- 37 minutes ago
Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr
S12 E2
S12 E2
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00:00Viewers like you make this program possible.
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00:15I'm Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
00:18Welcome to Finding Your Roots.
00:21In this episode, we'll explore the family trees of actor Sanaa Lathan and rapper Wiz Khalifa.
00:30Meeting ancestors who made incredible journeys.
00:34You'd think that your history is that deep, but to actually see, you know, black male 14 and then see
00:43him turn into a human being, a person, that's amazing.
00:47It's just emotionally overwhelming and, you know, I want to know more.
00:55To 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 to reveal secrets that have lain hidden for generations.
01:15This is mind-blowing.
01:16And we've compiled everything.
01:19Oh my God.
01:20Into a book of life.
01:22Damn.
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.
01:34That is your family in the first federal census to list all African Americans.
01:39Like, wow.
01:41That'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
01:52am.
01:53Sana'a and Wiz both descend from people who made immense efforts to change their fortunes.
02:00Traveling 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 with a
03:18tireless 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 and I had, like, rap books
03:31laying around the house.
03:32And I kind of explained it to her, like, what our lingo was and what it all meant to me.
03:38So she was like, all right, cool, whatever.
03:40Not whatever, but, like, yeah, cool.
03:42Like, you know, I support that.
03:44And then the following summer, I went and lived with my dad.
03:47And I told him the same thing about how serious I was about making music.
03:51And, you know, he allowed me to dive all the way in.
03:55I was like, if that's something that you want to do, I want to see you take it serious.
03:58Like, don't just say you're about it.
04:00You 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
04:11telling you about, where I did normal kid stuff, like, you know, played sports, went to games, did all of
04:18this stuff.
04:18But I put the ball away.
04:21I 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.
04:48But 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.
05:06I'm not going to say I wasn't a tough guy, because you got to be tough to come up in
05:09Pittsburgh.
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
05:24hooks or, you know, making verses come together.
05:27Right.
05:27And I was able to find a lane where, like, it wasn't back then where he's, like, you had to
05:32be tough.
05:32It was, like, you could be, you know, funny.
05:35You know, you could be a little goofy a little bit.
05:39You know what I'm saying?
05:39But you could still be smart and educated.
05:41And no one else had done it.
05:43Yeah.
05:43Nobody 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
05:49create at the pace that I want to, I knew that that was going to take me to the top.
05:56Once 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.
06:22I 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's job and the label job at the same time.
06:39Wow.
06:40Yeah.
06:40And I was promoting myself.
06:42I 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
06:59stuff.
06:59Nobody had to make me do it.
07:01It 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.
07:45I 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.
07:54With 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.
08:03So I was always there toddling around behind the scenes.
08:06And so, you know, some of my earliest memories were me like in the mirror as like a four-year
08:12-old pretending to be Eartha Kitt.
08:16And I would walk out on the stage after the theater was empty with that single light and stand out
08:25there and look out there.
08:26So 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.
08:41She 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.
08:56He was like, you can't be an actress.
08:58Really?
08:58Yes.
08:59Oh, 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%
09:11of people who pursue this make it.
09:13Right.
09:13So you got to be pretty, you know, non-realistic in order to pursue it.
09:19And dad had been living it.
09:21He was like, it doesn't matter how talented you are.
09:23Right.
09:24There'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.
09:35He's like, he just didn't want me to suffer.
09:37Mm-hmm.
09:37Of course.
09:38But 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.
10:08You 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 got to go over my scene for tomorrow.
10:18So she's like in the trenches with me.
10:20She 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 and,
10:35you know, between, for a great job that I thought was like it.
10:42And I wouldn't get it.
10:44And I, you know, back then, you'd be really destroyed.
10:47Mm-hmm.
10:47And that's the gift of having somebody.
10:52Because I saw in his eyes, and I trusted what he was saying.
10:56Like, you will be fine.
10:58Keep 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.
11:31I started with Wiz Khalifa and with his maternal great-grandfather, a man named Willie Wimbush Jr., or Papa Bush,
11:41as 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.
11:54So anybody who got to experience Papa Bush, I know he passed away in 06, but, you know, we moved
12:00around a lot, so I didn't really get to see too much of Papa Bush.
12:04Ready to see what we found?
