- 5 hours ago
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
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.
00:20In this episode, we'll explore the family trees
00:24of actor Sanaa Lathan and rapper Wiz Khalifa.
00:29Meeting ancestors who made incredible journeys.
00:34You'd think that your history is that deep,
00:37but to actually see, you know, black male, 14,
00:42and then see him turn into a human being, a person, that's amazing.
00:47It's just emotionally overwhelming and, you know, I want to know more.
00:54To uncover their roots, we've used every tool available.
00:59Genealogists comb through paper trails stretching back hundreds of years.
01:04This is amazing.
01:06While DNA experts utilize the latest advances in genetic analysis
01:10to reveal secrets that have lain hidden for generations.
01:14This is mind blowing.
01:16And we've compiled everything.
01:18Oh my God.
01:20Into a book of life.
01:21Damn.
01:22A record of all of our discoveries.
01:25And a window into the hidden past.
01:28I didn't know this was going to be such a spiritual journey you're taking me on.
01:33That is your family in the first federal census to list all African Americans.
01:39Wow.
01:40That's insane.
01:42That's awesome.
01:43It's just fascinating to think of all these different people that have kind of contributed to the soup that I
01:51am.
01:53Sana'a and Wiz both descend from people who made immense efforts to change their fortunes,
01:59traveling great distances with little more than a dream.
02:04In this episode, they're going to meet the ancestors who made those journeys
02:09and uncover the stories that got lost along the way.
02:52Wiz Khalifa is constantly smiling.
02:55And with good reason.
02:58He's one of the best-selling hip-hop artists of all time.
03:02And he's risen to the top thanks to his utterly genuine exuberance.
03:10But for all the joy he brings to the stage, in the studio, Wiz is a meticulous craftsman
03:17with a tireless work ethic.
03:20Traits that have marked him since he was a child.
03:24My mom really figured it out.
03:26She started seeing me taking it serious because I would be like writing rhymes
03:29and I had like rap books laying around the house.
03:32And I kind of explained it to her like what our lingo was and what it all meant to me.
03:37So she was like, all right, cool, whatever.
03:40Not whatever, but like, yeah, cool.
03:41Like, you know, I support that.
03:44And then the following summer, I went and lived with my dad.
03:46And I told him the same thing about how serious I was about making music.
03:51And he, you know, he allowed me to dive all the way in.
03:54I was like, if that's something that you want to do, I want to see you take it serious.
03:57Like, don't just say you're about it, you know, really do it.
04:00So that's when you decided that's what I want to do with the rest of my life.
04:05I loved basketball at the time.
04:07There was like a short period of time when I lived with my dad, like that summer that I was
04:10telling you about,
04:11where I did normal kid stuff like, you know, played sports, went to games, did all of this stuff.
04:18But I put the ball away.
04:21I wanted to do music.
04:24I wanted to do music.
04:25Wiz's ambitions would quickly bear fruit.
04:28In 2005, while still in high school, he signed a deal with a small label and released his first mixtape,
04:37restyling his hometown of Pittsburgh as Pistolvania and declaring himself a Prince of the City.
04:45It was an instant success, but it wasn't exactly the way Wiz wanted to be seen.
04:52So he made a change.
04:55I was trying to be hard.
04:58Everybody was like tough at this time.
05:01And like, I wasn't really a tough guy.
05:03I hung around some tough people.
05:05I'm not going to say I wasn't a tough guy because you got to be tough to come up in
05:08Pittsburgh.
05:09But I wasn't like, you know, that wasn't really my thing of how like, you know, what I would do
05:14to you.
05:15And my music was, you know, based on like how good I was like at picking out beats or writing
05:23hooks or, you know, making verses come together.
05:26Right.
05:27And I was able to find a lane where like, it wasn't back then where he's like, you had to
05:31be tough.
05:32It's like you could be, you know, funny, you know, you could be a little goofy a little bit, you
05:39know what I'm saying?
05:39But you could still be smart and educated.
05:41And no one else had done it.
05:42Yeah, nobody else had done it.
05:44So when I started seeing that paying off and I was like, I'm just being myself and I'm able to
05:48create at the pace that I want to, I knew that that was going to take me to the top.
05:55Once he began to embrace his own voice, Wiz couldn't be stopped.
06:00He's gone on to release eight albums and over 80 singles, including Black and Yellow, a massive hit that reached
06:10number one on the Billboard Top 100.
06:14Yet through it all, Wiz has never lost his passion or his drive.
06:21I think what I did was just outwork a lot of people on top of making music, shooting videos, I'm
06:29editing videos, I'm staying engaging with my fans.
06:35I'm doing the artist job and the label job at the same time.
06:39Wow.
06:39Yeah.
06:40And I was promoting myself.
06:41I was marketing myself.
06:43And I was doing all of the things that, you know, people wish that somebody could do for them.
06:48I was doing them for myself.
06:50So that's definitely what put me ahead is that attitude and just knowing that, you know, I enjoy doing that
06:58stuff.
06:59Nobody had to make me do it.
07:00It wasn't nobody dangling a check in front of me or anything.
07:04It's not like an end goal or an end result or anything.
07:08It's just this forever fire that kind of burns.
07:13My second guest is actor Sanaa Lathan, famed for her star turns in Love and Basketball, The Best Man and
07:22Succession.
07:24Much like Wiz, Sanaa found her calling at a young age, but under very different circumstances.
07:32Her mother was an actor and dancer.
07:35Her father, a director and producer.
07:38And Sanaa never wanted to do anything but follow in their footsteps.
07:44I grew up in the theater.
07:47Mommy was, she was in the original Alvin Ailey Company.
