GATES: I'm Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Welcome to "Finding Your Roots."

In this episode, we'll explore the family trees of actor Sheryl Lee Ralph, and historian Lonnie Bunch, meeting ancestors who made incredible journeys from slavery to freedom.

BUNCH: Oh my Goodness.

GATES: Yeah.

BUNCH: Talk about breaking a barrier.

GATES: So you know what that means?

He was free.

He wasn't a slave.

RALPH: What?

GATES: You descend from a free person of color?

RALPH: Oh my God.

GATES: To uncover their roots.

We've used every tool available.

Genealogists comb through paper trails, stretching back hundreds of years.

(blows raspberry).

GATES: While DNA experts utilize the latest advances in genetic analysis to reveal secrets that have lain hidden for generations.

And we've compiled everything into a Book of Life.

RALPH: Are you kidding me?

GATES: A record of all of our discoveries.

BUNCH: Wait a minute.

I can't... really?

GATES: And a window into the hidden past.

It's such a happy story.

(gasping).

Out of the bowels of slavery... RALPH: Comes love, comes hope.

BUNCH: It's like a gift of, uh, of suddenly discovering who you are.

GATES: Like so many Black people, Lonnie and Sheryl grew up longing to learn about their enslaved ancestors.

In this episode, they'll hear stories that most of us can never hear, stories that will take them deep into the past, challenging their preconceptions and inspiring them to see themselves in entirely new ways.

(theme music playing).

♪ ♪ (book closes).

♪ ♪ (street noise).

GATES: Sheryl Lee Ralph is living proof that dreams can come true.

The exuberant actor with the golden voice spent four decades in Hollywood searching like so many other African Americans for roles that matched her talents.

Then in 2022, everything changed, as Sheryl found fame on the hit series, "Abbott Elementary" and won her first Emmy at the age of 65.

It's been a long, arduous journey, but Sheryl had an advantage from the start.

Growing up in New York she made frequent trips to her mother's native Jamaica, where she saw firsthand just how much Black people could accomplish.

RALPH: Black people owned their stores.

GATES: Yeah.

RALPH: Black people, it was your teacher, it was your doctor, it was your lawyer.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: Okay.

GATES: The person that ran the country, the Prime Minister, was Black-ish.

(laughs).

But there was, I was always seeing Black people in the headlines doing amazing things.

So when I would come back to the United States and you would have a teacher or somebody tell you about what you couldn't do.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: In the back of my head, I was thinking, "You need a passport because you, you don't know what Black people can do."

GATES: This sense of confidence would fuel Sheryl's career, but not before it created a bit of conflict in her own home.

When she went off to college, Sheryl was expected to become a doctor, yet she found herself drawn to the stage and won a lead role in a play during her first year.

An accomplishment that did not exactly please her mother.

It was a play called "The Soft Touch," and, um, I had to be in a slip.

Right?

Which wasn't a whole lot of clothes.

It was a slip.

And so I figured I should tell my parents that I got the lead, I'm doing this show, but I'm gonna be in a slip.

GATES: Uh-huh.

RALPH: And, um, my mother says... (in Jamaican accent).

"What?

What you mean to tell me you're going to be an actress?

You're going to spend your life with those fake and phony people.

You're going to waste our hard-earned money.

No, man.

No, no, no, no, no."

Ah, my mother was angry at me for so long.

GATES: Once a Jamaican, always a Jamaican.

RALPH: Always a Jamaican, yes.

(in Jamaican accent).

"Good, better, best, never let it rest, 'til your good is better and your better best, as a doctor, or a lawyer."

(laughing).

GATES: Eventually Sheryl's parents would embrace her ambition, but it would take much longer for the entertainment industry to do the same thing.

Making her ultimate triumph, all the more rewarding.

Indeed, looking back, Sheryl's only regret is that her parents weren't here to see it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

(applause).

At least not in a conventional sense.

RALPH: I know that their spirit is still with me, my father's so proud.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: He is so proud.

He is like, "Oh, this is it, Sheryl.

I know, this is it."

My mother would've been... (in Jamaican accent) "Lord God, acting, yes, you are an actress."

Oh my God, they, I know... Somebody said to me, your parents are working their magic from heaven for you girl, 'cause this is your time right now.

Oh, they're thrilled.

They're happy.

GATES: Oh, that's great.

RALPH: As they say in Jamaica "Wheel around and come again."

(laughing).

GATES: My second guest is historian Lonnie Bunch, the creative genius behind the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Just like Sheryl, Lonnie was raised far from his roots.

He grew up in New Jersey where his parents were school teachers, but all four of his grandparents were from the Jim Crow South.