12:06Let'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, date of birth, May 3rd, 1924, place of birth, Bardsville, Georgia, race Negro.
12:24Date of registration, June 29, 1942.
12:29That'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.
12:40Willie registered when he was just 18 years old and was assigned to the Quartermaster Corps, then sent to training
12:48camps 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.
13:04What do you think that was like?
13:06Yeah.
13:06At that time?
13:08Yeah.
13:08Back then?
13:09Mm-hmm.
13:10Yeah, he probably got caught a few Ns.
13:13Not Negro.
13:15Yeah, you got it.
13:16Please turn the page.
13:19These are two letters from black men who went through military training with the Quartermaster Corps around the very same
13:26time as your great-grandfather.
13:28Would 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 and the opportunity to carry on the fight for democracy that serves one and all equally.
13:43We're ready, willing, and able, but we're not going to accept the conditions our battalion commanders are trying to force
13:50upon us.
13:51He is a rough, dried, leatherneck Negro-hating cracker from Louisiana who has insulted all Negroes in general, calls our
13:59women everything but women, misused soldiers, treats us as if we were in a forced labor camp or chain gang.
14:06Wow.
14:07What's it like to read that?
14:11Um, it sounds about right, but the fact that he was willing to write in and complain, it seems like
14:19it was pretty, you know, pretty unbearable.
14:22Mm-hmm.
14:23Um, because I feel like most, most of those cats were just used to it.
14:28Mm-hmm.
14:29But 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.
14:41In 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, had lived in New Guinea?
15:23No.
15:26By 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.
15:47Oh, damn.
15:47In New Guinea.
15:49Oof, that had to be rough.
15:50And your ancestor was there.
15:51Can you imagine?
15:52Yo, that was probably so rough.
15:55Oh, it was terrible.
15:56They got big-ass spiders out there.
15:58Yeah, and big-ass bullets.
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.
16:22While 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.
16:38Damn, Papa Bush.
16:40Bringing them loads in.
16:42Yeah.
16:42And you know, the quartermasters, a lot of them got killed because they are...
16:46Because they're transporters.
16:47That's right.
16:47It was dangerous work.
16:49Hell yeah, you're in writing, you're driving into the middle of it, like, through it.
16:54Yeah, yeah.
16:54And think about this, you had to fight racism in your ranks, and then go out and risk your
16:59life at the threat of being killed by the Japanese.
17:02Yeah, and 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.
17:08That'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.
17:15Willie was discharged on July 3rd, 1944, about one year and eight months after he enlisted.
17:21Let's see what he did next.
17:24Thank 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.
17:43What's it like to see that?
17:44That's wild, yo.
17:46Never thought I would see nothing like that.
17:49After their wedding, Wiz's great-grandparents settled in Barnesville, Georgia, where Willie
17:56found 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.
18:08But 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.
18:23Let's see if you're right.
18:26This is dated August 8th, 1946, less than a year after your great-grandparents got married.
18:32Would you please read the transcribed section?
18:34Among the casualties of war, 1946, January 4th, four Negro veterans killed in Birmingham,
18:41Alabama.
18:42February 5th, two Negro veterans killed in Freeport, Long Island.
18:46February 13th, Negro veterans' eyes gouged out by Aiken, South Carolina policemen.
18:52Damn.
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 County,
19:04Georgia.
19:05July 22nd, Leon McTady whipped to death near Lexington.
19:09Dang.
19:10July 24th, four Negroes, two men and two women lynched by a mob in Walton County, Georgia.
19:16Damn.
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.
19:30And you could guess why.
19:31They had borne arms.
19:33They had risked their lives.
19:35And they came back and said, I'm not going to take this anymore.
19:38You know, this Jim Crow's got to go.
19:41And so they were perceived as a threat.
19:43And the racists wanted to take some of them and make them example.
19:48You know, to try to make them docile again.
19:51Right.
19:52Can you imagine serving your country and coming back home to that kind of reception?
19:56No.
19:57It'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?
20:08Right.
20:08Hearing about soldiers getting murdered or mutilated?
20:11I think it was probably really scary just to know that it was happening and it was a possibility,
20:18but also 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
20:38of the North and West, part of what we now call the Great Migration.
20:45Moving meant opportunity.