07:50And when I was a toddler, she was in the original Wiz on Broadway with Stephanie Mills and Eartha Kitt.
07:57And Eartha Kitt kind of took her under her wing and she got to kind of share a dressing room
08:02with her.
08:02So I was always there toddling around behind the scenes.
08:05And so, you know, some of my earliest memories were me like in the, in the mirror as like a
08:11four year old pretending to be Eartha Kitt, you know.
08:15And I would walk out on the stage after the, the, the theater was empty with the, the, that single
08:21light.
08:22Uh huh.
08:23And stand out there and look out there.
08:25So I think early on, I felt like, yeah, this is what I'm going to do.
08:32Sanaa would soon discover that she had determination as well as dreams and that she was going to need it.
08:40She began acting as a teenager and showed talent right away.
08:46But when she was accepted by the prestigious school of drama at Yale, her father was not exactly thrilled.
08:54He literally almost cried. He was like, you can't be an actress.
08:57Really?
08:58Yes.
08:58Oh my God.
08:59Because he just didn't want me to go through the pain of what it is to be an actor.
09:04Uh huh.
09:04And you know, one person, my acting teacher at Yale, literally the first day of acting class said 1%
09:10of people who pursue this make it.
09:13Right.
09:13So you got to be pretty, you know, non-realistic in order to pursue it.
09:18And dad had been living it. He was like, it doesn't matter how talented you are.
09:23Right.
09:23There's no roles.
09:25This is 1% of white people.
09:271% of white people make a living at it.
09:30So he's like, there's no roles.
09:31He's like, you know, you're so, you're so smart.
09:34You have so much.
09:34He's like, he just didn't want me to suffer.
09:36Mm-hmm. Of course.
09:37But I was like, no.
09:40Happily, Sanaa listened to herself and beat the odds.
09:45Just three years out of Yale, she got her first big break in the cult classic Blade.
09:52And she's never looked back.
09:56Sanaa has been working constantly ever since.
10:00In the process, she's not only calmed her parents, she's kept them close.
10:07You know, my mother, to this day, she's my scene partner when I'm learning my lines.
10:13Like, I will Zoom with her.
10:14I'll be in London.
10:15I'll be like, Mommy, we've got to go over my scene for tomorrow.
10:18So she's like, in the trenches with me.
10:19She can even give me notes.
10:21You know, I'm not believing you.
10:23You need to drop it in.
10:25And Dad has just always been that support.
10:30Like, I remember when I first came out to L.A. and I would be screen testing for things.
10:35And, you know, between, for a great job that I thought was like, it.
10:42And I wouldn't get it.
10:43And I, you know, back then you'd be really destroyed.
10:46Mm-hmm.
10:47And that's the gift of having somebody.
10:51Because I saw in his eyes, and I trusted what he was saying.
10:56Like, you will be fine.
10:57Keep going.
10:58Keep working hard.
10:59Keep doing your best.
11:01Mm-hmm.
11:02Every audition, it's money in the bank.
11:04And it'll come around.
11:05And you took that to heart.
11:07Exactly.
11:08My two guests have very different backgrounds, but share a common thread.
11:14Each of their families was transformed by ancestors who took extraordinary chances.
11:21Yet, somehow, the stories of those ancestors have not been passed down.
11:27It was time for that to change.
11:30I started with Wiz Khalifa and with his maternal great-grandfather,
11:36a man named Willie Wimbush Jr., or Papa Bush, as he was affectionately called.
11:43Wiz was just a teenager when Willie died, and he knew almost nothing about his life.
11:50He was pretty chill from what I remember, but I was the baby.
11:53Oh, right.
11:53So anybody who got to experience Papa Bush, I know he passed away in 06.
11:59But, you know, we moved around a lot, so I didn't really get to see too much of Papa Bush.
12:04Ready to see what we found?
12:05Let's go.
12:08This is a record from the National Archives.
12:10Would you please read the transcribed section in the white box?
12:14Registration card, Willie Wimbush, age 18.
12:17Date of birth, May 3rd, 1924.
12:20Place of birth, Barnesville, Georgia.
12:22Race, Negro.
12:23Mm-hmm.
12:24Date of registration, June 29, 1942.
12:28That's his draft card.
12:30Papa Bush was in World War II?
12:32Yes.
12:33Damn.
12:341942.
12:35World War II is raging.
12:37Damn, Papa Bush.
12:39Willie registered when he was just 18 years old and was assigned to the Quartermaster Corps,
12:46then sent to training camps in Virginia and Texas.
12:50At the time, the United States military, like most of America, was segregated.
12:57So Willie served in an all-black unit, likely under a white officer.
13:03What do you think that was like?
13:05Yeah.
13:06At that time?
13:07Yeah.
13:08Back then?
13:09Mm-hmm.
13:10Yeah, he probably got caught a few Ns.
13:13Not Negro.
13:14Yeah, you got it.
13:16Please turn the page.
13:19These are two letters from black men who went through military training with the Quartermaster
13:24Corps around the very same time as your great-grandfather.
13:27Would you please read the transcribed sections in the white box?
13:31The company as a whole has a part to play in this war, which is for the survival of our
13:37ideals
13:37and the opportunity to carry on the fight for democracy that serves one and all equally.
13:42We're ready, willing, and able.
13:45But we're not going to accept the conditions our battalion commanders are trying to force upon us.
13:51He is a rough, dried, leather-neck Negro-hating cracker from Louisiana who has insulted all Negroes in general,
13:58calls our women everything but women, misused soldiers, treats us as if we were in a forced labor camp or
14:04chain gang.
14:05Wow.
14:07What's it like to read that?