And every summer his family visited them.

A journey that taught young Lonnie an enduring lesson.

BUNCH: I always tell the story of, you know, one time watching, my father was the only driver in those days, and I remember he pulled over 'cause he was tired, to smoke a cigarette, and he pulled in, in a, in a, um, motor inn, and it said White only.

GATES: Oh.

BUNCH: And he was standing by the sign, and I remember everybody else asleep.

I'm terrified.

GATES: Right.

BUNCH: I'm like, you know what's gonna happen?

Um, and he took his time like, "Man, how long is that cigarette," right?

Um, and, and when he got in the car, I guess he saw I was really nervous.

And he said, "Don't worry, this is my America too."

GATES: Wow.

BUNCH: And that notion that "this is my America too," has always shaped how I thought about that.

GATES: Well, he's a bad cat.

BUNCH: He was.

GATES: Yeah.

BUNCH: He was, he was indeed.

GATES: Lonnie not only heeded his father's words, he also tried to follow in his footsteps.

He earned a master's degree in history, then set out to become a teacher.

But a few years later, he began to doubt the choice he'd made.

So he switched paths, became a museum curator, and found his true calling.

BUNCH: I loved being an academic, I loved teaching, but I also realized that as much as I loved research and scholarship and I always thought that would always be the heart of who I am, I also love the notion of really making history accessible.

I sort of came to the sense that history was too important to be in the hands of historians.

Um, and so this was a way to sort of share that love with the broadest possible audience.

GATES: What do you mean?

Why are you so hard on historians?

BUNCH: Well, I think historians talk powerfully among themselves about why history matters.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: But they don't tell the public that.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: Um, and they expect the public to learn and to say, "Okay, trust us."

My notion was open the doors, pull back the veil of history of museums, let the public understand how you do the work you do, because basically what you're saying is, here's the reservoir of possibility that history gives them.

GATES: Lonnie's vision would yield spectacular results, but only after a great deal of hard work.

In 2005, when he was appointed the first director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, he had a single employee, no collection, and almost no funding.

Yet he proceeded to create a dazzling institution.

One of the most visited museums in the entire United States.

Through it all, Lonnie was guided by a simple desire to honor his ancestors.

BUNCH: That's what really gave me strength going through it, is, um, you know, even though I didn't know a lot about my grandfather or my grandparents on both sides, I thought that if I could do this, that maybe it might not help me understand my family, but it'll help other people understand their families and theirselves.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: And so that's what really sort of motivated me to basically say, if we do this right, two things will happen.

One is that America will always have to confront its tortured racial past 'cause that'll be on the National Mall.

And two, it'll be a place where people can come in and dip into that reservoir and say, "Amen."

GATES: My two guests share a common thread, both grew up in the North, knowing that their roots laid to the South.

It was time to explore those roots in detail.

I started with Sheryl Lee Ralph and with her paternal grandfather George Ralph.

George was born in 1902 on a farm in Gates County, North Carolina.

He moved away as a young man, ultimately settling in Connecticut.

But although George left his past behind it lingered on in Sheryl's imagination.

Did your grandfather talk much about growing up on a farm?

RALPH: No, no.

But I knew they did because when we would get in the car, you know, there used to be a time when you would get in your car at night... GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: And your parents would pack food.

GATES: Oh yeah.

RALPH: And you all would go south.

GATES: That's right.

RALPH: And we would always end up on this farm.

It was wonderful to wake up to the food that smelled so amazing.

GATES: Yeah.

RALPH: And it would fill the house up.

I hated the bathroom because there was none.

GATES: Yeah, it was, it was outside.

RALPH: It was, an outhouse.

GATES: That's right.

RALPH: Oh, I couldn't stand that.

GATES: I know it was foul.

RALPH: It was so foul.

GATES: It was.

RALPH: Or that bowl, those enamel bowls.

GATES: Uh-huh.

RALPH: That would have, they would have... GATES: Yeah.

RALPH: Underneath the bed.

GATES: Right.

RALPH: The pee-pee bowl.

GATES: Yep, that's right.

RALPH: Oh my goodness.

And you'd have to dump it out in the mornings.

GATES: Yeah.

RALPH: Oh, that was horrible.

But that's why I think I only did that three times, the rest of the time I was in Jamaica.

(laughs).

GATES: As it turns out, Sheryl has deep roots in and around the farm that she remembers so well, and they contain a pair of truly compelling stories.

The first begins with the 1880 census for North Carolina, where we found the listing for Sheryl's great-great-grandparents.

A couple named Timothy and Easter Benton.

