Gathering Leaves

This past Sunday, there was an article in the New York Daily News that told of the Rev. Al Sharpton having been briefed last week by a team of professional genealogists from Ancestry.com who had discovered that Sharpton’s great-grandfather Coleman Sharpton was a slave owned by Julia Thurmond, whose grandfather was Strom Thurmond’s great-great-grandfather.

The front cover of the Daily News read “Shock Of My Life!”

It was “shocking”, Sharpton said, to learn he was descended from a slave owned by relatives of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, once a symbol of segregation. (see “Slavery links families” NY Daily News Feb 25, 2007)

When I first heard this on the television, I did not quite understand where the Rev. Sharpton was coming from. Was he saying that he was “shocked” to learn that his ancestors were slaves? Was he “shocked” to learn that one of his ancestor’s was owned by a man who was married to a woman who was distantly related to the late Senator Storm Thurmond, an icon of segregation and a major bump in the Civil Rights road.

The next day every major newspaper in America carried the story with headlines such as Sharpton “Shocked” By Thurmond Ties. To me, it sounded like much ado about nothing.

On Monday, the Daily News carried a second story titled “Strom’s kin stunned – Can’t believe ties to black leader” (NY Daily News Feb 26, 2007), in which there was a number no-comment’s and I-don’t-believe-it’s from “stunned” Thurmond family members. Most of them sounded down-right defensive, but one family member, the senator’s niece Ellen Senter, did put things into perspective when she said:

“If you go that far back in history, you’re going to find lots of people connected to each other from different walks of life,” said Senter, of Columbia, S.C. “In fact, I doubt you can find many native South Carolinians today whose family, if you traced them back far enough, didn’t own slaves.”

But then I still wasn’t getting it… is anyone “shocked” or “stunned” by the “revelation” that either the Rev. Al Sharpton’s ancestors were slaves or that the late Senator Thurmond’s ancestors were slave owners? It reminds me too much of the Claude Rains character in the movie Casablanca who was “shocked” to learn that there was gambling in Rick’s cafe.

Back in the sixties, when I was kid, both my parents were active in the Civil Rights movement. My father, as President of the Texas Hospital Association, lobbied both Congress and the Texas State Legislature for the need to hire more minorities in the medical industry – “not as janitors and orderlies, but as doctors and nurses”. In April of 1969 on the first anniversary of the death of MLK, my mother took my brother and me to downtown Houston where we marched in the rain with couple hundred other people to the steps of city hall where we listened to a tape of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. I remember seeing plain-clothes cops (Klansmen?) who stood around snapping pictures of everyone in the crowd. I grew up harboring a lot of animosity towards men like Strom Thurmond, Lester Maddox, and George Wallace and the people who supported them.

Yet, seven years ago I was not “shocked” when I first learned that the family of my grandfather, Jimmy Dobbs, and the family of his grandmother, Martha Prothro, had been slave owners in Georgia and South Carolina.

As I wrote in 2000, “I was not shocked when I first learned of my family’s slave-holding past; numbed is a better expression of the emotion that I felt.”

I went on to say: “I can sympathize with Edward Ball the author of Slaves in the Family as he expressed his feelings regarding his ancestors and the fact that they had owned slaves:

“The subject of the plantations stirred conflicting emotions. I felt proud (how rare the stories) and sentimental (how touching the cast of family characters!). At the same time, the slave business was a crime that had not been fully acknowledged. It would be a mistake to say that I felt guilt for the past. A person cannot be culpable for the acts of others, long dead, that he or she could not have influenced. Rather than responsible, I felt accountable for what had happened, called on to try to explain it.”

Last year, I made yet another discovery regarding my family’s slave-holding past when I learned that Maynard Jackson (1938-2003), former Atlanta Mayor (first Black mayor of a major U. S. city) and grandson of John Wesley Dobbs, was a descendant of Dobbs slaves. The history of this Dobbs family is detailed in the book “Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn: A Saga of Race & Family” by Gary Pomerantz (1996). In his book, Mr. Pomerantz gives the history of Mayor Jackson’s family and begins the saga with his gg-grandparents, Wesley and Judi Dobbs both of whom were originally slaves of my ggg-grandfather’s brother, Josiah Dobbs. Mr. Pomerantz suggests that Judi Dobbs was actually the daughter of Josiah Dobbs by a slave woman and if that is the case that would mean that Mayor Maynard Jackson was a 5th cousin of mine. After Josiah died in 1851 his slaves most likely went to my ggg-grandfather hence David Dobbs increase in slaves as seen in the census records of 1850 and 1860.