14:11It sounds about right, but the fact that he was willing to write in and complain, it seems like it
14:19was pretty unbearable.
14:22Mm-hmm.
14:23Um, cause I feel like most, most of those cats were just used to it.
14:28Mm-hmm.
14:28But if it's, you know, to the point of writing a letter and explaining what these people's behavior is like,
14:37I feel like it must have been pretty bad.
14:39Had to be horrible.
14:40Yeah.
14:40In spite of the racism, Wiz's great-grandfather thrived in the Army.
14:46He completed his training, was assigned to a truck regiment, and given a rank reserved for men who demonstrated special
14:55technical skills.
14:57But even so, Willie was most likely unprepared for what lay ahead.
15:04In December of 1943, with war raging across the Pacific, his regiment boarded a ship and ended up on the
15:13island of New Guinea.
15:16Wow.
15:17Did you know that?
15:18No, I didn't know that at all.
15:20Did you have any idea anybody in your family had been and lived in New Guinea?
15:23No.
15:25By early 1944, his unit was stationed in New Guinea, which is off the northern coast of Australia.
15:32Okay.
15:33So any idea why your ancestor would be there?
15:36Nah.
15:37Let's find out.
15:38All right, let's find out.
15:39Please turn the page.
15:40Let's go.
15:42These are the Allied troops during the fight against the Japanese.
15:46Oh, damn.
15:47In New Guinea.
15:48Oof.
15:49That had to be rough.
15:50And your ancestor was there.
15:51Can you imagine?
15:52Yo, that was probably so rough.
15:54Oh, it was terrible.
15:56They got big-ass spiders out there.
15:58Yeah, and big-ass bullets.
16:00Ha, ha, ha, ha.
16:03Due to its strategic location, New Guinea was a battleground for much of the war, the site
16:10of ferocious fighting between Japan and the Western Allies, fighting that claimed over
16:17200,000 lives.
16:21While Willie didn't see combat, there was bloodshed all around him.
16:27Indeed, his regiment was likely providing support for soldiers on the front lines.
16:37Jeez.
16:38Mm.
16:38Damn, Papa Bush.
16:40Bringing them loads in.
16:41Yeah.
16:42And, you know, the quartermasters, a lot of them got killed because they are...
16:45Yeah, because they're transporters.
16:46That's right.
16:47Yeah.
16:47It was dangerous work.
16:48Hell, yeah.
16:49You're in writing.
16:50You're driving into the middle of it, like, through it.
16:53Yeah, yeah.
16:54And think about this.
16:55You had to fight racism in your ranks and then go out and risk your life at the threat
17:00of being killed by the Japanese.
17:02And, like, the better you are at getting goods to people, the more that they're going
17:06to use you to do it.
17:07Yeah.
17:07That's going to increase your chances of getting blown up.
17:10Yep.
17:10He was pretty good.
17:11He was good.
17:12And he didn't get blown up.
17:13Yeah, he didn't get smoked.
17:14Willie was discharged on July 3rd, 1944, about one year and eight months after he enlisted.
17:22Let's see what he did next.
17:23Thank God.
17:24Yep.
17:25This is a record from Lamar County, Georgia.
17:28Would you please read that transcribed section?
17:31I certify that Willie Wimbush and Claire Ogletree were joined in matrimony by me this 27th
17:37day of December, 1945.
17:40That's your great-grandparents' marriage record.
17:42What's it like to see that?
17:44That's wild, yo.
17:45Never thought I would see nothing like that.
17:48After their wedding, Wiz's great-grandparents settled in Barnesville, Georgia, where Willie
17:55found a job as a salesman and Clara worked as a maid.
18:01World War II was over, and the American economy would soon be booming.
18:07But the young couple still faced daunting challenges.
18:13Now, you would think that because of the heroism of people like your great-grandfather, race
18:18relations would improve, right?
18:20Uh, no.
18:22Let's see if you're right.
18:25This is dated August 8th, 1946.
18:28Less than a year after your great-grandparents got married.
18:32Would you please read the transcribed section?
18:34Among the casualties of war, 1946.
18:38January 4th, four Negro veterans killed in Birmingham, Alabama.
18:42February 5th, two Negro veterans killed in Freeport, Long Island.
18:46February 13th, Negro veterans' eyes gouged out by Aiken, South Carolina police.
18:51Man, damn.
18:52Yeah.
18:53February 25th, two Negroes, one a veteran, killed in Columbia, Tennessee jail.
18:58July 17th, Maceo Snipes, veteran, only Negro to vote in his district, murdered in Taylor
19:03County, Georgia.
19:05July 22nd, Leon McTady whipped to death near Lexington.
19:09Dang.
19:09July 24th, four Negroes, two men and two women lynched by a mob in Walton County, Georgia.
19:15Damn.
19:17During and after World War II, there was an explosion of violence against African Americans
19:21in many states, including Georgia.
19:24And much of it was directed toward black soldiers and veterans who'd returned from the war.
19:29And you could guess why.
19:31They had borne arms.
19:33They had risked their lives.
19:34And they came back and said, I'm not going to take this anymore.
19:38Mm-hmm.
19:38You know, this Jim Crow's got to go.
19:40Mm-hmm.
19:41And so they were perceived as a threat.
19:43And the racists wanted to take some of them and make them example.
19:47Mm-hmm.
19:48You know?
19:48Yep.
19:49To try to make them docile again.
19:51Right.
19:51Can you imagine serving your country and coming back home to that kind of reception?
19:56No.
19:56It's crazy that people were expected to just think that that was normal and not fight back.
20:03Mm-hmm.
20:03Yeah.
20:04How do you think Willie and Clara felt seeing this in the news?
20:07Right.