Both were born over a decade before emancipation.

So you know what that means?

That they were...

BOTH: Enslaved.

GATES: Have you given much thought to your enslaved ancestors?

RALPH: Oh God, how can you not think about that?

GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: But yeah, you know, what were their skills?

You know, where, where were they?

Did they labor in the outside?

Did they cook on the inside?

GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: What shade of people... GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: ...were they, because all of that made a difference at that time.

GATES: Big time.

RALPH: Yeah.

GATES: We wanted to answer Sheryl's questions, but there was a huge obstacle in front of us.

Enslaved people almost never were listed by name in federal records, which has created what genealogists call "a brick wall" a barrier beyond which there is often no paper trail.

One of the only ways to break through this wall is to search the records of enslavers, hoping to find the names of the people they owned and the documents they left behind.

And since some formerly enslaved people took the surnames of their former owners after they were freed, we began looking for any White farmers in Gates County, North Carolina, with the same surname as Sheryl's ancestors, Benton.

It was a painstaking process, but in the end, it paid off.

RALPH: "Name of slave owner, David Benton.

Age six male, age 40 female, age 36 male."

GATES: Mm-hmm.

Sheryl, this is what's called a slave schedule.

A portion of the census that listed enslaved persons not by name, but by age, gender, and color.

This particular schedule was recorded for that man, David Benton, in the year 1860.

And we believe that the 6-year-old boy there is, in fact, your great-great-grandfather, Timothy.

RALPH: Wow.

GATES: And we also think that it's possible that the 40-year-old woman... RALPH: Uh-huh.

GATES: And the 36-year-old man were Timothy's parents.

RALPH: Mm-hmm.

GATES: Your third great-grandparents listed there as nameless marks.

RALPH: Hmm.

GATES: Mmm.

GATES: What's it like to see that?

RALPH: Uh, it's sad.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: It's very sad.

They got no name.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: And who knows where they were after that?

GATES: Sheryl is correct, we have no idea what happened to Timothy's parents after the Civil War.

But Timothy himself was roughly 10 years old when slavery was abolished.

And we know exactly what he did.

Like many formerly enslaved people, he went back to work for the man who had owned him.

In 1870, we found Timothy living in David Benton's household listed as a farm laborer.

Digging deeper we saw that by 1880 Timothy had married and started a family, but had hardly moved at all.

RALPH: "Dwelling house number 99.

Tim Benton, age 25.

Occupation farmer.

Dwelling house number 100, David Benton, age 57, White."

GATES: There's your great-great-grandfather living with his wife, who is your great-great-grandmother Easter, and their five children.

RALPH: Yes.

GATES: But who's living next door?

RALPH: David Benton.

GATES: His former enslaver, what do you make of that?

RALPH: They're like family.

GATES: Yeah, how about... RALPH: They've stayed together.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: They're living right next door to each other.

GATES: Yes, they're living right next door.

RALPH: So he's been with this man his...

BOTH: Whole life.

GATES: So this suggests some kind of relationship.

RALPH: Yes.

GATES: Which your ancestor chose to maintain willingly.

RALPH: Wow.

GATES: It shows a capacity, an enormous capacity for forgiveness on your ancestors.

RALPH: Absolutely.

GATES: Yeah.

RALPH: That's why, you know, growing up, they, growing up, you would hear people always say, "Just let Black people lead," because you know what?

They're always gonna forgive you.

GATES: That's true.

RALPH: They're always gonna be kind to you, and they're always gonna make sure you get fed.

GATES: We are, we are the most forgiving people in the, on the face of the earth.

RALPH: On the planet.

GATES: That's true.

RALPH: There are no more.

GATES: Right.

RALPH: That's who we are.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: That's who we've been, for lack of a better word, bred to be.

GATES: Happily Sheryl's ancestors wouldn't remain on David Benton's land forever.

In 1909, Timothy purchased a small farm securing a measure of prosperity that he and Easter would leave to their children.

And the couple left something else behind as well.

Something quite precious, a photograph.

RALPH: Wow.

GATES: So what's it like to see that?

RALPH: Ah.

GATES: To see them together?

RALPH: You know, it's wonderful to have a picture to know of those who they were, and now knowing what I really do know about them.

It's interesting they're different shades.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: You know?

GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: They always say that her shade is definitely the shade of slavery.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: You know, that one of the things that was truly taken away from us because of slavery was our color.

GATES: Yes.

RALPH: And I can see that it's a bit of hers has been erased.

GATES: That she's been, um... RALPH: Mixed.

GATES: A product, yeah, she's mixed.

RALPH: Exactly.