20:48But it also meant leaving friends, families, and decades of tradition behind.
20:55A dilemma that Wiz understands all too well.
21:01I 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,
21:16what are the chances that we could take somewhere else other than being here?
21:21This is kind of all we know.
21:22This is how we grew up.
21:25So, of course, you know, you want better treatment, but I think it might, you know,
21:30be difficult because it's like, what does that look like on the other side?
21:33It takes a lot of courage to move.
21:35Right, exactly.
21:36Well, let's see what they did.
21:37Please turn the page.
21:39Wiz, city director, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
21:42All right.
21:431955.
21:45Wimbush Willie, machine operator.
21:47Clara, laboratory aide, McGee Hospital.
21:50Cool.
21:50Yeah.
21:51That's pretty dope.
21:53By 1955, Willie and his family had had it up and moved north to Pittsburgh.
21:59Nice.
21:59And settled down in the Hill District, which you know is the predominantly black neighborhood
22:03in Pittsburgh.
22:04Mm-hmm.
22:04What's it like to learn this, these details?
22:08It's really good to learn it, just to know, just to feel Papa Bush's ambition through his
22:16story.
22:17Yeah.
22:18That's what I could feel.
22:19Yeah.
22:19Yeah.
22:19And his courage.
22:21Courage, yeah.
22:22Their courage.
22:23Yeah, yeah.
22:24Their willingness to roll the dice.
22:25Yeah.
22:26Because a lot of people left the South in the Great Migration.
22:29Mm-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?
22:37Where the hell is that?
22:38Where the hell is that?
22:38You don't know nobody.
22:39Mm-hmm.
22:39Why don't you stay here?
22:40Right.
22:41Where the peaches are good.
22:43That's pretty cool.
22:44That is pretty cool.
22:45Yeah.
22:46Turning to Sanaa Lathan, we found ourselves back in the Jim Crow era, exploring a family
22:54with a very different migration story.
22:56It begins with Sanaa's maternal grandfather, Wesley B. McCoy.
23:03Wesley was born in Indiana in 1915.
23:08And Sanaa grew up knowing that she had roots in the Midwest.
23:13But she knew little more about this part of her family because her grandfather was a complicated
23:19man.
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.
23:33And he would always bring a different woman.
23:35Oh.
23:35He was a real Casanova.
23:38Till the end, he 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.
23:53No?
23:53Good.
23:54Makes you ideal guest.
23:55Okay.
23:58It's too bad that Sanaa's grandfather was so focused on his romantic life because his roots
24:04roots were fascinating.
24:06His father, a man named Wesley Deer McCoy, was born in Texas in 1879.
24:14By 1908, he had enrolled at a veterinary college in Michigan alongside another African American
24:21named 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.
24:37After completing their first year, they were denied admission for the following year solely because of their race.
24:46Many people would have walked away out of sheer hopelessness.
24:50But not these two.
24:53Wesley and Felix sued the school.
24:56One 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.
25:19But I don't remember this.
25:21This is amazing.
25:23Isn't that incredible?
25:24I mean, you have a race pioneer, civil rights pioneer on your family tree.
25:29Yes.
25:30I'm so proud of him.
25:31Yeah, me too.
25:35In court, lawyers argued that a Michigan law dating back to the 1860s prohibited segregation in the state's public schools.
25:44And 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
25:55about the verdict.
25:58Hanging in effigy, a figure representing a Negro student, 34 of the 39 members of the junior class at the
26:07Grand Rapids Veterinarian College this morning showed the feeling towards the Negro.
26:11Oh, my God.
26:12See, this is where I'm going to cry.
26:25Oh, my God.
26:44Four 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
26:56fellow classmates.
26:56Yeah.
26:57It's just so sad.
26:59Imagine sitting through that class.
27:00Yeah.
27:01Yeah.
27:01You got to be pretty strong.
27:04Wesley'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
27:16him back to class.
27:18Wesley's victory was short-lived.
27:20Yes.
27:21Grand Rapids Medical College took the case all the way up to Michigan State Supreme Court, which ruled against your
27:26great-grandfather.
27:28Both Wesley and his classmate, Felix, were forced to leave school without finishing the program.
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 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.
27:52Well, let's see.
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,
28:13and 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.
28:27He was like, y'all ain't stopping me.