20:08Hearing about soldiers getting murdered or mutilated?
20:10I think it was probably really scary just to know that it was happening and it was a possibility, but
20:18also to be that young and to not feel protected.
20:24Mm-hmm.
20:25Yeah.
20:28Willie and Clara now confronted a choice.
20:31All around them, African Americans were on the move, heading out of the South for the cities of the North
20:38and West.
20:39Part of what we now call the Great Migration.
20:44Moving meant opportunity.
20:47But it also meant leaving friends, families, and decades of tradition behind.
20:54A dilemma that Wiz understands all too well.
21:00I feel like in the South, there was a sense of familiarity.
21:05Mm-hmm.
21:05Because that's where they come from.
21:07But it was also difficult to deal with.
21:09But I think the familiarity, you know, kind of outweighed it because it was like, what are the chances that
21:17we could take somewhere else?
21:19Mm-hmm.
21:19Other than being here, this is kind of all we know. This is how we grew up.
21:24So, of course, you know, you want better treatment, but I think it might, you know, be difficult because it's
21:31like, what does that look like on the other side?
21:33It takes a lot of courage to move.
21:34Right, exactly.
21:35Well, let's see what they did. Please turn the page.
21:39Wiz, city director, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
21:42All right.
21:431955.
21:44Wimbush, Willie, machine operator, Clara, laboratory aide, McGee Hospital.
21:50Cool.
21:50Yeah.
21:51That's pretty dope.
21:52By 1955, Willie and his family had had it up and moved north to Pittsburgh.
21:58Nice.
21:59And settled down in the Hill District, which you know is the predominantly black neighborhood in Pittsburgh.
22:03Mm-hmm.
22:04What's it like to learn this, these details?
22:08It's really good to learn it.
22:09Um, just to know, just to feel Papa Bush's ambition through his story.
22:17Yeah.
22:17That's what I could feel.
22:18Yeah.
22:19Yeah.
22:20And his courage.
22:21Courage, yeah.
22:22Their courage.
22:23Yeah, yeah.
22:23Their willingness to roll the dice.
22:25Yeah.
22:25Because a lot of people left the South in the Great Migration.
22:28Mm-hmm.
22:29But a lot more stayed home.
22:30Right.
22:31So that even in the same family, some people say, I'm going to Pittsburgh.
22:34And somebody was like, where the hell is that?
22:37Is that up there?
22:37You don't know nobody.
22:39Mm-hmm.
22:39Why don't you stay here?
22:40Right.
22:41When the peaches are good.
22:43It's pretty cool.
22:43That is pretty cool.
22:44Yeah.
22:46Turning to Sanaa Lathan, we found ourselves back in the Jim Crow era, exploring a family
22:53with a very different migration story.
22:57It begins with Sanaa's maternal grandfather, Wesley B. McCoy.
23:04Wesley was born in Indiana in 1915.
23:08And Sanaa grew up knowing that she had roots in the Midwest.
23:12But she knew little more about this part of her family because her grandfather was a complicated man.
23:21I was never really close to him.
23:23He wasn't really around when I was growing up.
23:28But as I got older, I remember he used to come to my plays a lot when I was in
23:32drama school.
23:32And he would always bring a different woman.
23:34Oh.
23:35He was a real Casanova.
23:38Till the end.
23:39He would have, like, three girlfriends that would talk about him.
23:42You know?
23:43Like, I like this one because of this.
23:45So he was definitely a ladies' man.
23:49Do you know anything about his roots?
23:52No.
23:52No?
23:53Good.
23:53Makes you ideal guest.
23:55Okay.
23:57It's too bad that Sanaa's grandfather was so focused on his romantic life.
24:02Because his roots were fascinating.
24:05His father, a man named Wesley Deere McCoy, was born in Texas in 1879.
24:13By 1908, he had enrolled at a veterinary college in Michigan.
24:19Alongside another African American named Felix Booker.
24:23At the time, there were only a handful of black veterinarians in the entire United States.
24:30And perhaps unsurprisingly, Wesley and Felix were not treated well.
24:36After completing their first year, they were denied admission for the following year, solely because of their race.
24:45Many people would have walked away, out of sheer hopelessness.
24:50But not these two.
24:52Wesley and Felix sued the school.
24:55One of the first anti-segregation cases ever filed on behalf of college students in America.
25:04And your great-grandfather was a part of it.
25:06He made legal history.
25:09That's so crazy.
25:10I'm so, I'm surprised that granddaddy, we used to call him granddaddy, that he didn't tell us that.
25:16Or maybe I just didn't pay attention, you know, but I don't remember this.
25:21This is amazing.
25:22Isn't that incredible?
25:24Yes.
25:24I mean, you have a race pioneer.
25:26Yes.
25:26Civil rights pioneer on your family tree.
25:29Yes.
25:29I'm so proud of him.
25:31Yeah, me too.
25:34In court, lawyers argued that a Michigan law dating back to the 1860s prohibited segregation in the state's public schools.
25:43And Wesley and Felix won their case.
25:48But when the two men returned to their classrooms, they found that many of their fellow students did not care
25:54about the verdict.
25:58Hanging in effigy, a figure representing a Negro student, 34 of the 39 members of the junior class at the
26:06Grand Rapids Veterinarian College this morning showed the feeling towards the Negro.
26:10Oh, my God.
26:12See, this is where I'm going to cry.
26:19Felix D. Booker and Wesley D. McCoy applied and were admitted.
26:25The junior class at once walked out and passed resolutions that they would not attend classes in company with the
26:31Negro students.
26:33Later, the students made up an effigy representing the Negro man and hung it in one of the halls.