GATES: Turning from the Bentons to Sheryl's direct paternal line, we were able to identify another of her great-great-grandparents.

A man named George Thomas Ralph.

George was born around 1850, likely in the same county where Sheryl's Benton ancestors were enslaved.

But George's life was fundamentally different from theirs.

We found him in the 1860 census for North Carolina, listed by name, which can only mean one thing.

He was free.

He wasn't a slave.

RALPH: What?

GATES: You descend from a free person of color.

RALPH: Oh my God.

GATES: What's it like to see that?

How does it make you feel?

RALPH: Very good, and it doesn't surprise me.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: You know, when I look at my family as far back as I can look, I always see them owning something.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: I always see them striving towards something.

I always see them working.

And, you know, they would, they would say things like, "Hmm, that Ralph family."

GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: And we've been carrying it with us... GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: All these years.

GATES: We wanted to learn how George became free and found a clue by turning back to the 1860 census.

It lists his mother, a woman named Penny, by name, the same as her son.

If your mother was free... RALPH: You were free.

GATES: You were born free.

That means you had two generations in your family that was free before the Civil War.

RALPH: Gosh.

What are telling me?

GATES: George was born...

BOTH: Free because his mother was free.

GATES: That's two generations who were free.

RALPH: Wow.

Thank you, God.

Thank you, Skip.

Wow.

GATES: This story was about to take a twist.

Although she's ancestors were free, they still had to make their way in a world that did not see them as equals.

And that would prove challenging.

We found an apprenticeship agreement that was filed with a North Carolina court when Sheryl's great-great-grandfather George was roughly 10 years old.

It lays out the terms under which he was to go to work for a White farmer named Jordan Parker.

RALPH: "The said, Jordan Parker doth promise and agree that he will teach and instruct, or cause to be taught and instructed in the art and mystery of farming.

And that he will constantly find and provide for the said apprentice during the time aforesaid."

What a word.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: "Sufficient diet, washing, lodging, and apparel fitting for an apprentice, and also all of the things necessary, both in sickness and in health."

It's like a working marriage here.

GATES: Does it sound like a fair exchange?

RALPH: It depends.

GATES: Mm.

RALPH: It would be nice if there was compensation of the financial side so that after you learn something, you might be able to afford to set yourself up and move even further along.

But they weren't thinking like that.

GATES: Sheryl is right, under the terms of his apprenticeship George was to work without pay.

And this was not an uncommon arrangement.

At the time North Carolina's courts were routinely given the names of children so that local farmers could bid for their services.

The system was ostensibly designed to prevent orphans and impoverished youth from burdening the state.

But it was also used to exploit the free Black population.

Indeed, George's agreement contains a line that has been crossed out, an act that makes its intent patently clear.

RALPH: "Also to read, write, and cypher agreeable to law."

GATES: But that's been struck out.

RALPH: That's been crossed out.

GATES: Yes.

RALPH: Meaning "Young Black boy, I might do all of these things for you, but I will not teach you to read, write, and do arithmetic."

GATES: That's right.

The law required White apprentices to be taught to read and write and cypher.

RALPH: Mm-hmm.

GATES: The state created an exemption for children of color.

RALPH: How about that?

GATES: It's amazing to see.

I was just stunned, I've never seen anything like that.

RALPH: My God.

GATES: Remarkably, despite the odds stacked against him, George persevered.

He became a farmer, raised a family, and perhaps most impressively somehow found a way to obtain an education in his old age, despite having been denied one as a child.

An accomplishment that filled Sheryl with pride.

RALPH: I come from good people, and I come from people who never gave up and kept right on.

And they plant the seeds that are still growing now.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: Yeah.

GATES: Hmm.

RALPH: I'm a free man's child.

Yeah.

(crying).

Yes.

Yeah.

That's me, Sheryl Lee Ralph.

(laughing).

GATES: Much like Sheryl, Lonnie Bunch, first learned about his southern roots through childhood trips to a family farm.

His maternal grandparents, Johnny Boone and Flossie Anderson grew cotton in Woodland, North Carolina.

And throughout his youth, Lonnie visited them almost every summer without ever quite fitting in.

BUNCH: I was so different.

I'd only read about farms in schools so suddenly, you know, there they are.

But I realized that it wasn't romantic, right?

And I just remember my, my, one of my strongest members is being 14 or 15 going down to, to get in shape for playing football.

And I was gonna work in the fields, right?

And so got up that first morning and all these people had on hats and overalls, and I'm from Jersey, I had to look good, so I had my nice jeans with a crease and my Adidas sneakers, you know, and so I was chopping cotton, you know, and you're chopping the grass away.