28:29That's right.
28:29I love it.
28:32In 1910, about a year after he was barred from study in Michigan, Wesley left the United States, heading north,
28:40and enrolled in another veterinary college at the University of Toronto.
28:47I 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
29:03have endured that cruelty in that first college.
29:07But even just to apply, you know?
29:10Yeah, 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 Negroes?
29:23After Wesley graduated, he may well have been tempted to remain in Canada.
29:29But his family and his heart lay in America.
29:33And it seems they drew him back.
29:37That decision would pay off in a big way.
29:40Anyway, returning 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?
29:56I love him.
29:56Yeah?
29:57I love that.
29:58I wish I could sit and have dinner with him.
30:00Does it change the way you see yourself?
30:02Does it help you understand how you evolved?
30:06It does.
30:07Mm-hmm.
30:07Yes, it does.
30:09I didn't know this was going to be such a spiritual journey you're taking me on.
30:14Yeah.
30:15And I know I'm going to go home and really think about this.
30:19And it's beautiful to think about a life, you know, a full life, and how that kind of has influenced
30:30you in ways that you never knew.
30:32Isn't that fascinating?
30:33It is so, it's so cool.
30:35It's so amazing.
30:38We'd already seen how Wiz Khalifa's family escaped the Jim Crow South.
30:44Now Wiz wanted to know how they'd survived an even greater ordeal, slavery.
30:51This 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.
31:14It was a painstaking process.
31:16But in the 1870 census for Alabama, we found what looked like a clue.
31:24This 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
31:38a man who shared his surname, Thomas J. Williamson.
31:44So you know what that means.
31:46Wiz, we suspected that this white Williamson family had owned your ancestors in bondage during slavery.
31:53Damn.
31:54We don't know for sure.
31:55It's just coincidence.
31:56But they're living next door to each other, and they have the same name.
31:59Right.
31:59Looks like a duck.
32:00It quacks like a duck.
32:02It's probably a duck.
32:03Right.
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?
32:18I think I'm programmed to feel a little bit pissed.
32:21Mm-hmm.
32:22But just him owning my family just sounds crazy.
32:25It just sounds wild.
32:26Yeah.
32:27Yeah.
32:27It 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.
32:33It's crazy.
32:34The whole concept's crazy.
32:35It's wild.
32:37Now 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.
32:52It 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?
33:24It's crazy to see him as a nameless person on a grid.
33:29Mm-hmm.
33:30It's crazy to see him along with four other people, or 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.
33:45But no name, just a color and an age.
33:50Yeah.
33:50Yeah, and what sex you are.
33:53Yeah.
33:54Yeah, 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.
34:08But at that time, they wouldn't have thought of him as anything that could have done anything good.
34:13No.
34:13Oh, yeah.
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.
34:26In the 1870s, Howard moved his family roughly 30 miles away from Thomas to become a tenant farmer.
34:35But his new life was by no means an easy one.
34:41Each farmer who rents a piece of land from some more affluent person has a hard row to hoe.
34:48His land will probably produce half a quarter of a bale to the acre down.
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
35:03family.
35:03Damn.
35:04What'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.
35:18But it's still you working on their land and bringing them what they need.
35:22So it's just the exact same thing.
35:24Wiz, I'm going to let you work this land.
35:27Yeah.
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.
35:33Yeah.
35:33You know?
35:33Yeah.
35:34Like, half of it goes to me.
35:36Right.
35:36Off the top.
35:37Mm-hmm.
35:37Then, you ate a lot of pork chops over the last year.
35:41Mm-hmm.
35:41You know, all of that kind of stuff.
35:43Yeah.
35:43So these guys were always in the hole.
35:45Yeah.
35:46Always in the hole.
35:47It was a horrible system.
35:48Yeah.
35:49He's still a slave.
35:51Essentially, Wiz is correct.
35:53The system virtually guaranteed that his ancestor could never gain economic independence, no 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.
36:14The 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 ticket or have
36:27his vote counted out by a partisan judge of election.
36:31Mm-hmm.
36:32White supremacy is too prominent in electioneering or working for the Republican ticket, he's shot.
36:37Whoa!
36:37White supremacy means everything.
36:39Those words can possibly imply in the South.
