A Change Is Gonna Come: The Mystery of An American Family Part 1

This is me holding my two oldest daughters back in 2000.

They are the great, great grandchildren of grandpa "Jacob".

"A Change Is Gonna Come"

by John S LES


In my post last week, "Of Family Roots and Children's Wings I wrote about my year long journey to trace my family roots.  I must say that since I've posted I have received many glowing comments from those who read it.  In addition, two friends of mine who are exceptional historians have now lent their voices and actions for assistance.  Not only am I uncovering family history, American history, but I am also uncovering a family mystery that has been known for three generations.  That is of how an African American family, in a small, rural, segregated deep south, once have such a formidable degree of power and influence that they were feared?

By the time most of you read this post, I will probably be on my plane flying down to Atlanta, GA.  I will be meeting first, second, and third cousins that I have never met before in my life, outside of the long distance phone calls we have been having since this past December, 2013.  I backed myself up today with a half hour long conversation with my mother, two twenty minute conversations with my second cousins and an hour long conversation with my first cousin.

Not only are we meeting as family, but we are also are coming together to heal some wounds and resolve a family mystery.  It's a mystery and working knowledge throughout three generations that great grandpa "Jacob" who had the ten children, also had land and power in this small town.  So much power, that even though the town was "happily" segregated, and had both black and white living there, only one black family had enough social and political clout that actually made whites in the town fear them.  That family belong to grandpa "Jacob" and his children, and his grandchildren.

One of those grandchildren was my mother.  Of Jacob's direct children, one of his daughters was exceptionally powerful in that town.  My mother always told me that if her, or her sister ever ran into a problem, they called aunt "Theresa" and that problem was resolved when she arrived.  In addition, my mother told me that there were times when her or her siblings could enter places in the town where whites only entered.  As soon as a white person voiced an objection, they would be told who the children belonged to.  After that, the problem was over.  All of this and grandpa Jacob was in a virtual interracial marriage.  These are facts that were practically unheard of and inconceivable in the early to mid 20th century.

It would be one thing if I knew these stories all to my self.  However, I have spoken to numerous cousins, second cousins, spread from Georgia to Ohio.  We've never met before.  Our parents haven't spoken since the 1940's.  But all of us have had the same information and stories handed down to us from our parents and uncles and aunts.  Today, July 28, 2014 I will get to revisit my mother's hometown and investigate how one black family in the rural south had so much power and clout.  And to investigate if grandpa Jacob truly lost his land and money in a gambling debt, as has been told now for three generations.

Stay with me this week.  Walk with me and my cousins, and my family as we walk through American history and a family mystery.

Of Family Roots and Childrens Wings

"Of Family Roots and Children's Wings"
by John S LES

A long past journalist and author, Hodding S. Carter once wrote, "There are only two last bequests we can give our children - one is roots, and the other is wings."

And so as I have now come to a full year when I started this blog, and a full year of discussing my search for all of my relatives during this time - it is now coming to it's full fruition.  I have been talking to relatives, cousins and aunts and uncles from Cleveland, OH to Atlanta, GA and a few states in between.  It has been nothing short of an unbelievable experience to talk to relatives who know my mother and her sister by their childhood nicknames.  No one else in New York has referred to my mother, or my now deceased aunt by those names.  65 years has passed since my mother and her cousins ran around a small town in Georgia as kids.

My great grandfather gave birth to 10 children.  For the purpose of keeping my family's extended member's anonymity, I shall refer to my great grandfather as Jacob.    Jacob's 10 children had many children of their own.  My mother was one of those grandchildren to Jacob.  My mother always said that her grandfather was dark skinned black, had wiry, long hair and was a very influential man in the small town that she grew up in.  He was a mix of Native American and African American.  My mother also told me that her grandmother was white, or very "light".  My mother always told me about one of her aunts, let me call her aunt Candace, who grew up in this small town in Georgia.  Over time and by whatever means, aunt Candace evolved into a very influential person, as well as someone who welded great respect and influence.  Her name is said to be inscribed on a plaque in this town's city hall.  I remember my mother having me speak to her on the phone and I have a vague recall of seeing her in pictures and in person when I was a little boy and visiting my mother's hometown.

This was happening in a small, integrated town in Georgia during the early 1900 hundreds and for well into the 1960's.  Those were some of the toughest times in America for any African American family living in the deep south, in the post antebellum, end of slavery, dawn of Jim Crow period.  Yet my grandpa Jacob survived this period and died of natural causes, despite being in what would have been perceived as a "interracial" marriage.  Furthermore, he and his children lived through the dawn and end of the Civil Rights Movement.