And I am, I can't believe how long this is and I look up, I'm not even a third of way down the row, everybody's way past me.

And that heat was beating on my neck.

GATES: Oh, yeah.

RALPH: And, and it convinced me, if I ever needed any help, I'm going to college.

GATES: Though Lonnie didn't know it, he wasn't the first in his family to see the value of an education.

His great-grandfather, a man named Jesse Anderson preceded him.

Jesse came of age in North Carolina during the rise of Jim Crow.

By 1899 when he was roughly 40 years old, a wave of laws were legalizing segregation in his state, restricting the rights of Black people and limiting their opportunities, especially the opportunity to get a public school education.

So Jesse decided to do something.

BUNCH: "For colored schools, the following committeemen were appointed Woodland number one, Jesse Anderson, Moses Boone, and Cowper Futrell."

Huh.

GATES: Your great-grandfather was appointed to the school committee for his local school for Black students.

BUNCH: Really?

I mean, I, I'm, I'm stunned by that because I've never heard anybody say anything other than he was a farmer.

GATES: Yeah.

BUNCH: Um, but to recognize that he was, um, in some ways a race man.

GATES: Oh, yeah.

And a very important member of his community.

BUNCH: Way to go, Jesse.

GATES: As a committeeman, Jesse was responsible for the care of his local schools and the hiring of their teachers.

It was an extremely challenging job in no small part because many of Jesse's fellow White citizens had very different ideas about who should be doing it.

BUNCH: "We urged the appointment of White committeemen for each colored school in Bertie County.

We urged the complete taking charge by White men of every public agency in the county.

The school committeemen really spend the school's money.

The White people raise the school's funds, the Negroes pay little of it.

The White people demand to know what goes with their taxes.

They're getting very sore over having any of it educate the Negro.

White men should supervise the spending of the taxes, give us none but White committeemen for every school."

Good gracious.

GATES: What's it like to read that?

BUNCH: In some ways what it does is make something that, you know, as a historian, real... GATES: Yeah.

BUNCH: ...and concrete, right?

GATES: I felt the same way, I didn't know that.

BUNCH: You know, how dare you spend any money for those folks unless we control it.

GATES: Yeah, isn't that cold?

BUNCH: Powerful.

(scoffs).

GATES: This article did not represent an isolated opinion.

Eight months earlier, heavily armed bands of White supremacists had besieged Wilmington, North Carolina murdering Black people and burning down their businesses.

So what do you think Jesse was thinking when he joined that school board?

BUNCH: I mean, that's what I'm so moved by, is the courage and the sense of willingness to sacrifice for the greater good.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: You had to know that you were putting yourself and your family at risk.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: Um, that, you know, the notion of staying below the firing line.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: Yet here is somebody stepping above it.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: Saying this is too important.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: And I just can't imagine what courage that took.

I wish I could hear the conversations he and his wife had about these choices that he would make.

GATES: And I bet his wife was saying, "Stay on the farm."

BUNCH: That's right.

GATES: You know, you know how crazy these...

BUNCH: That's right.

GATES: Ku Kluxs are.

Jesse was appointed to the committee for a term of two years, but by the time those two years were up, Jim Crow was firmly entrenched in North Carolina.

And it seems that Jesse never had the opportunity to serve again.

But even so, Lonnie's ancestor did not slow down.

In 1902, Jesse purchased 75 acres of land and made the most of them.

When you were a child, your grandparents still owned property from that very purchase.

BUNCH: Really?

GATES: Yes, you visited that land, you played on it.

BUNCH: Wow.

GATES: And you chopped cotton on it.

BUNCH: Wow.

So maybe I should have been a better chopper then, uh, you know, but that's amazing to me that I just, I'm just trying to get my head around what it would take to believe you could do that.

GATES: Right.

BUNCH: Um, and then to do it.

GATES: Right.

BUNCH: And boy, I could see though that's also why you're a leader because you're trying to lead to help people understand how important education is, how important it's to own your own land.

GATES: Can you imagine what Jesse would've thought knowing he was buying something that would shape his family for generations?

BUNCH: You know, there's a part of me that hopes he had that vision.

GATES: Yeah.

BUNCH: Of recognizing that what he was going to do was to touch people yet unborn.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: Um, and I think that that's, at least the way I'm, I'm gonna think about it.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: Because I think that clearly the way he thought about education, the way he thought about land ownership, he was really recognizing that he could change the trajectory of a family... GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: By those actions.

GATES: Turning back to Sheryl Lee Ralph, we began to explore her mother's Jamaican roots, starting with Sheryl's great-great-grandfather, a man named James McClymont.