36:42The South is solid and will remain so.
36:45White supremacy is assured.
36:47Speakers who do not believe in the existence of the Confederacy state rights, Jefferson Davis, and divinity of slavery will
36:55not 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 not he was going to
37:10vote.
37:10That's crazy.
37:13In the years following the Civil War, the South was riven by violence against African Americans who tried to vote,
37:21enabled in part by the rise of white paramilitary groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
37:28Wiz's ancestor Howard likely thought seriously about staying away from the Poles or leaving Alabama altogether.
37:38But in the end, he chose a different path.
37:42We, the undersigned registered electors, do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support and maintain the Constitution and laws
37:50of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the state of Alabama,
37:55and that I am a qualified elector under the Constitution and laws of this state.
38:00Names 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, uh, believing in at the time, he was willing to put it all on the line for
38:20it.
38:20Mm-hmm.
38:21Yeah.
38:21He said, I'm not a slave anymore.
38:24Absolutely, 100%.
38:26Voting 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, your hip-hop, singing descendant?
38:53I think they would be freaking proud.
38:56They'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, the love that I have for
39:09my family,
39:12the appreciation that I have for what they've done, and even I feel all of them around me.
39:19I just don't know who they are, so now I'm able to say their names, so that just makes it
39:22even, even better.
39:25That's beautiful.
39:26You can say their name.
39:27Yeah.
39:27Their names will never be lost again, so they're not dead.
39:30They haven't disappeared.
39:32Yeah, absolutely.
39:36We'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?
40:16I got emotional just now.
40:21Um, 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.
40:30He's a director.
40:31He's, he's in charge.
40:32And so to think of him as like a little.
40:35A vulnerable little boy.
40:37Yeah.
40:37Yeah.
40:38It's emotional.
40:41When this census was recorded, Sanaa's father was being raised by his mother, because his father, a man named Stanley
40:49Edward Lathan, had left the family, and 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.
41:08Wow.
41:10That'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.
41:34Wow.
41:34He was likely to go to work at the restaurant, where he was working in the kitchen, and then repeat
41:38the process all over again to keep a roof over his head.
41:42Did you have any idea?
41:45Nothing.
41:45I knew nothing.
41:46Of 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, but other than
41:57that, I didn't know anything.
41:58We 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.
42:17But that's where the paper trail ends.
42:20Despite our best efforts, we could not name William's father.
42:25There was only one hope left.
42:27DNA.
42:28DNA.
42:29So we reached out to Sana'a's father and focused on his Y-DNA, the type of DNA that has
42:37passed virtually intact from father to son across generations.
42:42And it led us to a startling discovery.
42:47Sana'a's father's line leads directly to a white man with a surname Sana'a 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.
43:15I like Latham better.
43:18I like the name.
43:20I like the way it rolls off the tongue.
43:21Sana'a Slade.
43:22Sana'a Slade.
43:23Starring Sana'a Slade.
43:24No, I don't know.
43:25It sounds like a stage name, Sana'a Slade.
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.
43:37We also knew that he was a white man who had fathered a child with a black woman sometime around
43:441880.
43:45But his full name still eluded us.
43:49So we turned back to Sana'a's father's DNA and started looking for matches in publicly available databases, hoping to
43:58find clues that would lead us to the final piece of the puzzle.
44:03And in the end, we got lucky.
44:07Turn the page.
44:09This is so exciting.
44:11Would you please read the names of your great-great-grandparents?
44:15Thomas Bog Slade.
44:19No one that makes me laugh.
44:21Thomas Bog Slade.
44:23And Caroline Latham.
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.
44:42I mean, it's fascinating and, you know, it just sparks the imagination.
44:48Yeah.
44:49You know?
44:50Well, let's let your imagination roam a bit.
44:53White man.
44:54It's 1880.
44:55Civil War's long gone.
44:57It's 15 years later.
44:58A white man and a black woman.
45:01If it were slavery, you would say, well, the master raped the woman.
45:04Right.
45:05But it's not in slavery.
45:06I don't know.
45:09He was probably good looking.
45:11Mm-hmm.
45:11Because, you know, all the Lathans are fine.
45:16Um, so maybe, you know, and she probably was, too, and 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.
45:34You 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' life, we found something that made our speculations even more complicated.