26:39The class went ahead, but there were only six pupils present, four white and two Negroes.
26:47Ugh, God.
26:49Even though your great-grandfather had won his case in court, he still had to face the racism of his
26:55fellow classmates.
26:56Yeah.
26:57It's just so sad.
26:58Imagine sitting through that class.
27:00Yeah.
27:00Yeah.
27:01You got to be pretty strong.
27:03Wesley's strength would soon face another challenge.
27:08Following the lead of its students, the administration of his college decided to appeal the court ruling that had brought
27:15him back to class.
27:18Wesley's victory was short-lived.
27:20Yes.
27:20Grand Rapids Medical College took the case all the way up to Michigan State Supreme Court, which ruled against your
27:26great-grandfather.
27:27Mm.
27:28Both Wesley and his classmate Felix were forced to leave school without finishing the program.
27:33Mm.
27:34How do you think your great-grandfather responded?
27:37Imagine how he felt.
27:39I don't know.
27:40I don't know.
27:41I don't know.
27:41I mean, I know it didn't feel good.
27:42Mm-hmm.
27:43But it seems like he's a fighter, so I'm sure that that, you know, he continued fighting in some kind
27:49of way.
27:50I don't know if it was at school.
27:51Mm.
27:52Well, let's see.
27:53Okay.
27:53Please turn the page.
27:54I'm so excited.
27:56This is a record from the year 1913, three years after the article we just saw.
28:01Would you please read that transcribed section?
28:04Wesley Deere McCoy, Mac, comes to us from the state of Michigan, having early learned to love the cow, horse,
28:12and dog, decided to make a special study of them.
28:16So, in the fall of 1910, we met him, applying for entrance at the Ontario Veterinary College!
28:23Yes!
28:24So, is that it?
28:25That's in Canada!
28:26Canada!
28:26He was like, y'all ain't stopping me.
28:29That's right.
28:29I love it.
28:31In 1910, about a year after he was barred from study in Michigan, Wesley left the United States, heading north,
28:39and enrolled in another veterinary college at the University of Toronto.
28:46I said he was a fighter.
28:48Yep, you were right.
28:49I mean, that was part of his character.
28:51I mean, he had to really be, I mean, what a determined, you know, kind of mind and soul to
29:02have endured that cruelty in that first college.
29:07But even just to apply, you know?
29:09Yeah, and he had to undertake a search for a veterinary college somewhere.
29:15Yes.
29:16That would take Negroes.
29:17Yes.
29:17So, dear sir, do you take a Negro?
29:23After Wesley graduated, he may well have been tempted to remain in Canada, but his family and his heart lay
29:32in America, and it seems they drew him back.
29:36That decision would pay off in a big way.
29:40Returning to Michigan, Wesley launched a successful veterinary practice and married Sanaa's great-grandmother.
29:50What do you make of him knowing everything that he went through, the challenges he faced?
29:55I love him.
29:56Yeah?
29:57I love that.
29:57I wish I could sit and have dinner with him.
29:59Does it change the way you see yourself?
30:02Does it help you understand how you evolved?
30:05Yes.
30:06It does.
30:07Yes, it does.
30:08I didn't know this was going to be such a spiritual journey you're taking me on.
30:14Yeah, and I know I'm going to go home and really think about this, and it's beautiful to think about
30:21a life, you know, a full life, and how that kind of has influenced you in ways that you never
30:31knew.
30:32Isn't that fascinating?
30:33It is so, it's so cool, it's so amazing.
30:37We'd already seen how Wiz Khalifa's family escaped the Jim Crow South.
30:43Now Wiz wanted to know how they'd survived an even greater ordeal, slavery.
30:50This posed a challenge to our researchers.
30:54Enslaved people were almost never listed by name in federal documents.
30:59To learn about their lives, we generally have no choice but to try to find them in the records of
31:05the people who own them.
31:07So we began searching for the white people who may have owned Wiz's ancestors.
31:13It was a painstaking process, but in the 1870 census for Alabama, we found what looked like a clue.
31:23This is the first federal census recorded after the Civil War.
31:29It lists Wiz's fifth great-grandfather, a man named Howard Williamson, living next door to a white family headed by
31:37a man who shared his surname, Thomas J. Williamson.
31:44So you know what that means.
31:45Wiz, we suspected that this white Williamson family had owned your ancestors in bondage during slavery.
31:53Damn.
31:53We don't know for sure, it's just coincidence, but they're living next door to each other and they have the
31:58same name.
31:59Right.
31:59Looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck.
32:03Right.
32:03Right?
32:03Mm-hmm.
32:05So how does it make you feel to, at this point, reasonably surmise that you just met the white man
32:15who owned your family in slavery?
32:17I think I'm programmed to feel a little bit pissed.
32:21Mm-hmm.
32:22But just him owning my family just sounds crazy.
32:24That just sounds wild.
32:26Yeah.
32:26Yeah, it gives me a little, I feel some type of way about that.
32:30Can you imagine owning another human being?
32:32Yeah, it's crazy.
32:32It's crazy.
32:33Yeah.
32:33The whole concept's crazy.
32:34It's wild.
32:36Now that we'd identified the man who likely owned Wiz's ancestor, we focused on the records that he left behind.
32:45In the 1850 census, we found a slave schedule for Thomas J. Williamson.
32:51It lists his human property, not by name, but by color, gender, and age.
32:59And given what we knew, a single entry stood out.
33:05One black male, age 14.
33:07Bingo.
33:08Yep.
33:09We believe that that 14-year-old boy is your fifth great-grandfather, Howard Williamson.
33:17That's crazy.
33:18What's it like to see that?
33:23It's crazy to see him as a nameless person on a grid.