By the late 1950's and early 60's most of Jacob's grand children had migrated throughout the country for jobs, a new life and even one grandson - had to leave Georgia to save his life.  Some moved as far north as Cleveland, OH, and New York City.  Some stayed nearby or moved to nearby states such as North and South Carolina.  In any event, those children then had children, making us the great grandchildren of grandpa Jacob.  For us the grandchildren who never met before, we all have bits and pieces of the same crossword puzzle.  I have been putting these pieces together for the past year.  I thank all of my family for their help.

Nearly a year ago to the week, I started interviewing my mother and taking down names and places.  Yes, it was the first weekend of August 2013 that my journey began.  A couple months later after doing some research, I was able to locate several names of relatives.  Then through traditional means, such as a phone book and then Facebook, I began making contact with my relatives.  And now, nearly a year later, I will be flying down to Atlanta and going on a journey to meet, record and share with all of my long lost relatives - the roots of our great grandfather.  I will be meeting cousins that I've known only on the phone, Skype, Tango or Facetime for the past 10 months.  Every time we talk or text, it just feels like we are walking through history and talking to a spiritual counterpart of ourselves.

It is our goal to bring some healing to the wounds created by historical damage, natural migration, and lost connections that occurred the past 148 years so that our children, now the great, great grandchildren of Jacob can rejoice in what is without a doubt a noble American family story of success and survival.  No doubt that there were mistakes along the way, but no one of us has to be concerned about any of those things.  By tracing back and sharing our family history, we can now give ourselves and our children wings upon which to soar.  We can now honor the legacy of grandpa Jim and aunt Candace.

So...for those reading this blog today or whenever, you can follow me starting next Monday, July 28, as I go back to my mother's roots and visit her home town and our relatives.  Who knows what other history that I will discover.

The Future Of Love 21st Century Style

On my "love blog" www.WhereDidOurLoveGo.blogspot.com I recently wrote a poem about how we "people" socialize so differently  and yet all of our problems really are the same.  Bars, clubs and social events lost ground to the Pary Lines of the 1980's.  The Party Lines lost ground to the Yahoo and AOL chat rooms of the 1990's.  Those '90's chat rooms lost ground to Blackberry Messenger and phone text chat of the 2000's.  Now in 2014 and beyond, we have mobile chat room and messenger platforms to once again communicate, socialize, interact, hunt for mates or just plain old looking for either just sex, or love, or both.

When was the last time you saw a soda shop where teenagers or even young adults in the early twenties sit and meet to socialize?  When was the last time you heard teenagers or even couples in their early twenties talk about or even attempt to duplicate the latest dance move?  Can you imagine any modern pop singer or rapper trying to pull off back to back dance hits like Chubby Checker's "The Twist" or "Let's Twist Again".  This young generation hasn't "twisted" or danced in quite a few summers.

I see smoke shops, hooka bars and bars with names like "social" popping up.  If the younger generation behave in those bars the way I've observed the older generations behave in the bars that I've stopped in, all they are doing in these places is looking at their phones - texting or taking pictures.  No one is actually interacting and talking.

There is something to be said for staying on your phone late at night talking to someone you have romantic feelings for.  I'm sure that today most people simply choose to text each other late at night instead of having actual conversations.

Perhaps our human need to communicate will not completely fall prey to our new communication abilities?  Perhaps our future will eventually turn back to people simply wanting to talk face to face, dance romantically on a date, or simply socialize with others in a more "in person" fashion.  We shall see... 

A Family Tree Expands

We of the human race can be as varied as the branches of a tree, yet we all have common roots.  There is no better way to see and understand this than when you search out your family history.

As of this day, in this year, in this moment of the past few months - I have been fortunate enough to trace my family history backwards for four generations.  All the way to the mid 19th century.  This is my third installment on this topic as my information and direct family connections have grown.  I have been fortunate enough to speak to 2nd and 3rd cousins as well as 2nd uncles, the son of one of my grandfather's brothers.

The last I wrote on this matter I sent out a prayer for my extended family members to reach back to me.  Little did I know that some of them had already been in the process of reaching out and finding me.  So we did indeed connect.  We connected at the crossroad of either giving up or going forward while we still have Elders left alive who could share information with us to verify our findings.  Well, the findings are for real and have been authenticated.  Cousins whom I've never met before all talking on the phone for the first time in our lives and sharing stories about common relatives, their names, where they lived and how they lived - and all of our stories are the same!