45:53Confederate Thomas B. Slade, Private Company K, 41 Regiment North Carolina Troops enlisted October 27, 1861.
46:04Wow.
46:05So 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.
46:27My brain is going to be sore tomorrow.
46:31Your family story embodies the complexities of race in the United States in a way that Hollywood movies never even
46:39touch.
46:40Yeah.
46:40It's the cartoons.
46:41You know, it's all black or all white.
46:43Yeah.
46:44And 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
46:54to, 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.
47:04A very important element.
47:06Would you please turn the page?
47:07Okay.
47:09See, before you were turning those pages in advance.
47:11I know, now I'm like, I don't want to turn it.
47:13Okay.
47:14We're back to 1860.
47:16This is a year before the Civil War breaks out.
47:18Mm-hmm.
47:19And it's the 1860 census for Williamston, North Carolina, just one year before Thomas enlisted to join the Confederate Army.
47:26Would you please read what we've transcribed for you in that white box?
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.
47:51Penelope.
47:51Wow.
47:51That white lady is your third-grade grandmother.
47:53Mm-hmm.
47:54You 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.
48:02Right.
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.
48:15And by the time the Civil War broke out, she was a widow raising seven children, including Sanaa's great-great
48:23-grandfather, Thomas.
48:26Digging deeper, we saw that Penelope was also a slave owner.
48:32According to the 1860 census, she owned 43 human beings.
48:41Ugh.
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 owned 40 slaves or more.
48:59Only 1%.
49:00You know, we talk about the 1%.
49:02Your family was in the 1%.
49:04She 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.
49:18And so it's just fascinating to think of all these different people that have kind of contributed to the soup
49:27that I am.
49:28You know, it's like, you know, my mother kind of taught me to pray to, you know, my angels who
49:35are 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.
49:48I don't know about Penelope.
49:49Send me an email.
49:50I don't know if I'm going to be, you know, praying to.
49:53Dear Third Great Grandma Penelope, I am your new Third Great Granda.
49:58Exactly.
49:59How you like me now.
50:00How you like me now, exactly.
50:03The paper trail had now run out for each of my guests.
50:07It was time to show them their full family trees.
50:13Sheesh.
50:13And see what DNA could tell us about their deeper roots.
50:18For Wiz Khalifa, this would yield a surprise.
50:22As we tried to match his genetic profile with that of other guests who'd been in our series.
50:28Searching for distant cousins Wiz never knew he had.
50:33And often, there's no match.
50:35Mm-hmm.
50:36But in your case, there is.
50:38Ha.
50:38You have a cousin that you never, ever could have imagined.
50:44Yes.
50:44You ready to meet your DNA cousin?
50:46Yes.
50:47Turn the page.
50:48Oh, yes.
50:51Oh, for real?
50:52Ava DuVernay.
50:53Christ.
50:54Ava DuVernay is your DNA cousin.
50:57What up, cuz?
51:00Wiz's mother shares a long, identical segment of her X chromosome
51:05with the Emmy Award-winning director Ava DuVernay,
51:09meaning that the two have a common ancestor
51:12somewhere in the branches of their family trees.
51:16Well, everybody, now y'all know me and Ava are cousins.
51:19Yeah.
51:20Isn't that amazing?
51:22Yeah.
51:22She's a brilliant filmmaker.
51:24She's really, really good.
51:25That's awesome, bro.
51:27Sanaa Lathan was in for a surprise of her own.
51:32Oh!
51:33Oh, my goodness.
51:37We discovered that Sanaa shares a long, identical segment
51:41of her 14th chromosome with the renowned actor Sterling K. Brown.
51:47I love it.
51:49Have you two ever worked together?
51:50No, but we actually did some charity work together.
51:54Oh.
51:54And I know him and his wife, and they're wonderful people,
51:56and obviously he's so gifted as an actor.
51:58Well, when you have your family reunion,
52:00you have an additional birthday.
52:02I love it.
52:04That's the end of our journey
52:06with Sanaa Lathan and Wiz Khalifa.
52:10Join me next time
52:11when we unlock the secrets of the past for new guests
52:15on another episode of Finding Your Roots.
52:19Finding Your Roots.
52:19I love you.
52:20I love you.
52:21I love you.
52:22I love you.
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