Sheryl told me that she knew she had McClymont ancestors, but that her mother had always been hesitant to discuss them.

We set out to learn why and found a clue in James' baptismal record.

It describes him as being a "mestee," a Jamaican term for a person who was mixed race.

This led us to the estate records of James' father, a man named Hugh McClymont, where we saw that this family was much more complicated than it first seemed.

RALPH: "Hugh McClymont, gentleman."

GATES: Mm-hmm.

RALPH: "Do make publish and declare this to be my last will and testament, my children, John, James, Henry, and Robert McClymont.

It is my will and desire that each of my four children be sent to school and taught to read and write.

Also, that each of them receive 20 pounds currency per annum every year."

Wow.

GATES: And you see how your third great-grandfather Hugh, is described?

RALPH: "Gentleman."

GATES: Gentleman, you know what that means?

RALPH: He is of aristocracy.

GATES: He is a White man.

RALPH: Hugh McClymont, my God.

Mm, mm, mm.

GATES: And it's amazing, he named his mestee son in his will.

RALPH: Yes, he did.

GATES: There's James.

And we found no evidence that he was an enslaver, but he owned land and livestock, which meant he had a sizable estate when he died, and he used it to take care of his mixed-race children.

RALPH: Oh my God.

(sighs).

Okay.

GATES: This will was recorded in 1837, roughly three years after slavery was abolished in Jamaica.

It indicates that James' mother was a woman named Mary Robinson, and we now turned our focus to her.

Like James, Mary was mixed race.

And we don't know how she met James' father Hugh, or whether she was ever enslaved before meeting him.

There are simply no documents to tell us.

All we could say for certain is that when Hugh drafted his will, he and Mary shared four children together, which raised a compelling question.

So do you think Mary and Hugh ever married?

RALPH: I would think so.

I would hope so.

I would want to think that.

GATES: Please turn the page.

This record is dated September 21st, 1837.

(laughs).

RALPH: "Hugh McClymont and Mary Robinson married by license on the 21st day of September 1837."

GATES: Your third great-grandfather and mixed-race third great-grandmother got married.

They obviously were in love.

RALPH: Exactly right.

But you know, my mother, she didn't wanna say that name, the McClymont.

GATES: But this was a good guy, I don't know why your mom didn't wanna say his name, he loved this woman, he legitimized his marriage, he took care of the mixed-race kids.

RALPH: I think it's because she did not know this side of her own story.

GATES: Right.

RALPH: And had she known this real side, it might have been different.

GATES: We had one more surprise for Sheryl.

Turning back to Hugh McClymont's estate records, we saw that he was determined to make sure that his wife was secure even after his death.

RALPH: "It is my will and desire that my affectionate wife, Mary Robinson, alias McClymont, and before named children shall have my property named Ginger Hall."

I love that.

"Share and share alike."

GATES: Hugh left Mary and their four children, his home.

RALPH: Wow.

GATES: What do you make of that?

RALPH: That's a big deal.

GATES: Big deal.

RALPH: Yes.

GATES: Essentially, Hugh was making more than just a symbolic gesture.

He was giving his wife independence and status in a post-slavery Jamaica.

You gotta love this guy.

RALPH: I love that.

GATES: You gotta love this guy.

And by the way, Ginger Hall, 340 acres of land in Manchester Parish.

RALPH: I've gotta go find it.

GATES: You got it, and reclaim it.

(laughs).

RALPH: And we, we do things like that.

Wow.

GATES: Have you ever heard of a story like this before?

RALPH: Never.

GATES: Nor have we.

RALPH: Wow.

GATES: Hugh McClymont passed away sometime before 1845.

We know this because Mary remarried that same year to a formerly enslaved man named Adam Saunders.

We're not sure when Mary herself died, but through her marriage to Hugh, she was set up for a comfortable life.

RALPH: My goodness.

GATES: And she married a Black man, when the White man died, she married the Black man.

RALPH: And there you have it.

GATES: She goes, "Might as well try..." RALPH: "Try both sides of it."

GATES: Both sides.

How does it feel to learn this story?

RALPH: I, I, I'm, it's, you know, you keep blowing my mind because like you said, all of this is very unusual.

We don't hear these stories like this.

We, we just don't.

GATES: This is like, go figure.

RALPH: Absolutely.

GATES: And It's such a happy story.

RALPH: Yes.

GATES: Out of the bowels of slavery... RALPH: Comes love, comes hope.

