to Africa by my
32:59executors and their expenses paid out of any monies under their control.
33:04I do also emancipate and set free each and every one of my slaves in the state of Mississippi, now
33:10under the control and management of Matthias, Mahorner, and Knoxby County, as above directed, before starting for Africa.
33:19Huh.
33:21Plot twist.
33:24He emancipated them.
33:26Yeah.
33:27And paid for their trip back to Africa.
33:29That's what he said in his will.
33:31When I die, I have left money, and this has to happen.
33:35Wow.
33:39Nathaniel Hugh passed away in 1844, and the unusual stipulation in his will would prove fodder for the local press,
33:49which detailed his involvement with what was known as the American Colonization Society,
33:55a group founded to promote the emancipation of enslaved people and their resettlement in Liberia, a colony the society had
34:05founded on the pepper coast of Africa.
34:08Mr. Nathaniel Hugh, of King George County, lately deceased, left by his will, nearly all his slaves free, amounting to
34:17some two or three hundred slaves?
34:20Yeah.
34:21With ample provision to carry them to Liberia.
34:24The liberated slaves are to be removed under the direction of the Colonization Society.
34:29We have never seen anything like this in the whole history of this show.
34:33Never.
34:34And I've read about the American Colonization Society since I took my first black history class as a sophomore in
34:42college.
34:43You're the first guest ever related to this movement to repatriate liberated slaves back to Africa.
34:52Wow.
34:53What do you make of this?
34:55I'm like, well, did they go?
34:57Mm-hmm.
34:57That's what I want to know.
34:58Clearly they didn't.
35:01Lizzo's hunch was correct.
35:03Although the enslaved people on Nathaniel's Virginia plantation boarded a ship for Liberia in November of 1845,
35:11Lizzo's ancestors are not listed on that ship's manifest.
35:16And neither are any of the other slaves held on Nathaniel's Mississippi plantation.
35:23None of them made it to Liberia.
35:25Like, what happened?
35:27In 1845, Nathaniel Hughes' heirs, his son, William D. Hugh, and a minor grandson named Nathaniel Hugh Harrison petitioned the
35:36court in Mississippi to stop the emancipation of Hughes' Mississippi slaves, including your ancestors.
35:44They contested the will.
35:46They contested the will.
35:46This is too much money to let go.
35:49They go, old man must have been out of his head.
35:51They claim this was against the laws of the state of Mississippi, which in 1842 forbade the manumission of slaves.
36:00Hmm.
36:01In the end, the high court in Mississippi agreed with them.
36:05So Nathaniel's slaves from his Virginia plantation ended up being transported back to Liberia.
36:11But the Mississippi slaves, including your ancestors, remained enslaved.
36:18Jesus Christ.
36:19Jesus Christ.
36:20Now imagine.
36:21Rooting for them.
36:23Imagine.
36:23They're told that they're free.
36:25Yes.
36:25He probably said, when I'm dying, you are going to be free.
36:29And then it's snatched away.
36:31Damn, that really, really upsets me.
36:37Tragically, this was not the end of Lizzo's family's ordeal.
36:41In the wake of the court's decision, Nathaniel's slaves in Mississippi were distributed among his heirs.
36:49Lizzo's fourth-great-grandparents, Ambrose and Susan, became the property of Nathaniel's son.
36:56While their young daughter, Lizzo's third-great-grandmother, became the property of his grandson.
37:05So they were split up.
37:06Mm-hmm.
37:07The daughter was split up.
37:08Yes.
37:09The family was torn apart.
37:11Split from her parents.
37:12Yes.
37:14What's it like to see that?
37:16Yeah.
37:18It's like, I've read about this so much and I've seen so many documentaries and films.
37:28And it's, it's, it's like, I don't, I don't, it's very uncomfortable.
37:37Mm-hmm.
37:39Because we talk about it like, slavery separated families.
37:42We say that.
37:42That's what we say when we're out here talking to, you know.
37:46Mm-hmm.
37:46And it's wild to be like, slavery separated my family.
37:54Lizzo's ancestor was just eight years old when she was taken away from her parents.