Stories that were handed down the family chain - from physical descriptions to dramatic incidents that occurred that influenced or changed the way certain things took place within the family.  Then came the pictures and live Internet video.  So many faces and the family resemblances are all there.  Physical traits that got passed down the family line.  One aunt of a generation ago resembling an aunt in the very next generation.  Skin tone shades and hues, nose and eye features that go span from two of my own kids all the way back to relatives two generations ago.  You look at all of the information in front of you and there's just absolutely no denying that we are related.

All of this traced back to a man born in the mid 1800's, as well as his wife.  All of us having never spoken before - knew exactly what he and his wife looked liked.  We knew his name and her name.  We knew how many kids they had.  The names of those kids - whom we are the descendants of.  We got all of our information from the same sources - our parents.  Our conversations only confirmed what was apparent to our eyes.

So my prayers to connect with my extended relatives has been answered.

As mankind proceeds forward into the future, we must all be aware that if it were possible, we would learn that all of us share some common history somewhere along the way.  The more time we spend trying to divide and dominate one another, only proves that we cannot escape the fact that we do have connections.  Otherwise we would simply ignore each other.  There would be no need to respond or attempt to dispose of one another.  If we all learned to reach into our souls instead of reaching out for the control of resources - we would be able to find better ways to coexist and improve our existence.

I am rejoicing with my lost relatives now.  I hope to attend a family reunion with them.  As I live in and enjoy this moment, I am also celebrating the fact that even when evil and hatred attempts to separate us - the reality of our commonality will eventually bring us back together again.

Family: A Miracle This Christ-mas

Back in September, I wrote a piece entitled "First Contact" which highlighted my efforts to reconnect with lost relatives.  Just last week, another cousin, finally did respond to my reach out to him.  He is the half cousin of the first lost cousin who did reach out to me back in September.  The experience has been nothing short of amazing.

If you can imagine knowing about someone your whole life, but never having the chance to meet that person, then you can imagine that is what has happened here.  My mother's youngest brother, married a beautiful woman after he migrated to NY from the deep South during the late 1960's.  Their marriage was unfortunately short lived due to his less than honorable behaviors.  The ex-wife (my aunt) and my mother stayed friends for many years, that is until my aunt moved herself and her two children back to the South.

Most of us 35 and older can remember when long distance calls used to cost almost as much as your entire local calls on your phone bill combined.  There even was an all out war during the late '80's through the late 90's for phone companies to sign subscribers up to local and long distance phone call memberships which packaged their calls into a lessor bill.  Then came the cell phone and cable companies adopting phone call capability.  To make the long distance phone call prices even lower, by the mid 2000's along came VoIP phone calls, also known as Voice Over Internet Protocol.  This three headed competitive monster grew throughout the 2000's decade and has made separate charges for long distance and local bills a thing of the past.

Now today with the cellular phone, cable and VoIP explosion, we can make long distance calls with virtually no worries about a long distance call impacting our cellular bill like land line phone calls used to.  Unfortunately for my mother and aunt, they missed that curve.  Too much time and too few calls over that time had left them with fond and friendly memories from a time in the '70's and '80's long past.

I was always curious about my aunt and her two children when I was younger.  My mother could never find my aunt's number by the time I was well into my 20's.  Then I got so busy with my own life, wife and children I never took the time necessary to press any of my other known relatives on the matter.  My uncle passed passed in the mid 2000's.  His life had taken some difficult turns and he never, ever took time to for the welfare of his two long lost children down South.  I remember my grandfather not being too proud of my uncle's behavior up in New York and the issues he got involved in.

Well, I've been calling myself a modern man, who is not afraid of using Social Media and modern computer technology.  This has paid off.  I've traced my family roots back to a man born in the mid 1860's.  He was the father of my grandfather, my mother's grandfather, my great grandfather.  He was either born a freed slave or freed after being born a slave.  His children, my grand aunts and uncles stayed mostly in the South but some did migrate as far North as Ohio.

Then I did the ultimate.  After confirming his partial information, via an online family history search company, I reached out to my long lost cousin via the Social Media.  He, his sister and mother have all reached back to me and my family.  It has been nothing less than cheers and tears.  We have all agreed that we cannot change what has happened in the past, but we can change how we interact with one another from here forward.f  We must go past the Sins of Our Fathers for not keeping us together and find a way to acknowledge our common heritage and existence.  I've chronicled the emotions of this history in my poem "The Sins of Our Fathers".