GATES: We'd already traced Lonnie Bunch's maternal roots back to his great-grandfather, Jesse Anderson, whose heroic service to the Black community had somehow been forgotten in the passage of time.

Now going back one more generation, we came to two people whose entire lives had been forgotten, Jesse's parents.

BUNCH: "Father, Washington Anderson, birthplace, Hertford County, North Carolina.

Mother, Mariah Lassiter, birthplace Hertford County, North Carolina."

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: Huh.

GATES: Lonnie, you just met your great-great-grandparents whose names were Washington Anderson and Mariah Lassiter.

Washington was born around 1819, that's 205 years ago in Hertford County, North Carolina.

Mariah was born around 1833 also in Hertford County.

What's it like to see their names?

BUNCH: It's, um, really emotional.

GATES: Mm.

BUNCH: You know, I mean, all I ever knew was Jesse Anderson.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: Um, and to suddenly now have other names, other lives, um, that shaped him.

Oh, it's very moving.

GATES: Washington and Mariah were both born decades before the Civil War, which meant that they were likely born into slavery to learn more about their lives, we searched the records of slave owners who shared their surname just as we'd done with Sheryl Lee Ralph's ancestors.

And once again, we got lucky.

We found a will from the year 1861 filed by a White planter named John A. Anderson.

And it contained a familiar name.

BUNCH: "I, John A. Anderson of the county of Hertford in the state of North Carolina do make this my last will and testament, my Negro man, Alonzo, and Washington are working off at the carpenter trade, not belonging to the plantation."

Huh.

GATES: There is your great-great-grandfather Washington, beyond a doubt in the will mentioned by the name of his enslaver John Anderson.

BUNCH: That is so powerful.

Um, I can't, I can't, I, I, I'm just really grappling with that.

My goodness.

So we know his name and that he was a carpenter.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: Oh my goodness.

GATES: Are you any good with a hammer?

BUNCH: Uh, holding it.

(laughs).

GATES: So this particular skill was not passed down.

BUNCH: It was not passed down at all.

GATES: As it turns out, Washington's skill shaped his life.

His owner's will tells us that he did not work on his owner's plantation, which suggests that he may have been hired out to other White people in the area who wanted to pay his owner for his carpentry work.

This was a common practice, and it may have given Washington more freedom than most enslaved people had, but it also meant that he was likely separated from his wife and children, possibly for long periods of time.

So, can you imagine being in Washington's shoes, having a family, and being sent to work away from your wife and children?

BUNCH: I mean, I think the, the question in my mind is, did that being away from the family still give him a little freedom to go see the family?

GATES: Yeah.

BUNCH: Right?

GATES: Yeah.

BUNCH: Um, or was it really part of the sacrifice?

GATES: I mean, would you see him once a week?

BUNCH: Yeah, exactly.

GATES: Weekend, once a month, you know, you don't know.

BUNCH: And I'd love to know the other side of it is how is somebody who owns people, how do you, how do you, how do you live with that?

GATES: Mm.

BUNCH: Um, is it really that you can reduce them so much to being so different than who you are, that it doesn't matter that they're, you know, they're, they're chattel.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: Um, or at some point, does something tap you on the shoulder and say, "Something's wrong here?"

GATES: If John Anderson had qualms about owning human beings, they do not appear in any surviving documents.

To the contrary, his will makes clear that upon his death, his enslaved carpenters were to be sold.

BUNCH: "I further wish and desire that my executors aforesaid said, shall sell either privately or publicly the said two Negroes at any time, that they'll be able to get a fair price, even if they keep them on hire for some year or two."

Wow.

(sighs).

You work for this man, you give him money and you can just be sold.

GATES: Yeah.

Boy, that's cold.

BUNCH: It really is.

GATES: You know?

John Anderson passed away on June 18th, 1861, about two months after the start of the Civil War.

By that time Washington and his wife Mariah, had at least three children together, and now suddenly their future was up in the air.

So what do you think happened to your ancestor?

BUNCH: Well, my hope is that the war disrupts things and allows them to sort of find their freedom.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: Um, my fear is that they still might have been sold.

And then the struggle of trying to reunite with your family at some point... GATES: Right.

BUNCH: ...would've been the big challenge.

GATES: Please turn the page.

This is part of the probate record filed by the estate of John Anderson in Hertford County, North Carolina.

It stated January 7th, 1862, less than a year after the record, we saw on the previous page, would you please read that transcribed section?

BUNCH: "Account of sale of the property of John A. Anderson deceased, sold the seventh day of January 1862, Negro man Washington to W.W. Mitchell, $1,000."

So my worst nightmare came true?

GATES: Yeah, what's it like to see that?