37:59And it's quite possible that she never saw them again.
38:04Her new owner appears to have transported her to Texas, some 600 miles away.
38:11And we could find no evidence that the family was ever reunited.
38:17I can only imagine like, what losing both of her parents like that, what that did to her.
38:28What do you think it did to the parents to lose your eight-year-old daughter?
38:35I think that's the fear that they lived with every day.
38:40Mm.
38:41And I feel like, I hate to say this, a part of them had to have been emotionally prepared for
38:49it.
38:49Mm-hmm.
38:50Hardened a little bit.
38:51Mm-hmm.
38:51It does, there's nothing you can do to really prepare for it.
38:54Mm-hmm.
38:54You know what I mean?
38:55Sure.
38:55It's heartbreaking, but it's like, you have to keep living.
38:59Mm-hmm.
39:00You have to keep living.
39:02There is a grace note to this story.
39:05When Lizzo's ancestor was taken to Texas, her parents remained behind in Mississippi.
39:11And records show that after freedom came, her father Ambrose demonstrated that despite all he had suffered,
39:18he was still willing, and quite able, to help his community.
39:23I, Benjamin Roby, for and in consideration of the sum of $200 to me in hand-paid, have this day
39:31bargained and sold,
39:32and by these presents do grant, bargain, sell, and convey until William Catlett, Ambrose Dangerfield, and Richard Gray,
39:41for the sole use and of the congregation of colored persons in the town of Macon in Nuxby County
39:46in the state of Mississippi known and recognized as the first African Baptist church in said town the 21st day
39:53of October A.D. 1868.
39:55Three years after they were freed, your fourth great-grandfather Ambrose and two of his friends
40:01bought land for the benefit of the congregation of colored persons known as the first African Baptist church.
40:16Why did that make me tear up?
40:18Of all the things we talked about today.
40:24Of all the things.
40:26Isn't that amazing?
40:27You got me.
40:29Wow, I wasn't expecting that.
40:31I know that on my mother's side, Mama Kirkwood started a church.
40:39I didn't know on my dad's side.
40:41I didn't know.
40:43Wow.
40:45I'm actually speechless by that.
40:49We'd already uncovered the story of Flea's grandfather, Clifford Balsery,
40:54who served in the Australian Army during World War I.
40:58Now, moving back two generations, we came to the man who brought this line of Flea's family to Australia in
41:06the first place.
41:07His great-great-grandfather, Albert Balsery.
41:12Albert was born in Hungary and immigrated to Australia sometime before 1853.
41:19While the details of his early life are unclear, we found a birth record for one of his children.
41:26And it shows that Albert and Flea shared something profound.
41:33Births in the colony of Victoria, when and where born, July 21st, 1858, Pleasant Creek.
41:41Child's name, Arthur Vincent Balsery.
41:45Father, Albert Vincent Balsery.
41:48Ranker, profession, gold digger, and musician.
41:51Gold digger and musician.
41:53Did you have any idea that you were not the first musician on the Balsery line?
41:57I had no idea.
41:58I had never heard that before.
42:00What's it like to see that?
42:02Amazing.
42:04I love it.
42:06Unfortunately, Albert's musical talents were eclipsed by a more urgent need.
42:12The need to earn a living.
42:14When he arrived in Victoria, the province was in the throes of a gold rush.
42:20And immigrants from all over the world were pouring in, searching for riches that almost invariably proved elusive.
42:29Albert was not an exception.
42:32He found no riches, just long hours of hard work in brutal conditions.
42:39And when the gold rush petered out, he paid the ultimate price for his efforts.
42:44Age 51 years.
42:47When and where died, 3rd July 1865, Dunnelly Hospital.
42:53Cause of death, duration of last illness.
42:57Dysentery, five months.
43:00Yeah.
43:00Wow.
43:02Dysentery.
43:03Is that a...
43:05Is that a...
43:06Intestines.
43:07Intestines.
43:07Severe diarrhea.
43:08Severe diarrhea.
43:09You die of dehydration.
43:10You die of dehydration.