33:28Mm-hmm.
33:29It's crazy to see him along with four other people.
33:32Mm-hmm.
33:33Or three other people like property.
33:35Yeah.
33:36And to know how valuable that property is, because it's a life and it's not actually property, it's a person.
33:44Mm-hmm.
33:44But no name, just a color and an age.
33:49Yeah.
33:50Yeah.
33:51And what sex you are.
33:53Yeah.
33:53Yeah, that's pretty like, that's like a reality check of like how, you know, the world was at that time.
34:00Mm-hmm.
34:00And even, it didn't stop him from, you know, having a family and producing a line.
34:07Mm-hmm.
34:07But at that time, they wouldn't have thought of him as anything that could have done anything good.
34:13No.
34:13Yeah.
34:15Yeah.
34:15Yeah, it's kind of crazy.
34:18Wiz's ancestor would eventually decide that he no longer wanted to live next door to the man who had owned
34:24him.
34:25In the 1870s, Howard moved his family roughly 30 miles away from Thomas to become a tenant farmer.
34:34But his new life was by no means an easy one.
34:40Each farmer who rents a piece of land from some more affluent person has a hard row to hoe.
34:47His land will probably produce half a quarter of a bale to the acre down.
34:51Mm-hmm.
34:52Generally, half of this cotton must go to the landlord.
34:55Another generous amount must go for provisions.
34:58And that leaves very little for the care of his stock, for the clothing, and the proper care of his
35:02family.
35:03Damn.
35:03What's it like to see that?
35:05It seemed like a lot of hard work for nothing to come from it.
35:11And they're just using the land saying, oh, we'll rent it to you.
35:17But it's still you working on their land and bringing them what they need.
35:22So it's the exact same thing.
35:24Wiz, I'm going to let you work this land.
35:26Yeah.
35:27And you're going to make everything this profit.
35:29Yeah.
35:29But we're going to subtract a few things before we ascertain the profit.
35:32Yeah.
35:33You know?
35:33Yeah.
35:33Like half of it goes to me.
35:35Right.
35:35Off the top.
35:37Mm-hmm.
35:37Then you ate a lot of pork chops over the last year.
35:40Mm-hmm.
35:40You know, all of that kind of stuff.
35:42Yeah.
35:42So these guys were always in the hole.
35:45Yeah.
35:45Always in the hole.
35:46It was a horrible system.
35:47Yeah.
35:48He's still a slave.
35:51Essentially, Wiz is correct.
35:53The system virtually guaranteed that his ancestor could never gain economic independence,
35:59no matter how hard he worked.
36:02Of course, Howard did have an option to try and change the system.
36:07In the wake of the Civil War, black American men had gained the right to vote.
36:13The only problem?
36:16Exercising that right could be extremely dangerous.
36:21In the southern states, the Negro, if allowed to vote at all, must either vote the Democratic
36:26ticket or have his vote counted out by a partisan judge of election.
36:31Mm-hmm.
36:31If he is too prominent in electioneering or working for the Republican ticket, he's shot.
36:36Whoa!
36:37Hmm.
36:37White supremacy means everything.
36:39Those words can possibly imply in the South.
36:42The South is solid and will remain so.
36:44White supremacy is assured.
36:47Speakers who do not believe in the existence of the Confederacy, state rights, Jefferson,
36:52Davis, and divinity of slavery will not be tolerated.
36:56The Negro must vote right or not at all.
37:00Ooh.
37:01That is the environment in which your fifth great grandfather had to decide whether or
37:09not he was going to vote.
37:10That's crazy.
37:12In the years following the Civil War, the South was riven by violence against African Americans
37:19who tried to vote, enabled in part by the rise of white paramilitary groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
37:27Wiz's ancestor Howard likely thought seriously about staying away from the polls or leaving Alabama altogether.
37:37But in the end, he chose a different path.
37:42We, the undersigned, registered electors, do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support
37:48and maintain the Constitution and laws of the United States and the Constitution and laws
37:53of the state of Alabama, and that I am a qualified elector under the Constitution and laws of this state.
37:59Names of electors, Howard Williamson, colored.
38:03Your ancestor registered to vote in 1880 in spite of all the racist threats against his life.
38:11Sweet.
38:12How do you think Howard felt about voting?
38:14Whatever he was believing in at the time, he was wanting to put it all on the line for it.
38:20Mm-hmm.
38:21Yeah.
38:21He said, I'm not a slave anymore.
38:24Absolutely.
38:25100%.
38:27Voting was not Howard's only legacy.
38:30He left behind at least seven children and 20 grandchildren.
38:35And seeing this part of his tree laid out, connecting Wiz to his enslaved ancestors would prove deeply moving.
38:46Yeah, I love that.
38:48What do you think they would have made of you?
38:50Your hip-hop, singing descendant.
38:53I think they'd be freaking proud.
38:55They'd be proud that I own some stuff for myself.
39:01They'd be proud of the attitude that I carry, the confidence that I have.
39:06Mm-hmm.
39:07The love that I have for my family, the appreciation that I have for what they've done.
39:15And even I feel all of them around me.
39:18I just don't know who they are.
39:20So now I'm able to say their name.
39:21So that just makes it even better.
39:25That's beautiful.
39:25You can say their name.
39:27Yeah.
39:27Their names will never be lost again.
39:29So they're not dead.
39:29They haven't disappeared.
39:32Yeah, absolutely.
39:35We'd already traced Sanaa Lathan's maternal roots, introducing her to an ancestor who'd moved to Canada and reshaped his family's
39:45fortunes.
39:46Now, turning to Sanaa's father's ancestry, we were about to meet a man who'd reshaped his entire family tree.
