I will never forget the day that one of my relatives revealed
to my mother that I was considering placing her in a nursing home, nor her response
to this revelation.
“I ain’t going to no d_ _ _ nursing home.”
(And this from a woman who just never said a “wordy dird”).
And while the foregoing little ditty is not the major theme
of my reminiscence, it helps set the scene for the following.
After my mother became a resident of the nursing facility,
she began thinking about taking a DNA test; a desire to discover what she could
about her so-called “roots,” (and inspired by the increasing fragileness of her
life, and the realization that her “days were numbered”).
As a result, I ordered a DNA test from one of the
nationally known testing companies, and on such and such a day, I administered
the “spit in a kit” to my mother.
Odd, as mama sat there doing her best to conjure up enough
saliva, she said something I had never heard her say before.
“You know, Royce, when I was a teenager people used to ask
me if I was part black.”
And while there was a family tradition that my mother’s
mother had a Native American heritage, I admit to always being a bit skeptical.
You see, I not only remember my grandmother, but her three sisters and brother.
And I can tell you that four of the five of the siblings were exceptionally
dark-complexioned, and I wondered how, in the age of segregation, they had
managed to enroll in white schools.
Pt. 2
At any rate, on my way home from the nursing home that day,
I dropped my mother’s DNA kit in the mail, and we waited for the results.
However, about a month later, and two weeks before I
received my mother’s DNA evaluation by email, she passed away; without ever
seeing the results of the genetic study. (Of course, I regretted not having
ordered the DNA test much earlier than I did).
I have always been convinced that my mother’s seemingly
ad-lib revelation that day was anything but spontaneous in nature.
For you see, after I opened the email, and studied the
findings, I realized why my mother had “prepped” me with her reminiscence about
her classmates’ opinionations that, perhaps, she possessed an African-American
heritage.
As I scrolled down the ethnicities and percentages, I “lit”
on one of the entries in particular.
“Western Africa – 1.8%”
Interestingly enough, not only my grandmother, and mother
lived during the age of segregation, but I also did. All of my elementary and
junior high classmates were white. I remember seeing white and black restrooms
and water fountains in grocery stores. It was only in the 10th grade
that our high school began to desegregate, when several black students were
finally admitted to my alma mater, “Summerlin Institute.”
And I am very happy to report to you that the process of
Integration fell together very well, and over the next couple of years larger
numbers of black students were introduced to our formerly all-white school.
(As I reflect on that season, I think my parent’s
generation were much more concerned about maintaining the color barrier, than
my classmates and I ever were).
Pt. 3
However, it goes without saying that this one line entry on
the DNA report was extremely interesting and enlightening. (And I admit to
wondering, given the complexion of my great uncle and great aunts, why the
percentage was not much greater).
There was a time when the southern states enacted laws,
relating to the segregation of the races, which have been referred to as, “The
One Drop Rule.” These statutes declared that if a man, woman or child had so
much as one drop of African blood circulating in his or her veins, he or she
would be classified on his or her birth certificate as “Black”. Not only this,
but until the late 40’s persons of different races were prevented from marrying
one another. It was only then that things began to change. Within twenty years
the marital prohibition related to race had been abolished in all 50 states.
In spite of my research, I have been hard pressed to
discover when the last vestiges of the “One Drop Rule” disappeared from the
books, but these laws and statutes seem to have finally been deleted during the
80’s.
As someone who considers himself to be a thinker (and a
doer), and having just read that one line entry on the DNA report, it
immediately occurred to me that,
“If DNA testing existed during the third decade of the 20th
century, my mother would have been classified as ‘Black’ on her birth
certificate! And if DNA testing had existed in the fourth decade of the 20th
century, I would have been listed as ‘Black’ on my birth certificate! And if
DNA testing existed in the seventh decade of the 20th century, my
son and daughters would have also been listed as ‘Black’ on their birth
certificates!”
Pt. 4
As I have previously inferred, the knowledge that one
strain of my genetic heritage originated in Africa “got me to thinking.” I
immediately began to do the math.
If I am approximately 1% African-American, and my mother was
2%, and my grandmother was 4%, and my great grandmother was 8%, and my 2x great
grandmother (or grandfather) was 16%, and my 3x great grandmother (or
grandfather) was 32%, and my 4x great grandmother (or grandfather) was 64%,
then my 5x great grandmother was 100% African-American, and was, it goes
without saying, a slave woman, and would have lived (if that was living) during
the 18th century.
And if my 5x great grandmother was an African-American
slave, and my mother’s biological line were increasingly identified as “White,”
it goes without saying that my 5x great grandfather was the slaveowner of the
property on which my 5x great grandmother resided, and contributed involuntary
service, and that, in all likelihood, succeeding generations of the slave-owner’s
sons “involved themselves” with their own mulatto siblings diluting the
African-American bloodline ‘til the resulting offspring, ultimately, passed as
“White,” and were freed to live alongside people who looked very much like
themselves.
A pretty grim story, but the only story which makes any
sense to me.
I cannot think about my ancient African-American
grandmother, and the unspeakable horrors to which she may have been subjected
without tears in my eyes.
I reflect on the long dawn to dusk hours of turmoil and
tears she experienced under a hot summer’s sun, the harsh whip upon her back,
the unwanted “visitations” at night, and her realization that only death held
any hope for the kind of freedom which you and I so glibly take for granted.
I think of her father and mother who were shanghaied from the
home they knew and loved by white men, were shackled hand and feet in irons to
the lower decks of sailing ships, who were fed with ladles from dirty slop
buckets, who were forced to lie unclothed in their own excrement, and who were
doused with sea water in a losing battle to clean the filth from their
putrefying skin.
Afterward
Some of my friends and relatives tell me I am making too
much of all of this Black heritage thing. I suppose I could simply respond, “Well,
just humor me. After all, it’s Black History Month.”
And some remind me of the color of my skin, and the “whiteness”
of my features, and say things like, “You don’t have a thing in common with
black folks” (and) “Get a grip, man. This DNA testing thing has gone to your
head” (and) “Black is not your skin color, and it isn’t your culture. So, get
over it.”
Be that as it may, as a historian and amateur genealogist,
I can readily identify with each and every one of those who have gone on before
me, and in whose proverbial footprints I follow. And each and every one of them
have left their genetic fingerprints in not only my DNA, but in my heart, mind
and soul. They are bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh.
And since their hearts have been stilled, and their voices
have been hushed, and since I bear in my body the essence of who they were, when
they were, it can truly be said this far along,
… I am the only reason they
lived.
by William McDonald, PhD. Copyright pending
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