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.