Rather than “shocked”, I was reminded of the words of Dr. King…

“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”

…and also I was reminded that Mr. Jackson is no longer with us and that I never had a chance to meet him.

I do have to say something in defense of the Rev. Sharpton’s “shock” in that I feel that his comments have been taken out of context and that the media has blown this up a bit by way of the image of Al Sharpton possibly being related to Storm Thurmond (see I need to know the blood truth – DNA test will show if I’m tied to Thurmonds [NY Daily News Feb 25, 2007]). It all sounds more tabloid, than reality. There is even a diagram of a family tree that suggests that there is actual family connection when, as of yet, there is no proof that the two men are related.

I really do believe that the Rev. Sharpton is far above the tabloid aspect of this news and this became evident when I went back and read the original article in the NY Daily News where it describes the exchange between Sharpton and the genealogists:

She (genealogist Megan Smolenyak) walked Sharpton through the slave contract, showing how Coleman Sharpton was sent from South Carolina to Florida by his white owner, Alexander Sharpton, to work for his four grandchildren. Coleman Sharpton took his surname from his white owner, a practice common among slaves.

Smolenyak explained how Alexander Sharpton’s son Jefferson Sharpton, died broke in 1860, leaving his family in debt.

Smolenyak said Alexander Sharpton, a wealthy slave owner, wanted to help out his son’s widow.

“The document we found was known as an indenture,” Smolenyak said. “It shows that Jefferson Sharpton died in debt and he had no will. His father [Alexander Sharpton] steps in to help the family.”

The original copy of the indenture, which sits in the Liberty County Courthouse in Florida, reads:

“Describes negro to wit, Coleman, age 25 years, Biddy (female) age 22 years old, Harrison aged about 4 years and Bachus aged about 8 years,” it states.

“Together with the future increase of the said female slave.”

Sharpton stared at the image, carefully reading each word to himself.

“You know for real that you are three generations away from slavery,” Sharpton would later remark.

Smolenyak said the indenture awarded Coleman and three others to the grandchildren – but placed them in the temporary custody of another relative in Florida, who was to put Coleman and the others to work to pay off the deceased son’s debts.

“He [Alexander Sharpton] says okay, I’m going to give these four slaves to these four grandchildren,” Smolenyak told the Reverend.

“I’m interested in those four [white] kids because they are essentially inheriting your great-grandfather, right?” Smolenyak said.

Sharpton nodded in silence.

Smolenyak then told Sharpton how she delved into the family tree of the mother of the four children.

“Their mother was a Thurmond,” Smolenyak said. “Julia Ann Thurmond.”

“Was what?” Sharpton asked.

“A Thurmond,” Smolenyak replied. “Jefferson Sharpton’s wife was a Thurmond.”

After an uncomfortable pause, the genealogist continued.

“These children, who were the last owners of Coleman, were related to Strom Thurmond through their mother,” she said.

Sharpton’s face tightened, and the room fell silent as he digested the news.

“Strom Thurmond’s family owned my family,” Sharpton said aloud in disbelief.

Sharpton’s cheeks slowly relaxed, as he gradually took in the evidence laid out before him.

“Julia Thurmond Sharpton’s grandfather and Strom Thurmond’s great-great-grandfather, William Thurmond, are the same man,” Smolenyak explained. “Julia Thurmond Sharpton is Strom Thurmond’s first cousin twice removed.”

“It’s chilling,” Sharpton said. “It’s amazing.”

The genealogists gave Sharpton more time to absorb the significance of what he had just heard.

“The family that owned my great-grandfather was related to Strom Thurmond’s family?” Sharpton said. “Now that’s amazing.

“I had no idea about the interlocking past,” his face flush with discovery. “I don’t know if you know how crazy this is going to be when it gets out.

“It’s going to be crazy.”

Then he couldn’t resist acknowledging the political irony of the two disparate men being joined at the genealogical hip.

“Maybe, I’m the revenge of Coleman,” Sharpton joked.

“They [Thurmonds] are just recovering from his black child, now they are about to get the bomb dropped on them,” he roared.

The child that Sharpton was referring to is Essie Mae Washington Williams, now 82. After Thurmond’s death in 2003, it was disclosed that he had fathered her when he was 22, and her mother, a black maid for the Thurmond family, was 16.