39:56The story begins with the 1950 census for Philadelphia, where we found Sanaa's father, as a four-year-old boy,
40:05living with his single mother and older brother, a time of his life that he rarely discussed.
40:13What's it like to think of your father as a four-year-old?
40:16What's it like to think of your father as a four-year-old?
40:17I got emotional just now.
40:18Um, it's, it's surreal, because he's always been such a, you know, a serious, you know, he's the head of
40:29the family.
40:29He's a director.
40:31He's, he's in charge.
40:32And so to think of him as like a little, a vulnerable little boy.
40:36Yeah.
40:37Yeah.
40:38It's emotional.
40:40When this census was recorded, Sanaa's father was being raised by his mother, because his father, a man named Stanley
40:48Edward Lathan, had left the family.
40:51And no one knew where he'd gone.
40:54We found Stanley in the 1950 census for Boston, working in the kitchen of a restaurant, and living in what
41:03was known as the Rufus Dawes Hotel for Men.
41:07Wow.
41:09That's wild.
41:10I mean, it looks like they were workers.
41:12Mm-hmm.
41:13That looks like a place where you come to work.
41:16Well, you're right.
41:17The hotel your grandfather was staying in was something between a boarding house and a homeless shelter.
41:22Mm.
41:23It provided dormitory facilities at a nominal fee.
41:26Every time he wanted to stay there, he would register for a bed in the evening, then check out in
41:32the morning every day.
41:33Wow.
41:34Likely to go to work at the restaurant, where he was working in the kitchen, and then repeat the process
41:39all over again to keep a roof over his head.
41:41Did you have any idea?
41:44Nothing.
41:45I knew nothing.
41:45Of what had happened to your father's father?
41:48No.
41:48I mean, I knew he did struggle with alcoholism, and that's all that my grandmother told me.
41:55Mm-hmm.
41:55But other than that, I didn't know anything.
41:57We now tried to trace Stanley's roots and encountered a mystery even bigger than his life.
42:05Records show his father was a man named William Edward Latham, and that he was born in North Carolina in
42:131880 to a woman named Caroline Latham.
42:16But that's where the paper trail ends.
42:20Despite our best efforts, we could not name William's father.
42:24There was only one hope left, DNA.
42:28So we reached out to Sanaa's father and focused on his Y-DNA, the type of DNA that has passed
42:37virtually intact from father to son across generations.
42:42And it led us to a startling discovery.
42:47Sanaa's father's line leads directly to a white man with a surname Sanaa had never heard before.
42:56Male of likely European ancestry with the surname of Slade.
43:02Slade.
43:03Slade.
43:04S-L-A-D-E?
43:05Mm-hmm.
43:05According to your father's DNA, your father's biological surname, and thus yours, is Slade.
43:13It is not Latham.
43:14I like Latham better.
43:18I like the name.
43:19I like the way it rolls off the tongue.
43:21Sanaa Slade.
43:22Sanaa Slade.
43:23Starring Sanaa Slade.
43:24No, I don't know.
43:25It sounds like a stage name, Sanaa Slade.
43:27Uh-huh.
43:28Maybe that'll be my new alias when I, you know, stay in the hotel.
43:33We now knew that William's father was a Slade.
43:36We also knew that he was a white man who had fathered a child with a black woman sometime
43:43around 1880.
43:45But his full name still eluded us.
43:49So we turned back to Sanaa's father's DNA and started looking for matches in publicly available
43:56databases, hoping to find clues that would lead us to the final piece of the puzzle.
44:03And in the end, we got lucky.
44:06Turn the page.
44:09This is so exciting.
44:10Would you please read the names of your great-great-grandparents?
44:15Thomas Bog Slade.
44:17Mm-hmm.
44:19No, that makes me laugh.
44:21Thomas Bog Slade.
44:23And Caroline Lathan.
44:25What's it like to learn that?
44:27It's amazing.
44:30It's mind-blowing, firstly, that you can get that information from, you know, a...
44:38Spit.
44:39Some spitting into a tube.
44:41I mean, it's fascinating and, you know, it just sparks the imagination.
44:48Yeah.
44:49You know?
44:49Well, let's let your imagination roam a bit.
44:53White man.
44:53It's 1880.
44:54Mm-hmm.
44:55Civil War's long gone.
44:57It's 15 years later.
44:58Mm-hmm.
44:59A white man and a black woman.
45:01If it were slavery, you would say, well, the master raped the woman.
45:04Right.
45:04But it's not in slavery.
45:06I don't know.
45:09He was probably good looking.
45:10Mm-hmm.
45:11Because, you know, all the Lathans are fine.
45:16Um, so maybe, you know, and she probably was too.
45:19And they just, you know, I don't know.
45:21It was such a complicated time.
45:24Right.
45:25So it's hard to romanticize anything knowing those circumstances.
45:33Yeah.
45:33You know?
45:35There's no way to know the nature of the relationship between Caroline and Thomas.
45:41All we can do is speculate.
45:44And as we looked into Thomas's life, we found something that made our speculations even more complicated.
45:52Confederate Thomas B. Slade Private Company K 41 Regiment North Carolina Troops enlisted October 27th, 1861.
46:03Wow.
46:04So there is your great-great-grandfather.
46:07He joined the Confederate Army roughly six months after Fort Sumter and served for at least three years.
46:13So what do you make of this guy?
46:14This is your blood ancestor.
46:16You have DNA from this dude.
46:17Mm-hmm.
46:18He fought to protect the institution of slavery as a young man.
46:21And then 14 years after the end of the Civil War, he fathered a child with a black woman.
46:26Mm-hmm.
46:28Yeah.