There are other relatives that I would like to bring into the fold.  Those relatives include my cousin's half brother who still lives in the NYC area.  I am still hoping to hear back from my extended relatives up in Ohio.  I feel as if the spirit of our great grandfather is somehow coming alive through me and calling for his offspring to finally reach out and greet one another after 50 or more years of being apart.

Reach back to me family.  Reach back.

The Payphone...and NYC Past

The Payphone...by John S LES

I was in Times Square a few days ago.  While walking around, I saw this strange metallic, boxy thing sitting near the corner of one of the blocks.  It was at first familiar and then a little strange to see, since there wasn't many of them around.  At least not like they once were.  Yep, I'm talking about a payphone booth pictured above. 

Many old timer from NYC will remember the payphone booths down in the subways.  They had accordion like doors that you could close for privacy.  However, most of them were pretty rancid and had a odor of urine in them.  But I do remember them.  Every now and then you might see one of them in an old police movie from the late 1960's or early 1970's.  Heck, I remember when payphones were still dialed using the rotary dialer instead of the push button numbers.

Even more, I still remember when payphones were all located on almost every street corner and when they were actually telephone "booths".  They were booths with doors that you could close and have privacy - or change into your Superman costume.  Those booths eventually gave way to a much simpler telephone booth design.  One that didn't have a door and four walls.  It simply had either short aluminum or Plexiglas side walls for privacy. Nothing else.  That was not quite the same as the old booths, but it was the best that you could get.

There is little doubt that the explosion in mobile phones in the last twenty years has made payphones almost a thing of the past.  Here is a link to a simple Google search for NYC payphone images.  Remember any of those images?

In fact, speaking of the past, an organization called The New Museum launched a project entitled "Recalling 1993" last March in New York City.  You called a toll free number from one of the now 5,000 payphones still located in NYC, and from there you would hear a recording of the 1993 history that has passed at the location of that phone.  The voice recordings where lent by some celebrity actors, publishers and various other New Yorkers who lived and could recall what the City was like in 1993.  This was featured in a CBS News article.  Click here.  There is a link to the recording sample within the article.

It would be a shame if all payphones disappeared in NYC or anywhere else.  They were once a great thing to use as I was growing up.  It is hard for me to fathom that one day down the road, I may have grandchildren with me sitting around a campfire...and they may ask me something like this, "Granddaddy...what was a payphone like?  Did you ever use one of those?"

Yes.  Hundreds of times.

Now whether or not you grew up in New York City...can you imagine those questions becoming an actual possibility?  Well...it's not too far off.

A City That Never Sleeps...And Spirits That Never Quit

It is said that New York City never sleeps.  However, just over a year ago, on October 29th, 2012 the city withstood one of it's toughest natural disasters on record...Hurricane Sandy.  There was additional damages in the surrounding areas of New Jersey, Connecticut and Long Island.  Hurricane Irene had hit the same tri-state area just 14 months earlier.  Most New York City dwellers thought that they would avoid the brunt of damage from Sandy, just as they had did for Irene and a handful of other big hurricanes over the past 30 years.  However, that would not be the case this time.

This generation of New Yorker City residents will long remember watching both the East River and the Hudson River breaching Manhattan on it's west, south and eastern shorelines.  They will never forget seeing video footage of subway tunnels, as well as the Mid-town and Brooklyn Battery tunnels also under water.  Lastly, who can forget the horrific flood and fires in Breezy Point, Queens?  There's plenty more to point out and many stories to remember from a year ago.  By the time Thanksgiving had come last year, most of us were simply thankful for food, and for being spared from any greater loss of life or property.

I remember visiting my mother last Thanksgiving.  She still resides in Lower Manhattan.  Yes, by Thanksgiving of 2012, the East River waters had long since receded, however, when you walked around downtown and could still see the waterline on the buildings - it brought it all into prospective.  Seeing the FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) generators parked on 34th street, three weeks after Sandy and lines of crookedly parked cars, with condensation filled windows, stretching six or seven blocks - all having signs on them indicating that they were damaged by Sandy and could not be moved - really brought things into perspective that Thanksgiving day.

Here is a link to the Huffington Post Dot com, with some dramatic pictures for those who would like to see some visual reminders of that horrible aftermath.

In spite of it all, New York City is back.    

Just a couple of weeks ago, this past November 8, the Philippines was struck by a typhoon, which packed winds up to 200 miles per hour.  I've known, grown up and even work with friends of Philippian heritage.  On behalf of all New Yorkers and Americans everywhere...I extend condolences and prayers to the survivors and relatives of this disaster.  

This highlighted text is a link to NBC news which will direct you to reputable sites for donations to the disaster in the Philippines.