43:12And living a hard life will do that to you, man.
43:15Yeah.
43:15You know, out there digging in the dirt and probably whatever mining he did after that.
43:20Like, I mean, the gold rush didn't pan out.
43:22He must have done other types of mining.
43:24Mm-hmm.
43:24Cause that's what he knew how to do.
43:25Right.
43:27Um...
43:31It's sad, you know?
43:33When Albert died, he left behind a wife.
43:37Flea's great-grandmother.
43:38A woman named Henrietta Balzeri.
43:41She was just 32 years old.
43:44And suddenly, she had to raise a family all on her own.
43:50She had four children by this time, Flea.
43:5232 with four kids.
43:54Four children and a widow.
43:55Yeah.
43:56So let's see how she fared.
43:57Okay.
43:58Please turn the page.
44:01The two documents in front of you are from the year 1870 and 1872,
44:07five and seven years after Albert's death.
44:09Would you please read the transcribed section of both?
44:13Petty Sessions at Donnelly on Friday, the 23rd day of September, 1870.
44:19Complainant, William Crofton.
44:22Defendant, Henrietta Balzeri.
44:24Cause, selling ale without license.
44:28Petty Sessions at Donnelly on the 3rd day of September, 1872.
44:33Defendant, Henrietta Balzeri.
44:35Cause, selling liquor without license.
44:38Decision.
44:38Defendant fined five pounds with one pound six shillings costs.
44:43Hmm.
44:44So she was selling probably some kind of bootleg to make do.
44:47You got it.
44:48Wow.
44:49Yeah.
44:50What do you make of that?
44:51You know, you gotta do what you gotta do to get by.
44:54Yeah.
44:54You know, I appreciate the, uh, the, the industriousness of doing it.
45:00Yeah.
45:01You know, power to her, man.
45:05Henrietta may have been industrious, but she faced steep odds.
45:09Australia did not offer many avenues for a single mother to make a living.
45:15Most experienced dire poverty.
45:19And selling alcohol illegally was one of the few ways to survive.
45:24Fortunately, Henrietta soon found another.
45:30Marriages solemnized in the district of Donnelly.
45:33She really didn't get out of Donnelly.
45:35Yeah.
45:35March 11th, 1875.
45:38William Lovett.
45:39Bachelor.
45:40Profession.
45:41Minor.
45:42Age 43.
45:43Henrietta Bousery Widow.
45:45Profession.
45:46Storekeeper.
45:47Mm-hmm.
45:48Age 42.
45:49Henrietta went from illegally selling booze to becoming a storekeeper.
45:54Presumably with a license.
45:56Yes.
45:56And she got married again.
45:58To another minor.
45:59Your ancestor had to be incredibly scrappy and resourceful.
46:04Yeah.
46:05You see any of these circumstances, Mr. Flea, in yourself?
46:09Very much so.
46:10Yeah.
46:11I'm scrappy and resourceful.
46:14As it turns out, Henrietta had been living by her wits for far longer than Flea even imagined.
46:23As evidenced by the manifest of the ship that brought her to Australia.
46:28A teenage girl from Ireland, utterly alone in the world.
46:34List of immigrants per ship, Pemberton, arrived on the 14th May, 1849.
46:41Female orphans.
46:44Wow.
46:45Name, Honora Bentley, age 16.
46:48Calling, house servant.
46:50Native place and county, Limerick, Ireland.
46:54Read or write?
46:55Both.
46:57So she was an orphan.
46:59Mm-hmm.
47:05And her aspiration was to be a house servant.
47:08Yes.
47:08That was her hope.
47:09That's right.
47:09That she could do that.
47:11She could read and write.
47:15It's a trip, man.
47:19That's my people.
47:22There was one more beat to this story.
47:25Records show that Henrietta was born around 1833 in County Limerick, Ireland.
47:33Which means that when she was roughly 12 years old, she was caught up in what we now call the
47:38Great Famine.
47:39A cataclysm that claimed the lives of roughly a million Irish people.
47:46County Limerick alone saw its population fall by close to 70,000 people in just 10 years.