BUNCH: There's a anger, but there's a, trying to understand what it must have felt like.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: Um, he worked for a period of time for this owner, made this owner money, um, had a family, um, but suddenly realize when push comes to shove, he doesn't control his own destiny.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: Um, and I don't know how you, well, I guess you adjust, but how do you adjust?

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: Um, and I don't know, is this person close, far away?

I mean, does it make it more difficult for him to maintain a family?

But the, but the bottom line is, if you're sold, it's real clear that you don't control your own destiny.

GATES: Yeah, right.

BUNCH: And that's gotta be hard.

GATES: Washington was purchased by a man named William Watson Mitchell, whose plantation was located about 20 miles from Anderson's, a considerable distance to travel at that time.

So Washington's family was likely broken apart by the sale.

This trauma, of course, afflicted many enslaved people but we were able to show Lonnie something that personalized his ancestor's experience.

That is a man who owned your great-great-grandfather, Washington.

Washington would've seen this man every day and would've known that William also had the power to sell him again at any moment.

BUNCH: Boy, I just, even though I know so much about slavery and the system, somehow seeing it affecting my family directly.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: Um, wow.

(sighs).

It's hard being Black in America.

GATES: Yeah, it's so cold that they could do that.

BUNCH: My goodness.

GATES: Yeah.

BUNCH: And how do you, how do you, how are you not broken by that?

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: You know, how are you not realize that why worry about anything?

I don't control any of my destiny.

GATES: There is a grace note to this story.

Roughly four years after Washington was purchased by Mitchell, slavery was abolished in the United States.

And in the 1870 census for North Carolina, we saw that Lonnie's family was reunited in freedom.

What's more, this census also shows that although Washington and Mariah were illiterate, their youngest children had learned to read and write.

What do you make of your ancestors after seeing everything that they went through and accomplished?

BUNCH: I wish I was as strong as they were.

I mean, you know, I mean, I think the most powerful thing that this talks to me about is how do you believe when you shouldn't believe?

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: Right?

How do you go forward when you get sold away?

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: Um, but yet you figure out, I've gotta get the family together.

GATES: Right.

BUNCH: How do you ensure that you can't read, you can't write, but you know the value of it?

GATES: Mm-hmm.

BUNCH: To make sure at least your youngest children, a younger child, has the opportunity to do that.

GATES: Because not everybody felt that way.

BUNCH: Exactly.

GATES: Yeah.

BUNCH: Exactly.

GATES: Well, it's good enough for me not knowing, I, you don't need to know all that.

BUNCH: It's so powerful to me.

GATES: It is powerful.

And you are the legatee...

BUNCH: Exactly.

GATES: Of that belief in education.

BUNCH: Well, what, and what it tells me is I want my granddaughter to know that she's got an obligation to help fulfill the dreams they started to allow us to have.

GATES: Yeah.

150 years ago.

BUNCH: You're gonna make me start crying now.

(laughs).

GATES: The paper trail had now run out for each of my guests, it was time to show them their full family trees.

BUNCH: Oh my goodness.

GATES: Now, filled with names they'd never heard before.

RALPH: How about that?

BUNCH: Look at this.

GATES: For each, it was a moment of awe.

BUNCH: Boy, this is who I am.

GATES: Yes.

There's Mary Robinson, there's Hugh... Offering the chance to see how their own lives were part of a larger family story.

RALPH: This feels so good.

BUNCH: I look at this and I see, I almost wish I knew this when I was 15.

You know, when you were struggling trying to figure out how to believe that you could move forward, if you could look at this and say, "Of course, you move forward."

GATES: Yeah.

BUNCH: Um, because you come from, as we used to say, "good stock."

GATES: My time with my guests was running out, but I still had a surprise for Sheryl when we compared her DNA to that of others who'd been in the series, we found a match.

Evidence of a distant cousin she never knew she had.

(laughing).

RALPH: Are you kidding me?

GATES: That's the God's truth.

RALPH: And I like him so much.

Sheryl and Samuel L. Jackson share a long stretch of DNA on their 16th chromosomes.

This means that they have a common ancestor somewhere in their family trees.

RALPH: And the thing is, Samuel L. reminds me of my brother Timothy.

They've always just... GATES: Huh.

RALPH: For whatever reason, I don't know why.

GATES: Mm.

Well, it's in the DNA.

RALPH: It's in the DNA.

(laughing).

Wow.

(blows raspberry).

That's the end of our journey with Sheryl Lee Ralph and Lonnie Bunch.

Join me next time when we unlock the secrets of the past for new guests on another episode of "Finding Your Roots."