The Antebellum Diaspora Project: Recent Episodes
Pamela Bailey
I am descended from American-born enslaved people from North and South Carolina. Many of my ancestors were among the 2.5 million people of African descent who were forcibly migrated and permanently separated from their families. The Antebellum Diaspora Project is a descendent reunification project with a focus on reconnecting families, amplifying the humanity of people who were enslaved during the antebellum era, and sharing negated American history through the perspectives of the people who were most deeply affected by forced migration during the antebellum era in the US.
Donya Williams is an award-winning genealogist and the author of “What Comes to the Light,” a book that centers on her ancestral family from Edgefield, S.C. Donya’s curiosity about her unusually large family led her to discover her ancestral ties to important American history. She shares stories about political scandals, a famous murder trial, and a supernatural experience with her beloved Aunt Margaret!
One evening in Livingston, Alabama, young Phyllis hid away and watched as her grandmother Lula Horn engaged an angry mob of hooded Klansmen on horseback who searched the rural community for a black man. Their intent was to harm or possibly kill the man when they caught him. Lula’s cool-headedness and her locally famous tea cakes diverted the vigilante’s attention long enough to give the man time to make his escape. Stories of colorful fabrics and skin are woven throughout this episode.
A simple hashtag on a social media site took Nkrumah Steward on a journey from the Midwest to Hopkins, South Carolina, to a plantation where 4 generations of his great grandmothers were enslaved and eventually emancipated. Already intrigued since childhood by a family mystery surrounding race, Nkrumah's visit allowed him to see the landscape that his ancestral family navigated with unimaginable bravery to survive the cruelties of slavery. Along the way, an unexpected friendship was forged by humility and acknowledgment of the suffering that was visited upon Steward's family by their enslavers.