47:55We don't know what happened to Henrietta during the famine, or to her parents.
48:01But by the time she was 16, she was an orphan, living in a workhouse.
48:08She was all on her own.
48:10Yeah.
48:11Had to be very hard.
48:12Had to be really hard.
48:14You know, I wonder how long she had been an orphan when she was in the workhouse.
48:19Yeah.
48:19We don't know.
48:20Or why.
48:21She might have been an orphan since birth.
48:23She could have been.
48:23She could have been abandoned at birth.
48:25They could have died of starvation.
48:27They could have...
48:27She could have been illegitimate.
48:28I mean, we don't know.
48:29Yeah.
48:32The workhouse where Henrietta found herself was basically a walled-off factory with beds.
48:40Once inside, she likely had to do physically demanding labor in exchange for food and shelter.
48:48It's little wonder that she was willing to roll the dice and take a risk on Australia,
48:53knowing nothing of what was to come.
48:57Do you see any of her bravery and resilience in yourself?
49:02Um, I hope so.
49:04You know, it makes me feel like, you know, sometimes I've, you know, all my tough times
49:08I had and stuff makes me feel like I had it pretty easy, you know?
49:11Yeah.
49:12I mean, I always, even when I was like skipping the bill at restaurants and running out without
49:16paying, I was eating.
49:17You know what I mean?
49:18Yeah.
49:19People starving to death.
49:21It's serious business, you know?
49:22Yeah.
49:23What do you think of your great-great-grandmother?
49:25And what's it like for you to think that you descend from her?
49:30Um, I love it.
49:31I think she's amazing.
49:33Um, you know, she, she did what she had to do to survive and I'm sure that so much of
49:41it just comes from love and caring, not only, you know, for herself and treasuring life itself
49:47and not just becoming, uh, not dissipating at any point, you know?
49:52Um, but continuing to focus on doing what she could do to make life good for herself and,
49:58you know, remarrying.
50:00She, so she, you know, I hope the guy was nice, you know?
50:03Yeah.
50:03I hope they were all nice to her.
50:05I hope Albert was nice to her.
50:06Yeah.
50:06I hope this other guy is nice to her too.
50:08Mm-hmm.
50:09Um, cause it must've been real hard.
50:13Does it make you look at your own success any differently?
50:16You know, I've always had a real intense striving and there's a part of me that's
50:21like, you know, like a part of me that performs and stuff where I push myself to beyond where
50:29I should push myself.
50:30Mm-hmm.
50:30You know, I push myself to like, just like practically death, you know what I mean?
50:35I go back to the hotel and I, you know, cause I push myself so hard when I perform.
50:39And, um, it makes me feel like that that's in me, that survival thing.
50:45Like I really have it.
50:46Right.
50:47Deeply ingrained in me.
50:50The paper trail had now run out for each of my guests.
50:54It was time to show them their full family trees.
50:58Wow.
51:00Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
51:01Now filled with names they'd never heard before.
51:05These are all of the ancestors.
51:07For each, it was a moment of wonder, offering a glimpse of the women and men who'd sacrificed
51:14so much to lay the groundwork for their success.
51:19Man, I gotta process it.
51:20I gotta think about it.
51:21I got, it's really giving me something to chew on and meditate on.
51:24It's a lot.
51:25I, I feel all of it like in my body.
51:28Like in my psyche, in who I am.
51:30That's great.
51:31And it connects.
51:32It's these little things.
51:33This whole tree just shows me like the smallest things have had to happen for me to be sitting
51:40here today.
51:41Absolutely.
51:42I mean, so many things had to have gone right.
51:45Mm-hmm.
51:46And I'm glad they did.
51:48They were put in slavery.
51:50They were separated.
51:54And I'm still here.
51:56This is, I am here for them.
51:58This is their resilience.
51:59I'm the proof of it.
52:00And you're going strong.
52:01And I'm going strong, baby.
52:04That's the end of our journey with Lizzo and Flea.
52:08Join me next time when we unlock the secrets of the past for new guests on another episode
52:15of Finding Your Roots.
Comments