46:29My brain is gonna be sore tomorrow.
46:30Yeah.
46:31Your family story embodies the complexities of race.
46:35Yes.
46:35In the United States.
46:36In a way that Hollywood movies never even touch.
46:39Yeah.
46:40It's the cartoons.
46:41You know, it's all black or all white.
46:42Yeah.
46:43And that's, yeah.
46:45And that's where I feel like we, you know, as, you know, black filmmakers in Hollywood need to go and
46:53to, you know, bring the nuance of the black experience.
46:57I mean, this is interesting.
46:59It is.
47:00I want to show you something else about your Slade family.
47:03Mm-hmm.
47:04I'm scared.
47:04Important element.
47:05Would you please turn the page?
47:08Ooh.
47:09See, before you were turning those pages in advance.
47:11Now you're terrified.
47:11I know, now I'm like, I don't want to try.
47:13Okay.
47:13We're back to 1860.
47:15This is a year before the Civil War breaks out.
47:18Mm.
47:18And it's the 1860 census for Williamston, North Carolina, just one year before Thomas enlisted to join the Confederate Army.
47:26Mm-hmm.
47:26Would you please read what we've transcribed for you in that white box?
47:29Penelope Slade, age 48, widow, Thomas Slade, age 15, Helen, age 13, Fanny, age 11, Richard, age 9.
47:41There's Thomas, your ancestor when he was 15 years old, living with his siblings and his mother.
47:47Mm-hmm.
47:47That lady is your third-grade grandmother.
47:50Penelope, wow.
47:51That white lady is your third-grade grandmother.
47:53Mm.
47:53You know, at first, when you're introduced, you think, well, I have one white ancestor.
47:57You've got all these white ancestors.
47:59All of his ancestors are your ancestors.
48:01Right.
48:02I guess so, huh?
48:04We now set out to see what we could learn about Penelope.
48:08Records show that she was likely born in North Carolina sometime around 1810.
48:14And by the time the Civil War broke out, she was a widow raising seven children, including
48:22Sanaa's great-great-grandfather, Thomas.
48:25Digging deeper, we saw that Penelope was also a slave owner.
48:32According to the 1860 census, she owned 43 human beings.
48:43I guess it's not all sunshine and roses, right?
48:46No.
48:47That's the eternal optimist in me.
48:49And guess what?
48:50That was a lot of slaves.
48:52That is a lot.
48:53In 1860, only 1% of white families in the United States own 40 slaves or more.
48:59Only 1%.
49:00You know, we talk about the 1%?
49:02Your family was in the 1%.
49:03So she was in the 1% of slave masters.
49:06Yes.
49:07What's it like to see this in black and white?
49:09I mean, I'm so layered with so many, like any human being.
49:17And so it's just fascinating to think of all these different people that have kind of contributed
49:25to the soup that I am.
49:28Yeah.
49:28You know, it's like, you know, my mother kind of taught me to pray to, you know, my angels
49:35who are many of our ancestors.
49:38Yeah.
49:38So now, you know, I have more of an idea maybe.
49:43Yeah.
49:43When I do pray.
49:45Well, do me a favor.
49:46When you pray to those Confederates.
49:47I don't know about Penelope though.
49:48Send me an email.
49:49I don't want you.
49:50I don't know if I'm going to be, you know, praying to.
49:53Dear third great-grandma Penelope.
49:55I am your new third great granddaughter.
49:57Exactly.
49:59How you like me now.
50:00How you like me now.
50:01Exactly.
50:03The paper trail had now run out for each of my guests.
50:07It was time to show them their full family trees.
50:12Sheesh.
50:13And see what DNA could tell us about their deeper roots.
50:18For Wiz Khalifa, this would yield a surprise.
50:21As we tried to match his genetic profile with that of other guests who'd been in our series.
50:27Searching for distant cousins Wiz never knew he had.
50:32And often, there's no match.
50:35Mm-hmm.
50:35But in your case, there is.
50:38Ha.
50:38You have a cousin that you never, ever could have imagined.
50:43Yes.
50:44You ready to meet your DNA cousin?
50:46Yes.
50:46Turn the page.
50:47Oh, yes.
50:51Oh, for real?
50:52Ava DuVernay.
50:53Christ.
50:54Ava DuVernay is your DNA cousin.
50:57What up, cuz?
50:59Wiz's mother shares a long, identical segment of her X chromosome with the Emmy Award-winning
51:06director Ava DuVernay, meaning that the two have a common ancestor somewhere in the branches
51:13of their family trees.
51:16Well, everybody, now y'all know me and Ava are cousins.
51:19Yeah.
51:20Isn't that amazing?
51:21Yeah.
51:22That's cool.
51:22She's a brilliant filmmaker.
51:23She's really, really good.
51:24That's awesome, bro.
51:26Sanaa Lathan was in for a surprise of her own.
51:31Oh!
51:33Oh, my goodness!
51:36We discovered that Sanaa shares a long, identical segment of her 14th chromosome with the renowned
51:44actor Sterling K. Brown.
51:47I love it.
51:49Have you two ever worked together?
51:50No, but we actually did some charity work together.
51:53Oh.
51:53And I know him and his wife, and they're wonderful people, and obviously he's so gifted as an
51:58actor.
51:58Well, when you have your family reunion, you have an additional birthday.
52:02I love it.
52:03That's the end of our journey with Sanaa Lathan and Wiz Khalifa.
52:09Join me next time when we unlock the secrets of the past for new guests on another episode
52:17of Finding Your Roots.
52:19Moving on.indre
52:19todos. Developing
52:21with her life that you can be
52:21the true wisdom life that gives you some 2005 that you will also join by.
Comments