Finding Your Roots

GATES: I'm Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Welcome to "Finding Your Roots."

In this episode, we'll meet actor Jesse Williams and journalist Sunny Hostin.

Two Americans who've struggled to explain the diversity of their family trees.

WILLIAMS: When people ask, which is the most common question I've been asked my entire life is, "What are you?"

GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: Before anybody tried to get to know me or talk to me, just "What are you?"

Like I'm this thing.

Why don't you talk for 10 seconds and you'll find out.

HOSTIN: It was a constant question.

GATES: Right.

HOSTIN: Like, what are you?

What are you, what are you?

And I would say, "I'm Black and Puerto Rican."

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HOSTIN: Like, it was, it just, natural, because if you, if you just choose one, then you're denying... GATES: Half of you.

Sure.

HOSTIN: One parent and half of your, your history.

GATES: To uncover their roots, we've used every tool available.

Genealogists combed through paper trails stretching back hundreds of years...

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

WILLIAMS: This took a hell of a turn.

GATES: And we've compiled it all into a book of life.

HOSTIN: It's heavy!

GATES: Heavy!

A record of all of our discoveries... WILLIAMS: Oh, wow.

GATES: And a window into the hidden past.

HOSTIN: I just can't imagine how difficult it was.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HOSTIN: You're trying to protect your spouse, you're trying to protect your children.

GATES: Uh-huh.

HOSTIN: You're trying to keep everyone together.

WILLIAMS: This is a whole different background than I, than I anticipated or understood.

HOSTIN: It's incredible.

How do you find these things?

GATES: Jesse and Sunny know that their roots stretch back to both Africa and to Europe.

But neither of them has any idea how complicated their families actually were.

In this episode, they're going to meet those ancestors, Black and White, who will turn their identities upside down.

(theme music plays).

(book closes).

GATES: Sunny Hostin is nobody to mess with.

As a co-host of "The View," Sunny spends her mornings breaking down legal issues for America.

HOSTIN: I'll tell you why you're wrong.

GATES: Giving voice to underdogs and the oppressed, with a passion for social justice.

HOSTIN: Of sending out a message.

GATES: But this hardened fighter has a soft side.

Sunny is the child of an African American father and a Puerto Rican mother.

The two shared a commitment to bettering the world and Sunny absorbed their values.

HOSTIN: My father always reminds me of the fact that I would bring home any stray animal that I could find, including, you know, injured squirrels and dogs I would find and strays, and then take care of them.

GATES: When did you first realize that you wanted to make an impact on the world?

HOSTIN: Oh, I was probably seven or eight.

GATES: Really?

HOSTIN: Yeah.

Yeah.

That, you know, I, growing up in the late '60s, early '70s, there was just so much turmoil.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HOSTIN: And my, my mother especially was very politically active... GATES: Hmm.

HOSTIN: Um, and would sort of take me on marches and protests and stuff like that.

GATES: Huh.

HOSTIN: And I took it to heart.

GATES: Sunny's "heart" would lead her down a circuitous path... Searching for a way to make an impact, she considered becoming a journalist before setting her sights on the law.

But after a successful stint as a federal prosecutor, Sunny faced a career crisis that would draw her back to her original ambition.

HOSTIN: I couldn't get into the criminal division.

I was only offered a gig in the civil division.

I didn't want to do that.

And I, I went to a sort of work-life balance conference, um, for Black lawyers, and I was like, "There is no real work-life balance, in my opinion."

But, um, a producer was there, and she saw me, and she heard me speak.

And she said, "You should do television."

And I was like, "Well, from your lips to God's ears, because that ship has sailed.

Um, you know, I'm a lawyer, and I'm just sort of taking a sabbatical.

I just had a baby.

I'm trying to figure it out.

And, um, no one's going to pluck me from obscurity at this point."

And, uh, I was late 30s, I think.

And she was like, "You may have been plucked."

GATES: That moment changed Sunny's life forever.

Within weeks, she was appearing on Court TV as a legal analyst for the "Nancy Grace Show" HOSTIN: Emmett Till, uh, James Byrd Jr. and then Trayvon Matin.

GATES: The only obstacle, ironically, was her name.

Sunny's real first name is, "Asuncion" a legacy of her Puerto Rican ancestry.

But for Nancy Grace, it was a tongue twister.

HOSTIN: She struggled, ev, uh, every take.

It was like, Asuncia, Asuncio... And I mean, it was just so crazy.

GATES: She couldn't get that "on" in there.

HOSTIN: She couldn't get it.

And, and then she said at the break, "Can I say something to you?"

And I was like, "Uh, sure."

She was like, "Do you have another name?

A nickname?

I don't know, you know?"

And, and she just kept at it and she was, like, basically telling me, "You're very good at this."

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HOSTIN: "But that name is not gonna fly."

"You need to just go by a nickname."

And I said, "Well, my friends, some friends in school, who couldn't pronounce my name, called me Sunny, but no one in my family calls me Sunny.

I don't use it professionally."

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HOSTIN: You know.

And the next segment, I was Sunny Hostin and it's really interesting, something about our world, my career took off.

GATES: Yeah.

HOSTIN: All of a sudden, people remembered who I was.

GATES: My second guest is actor Jesse Williams, who came to fame on the hit medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" and has since become a star on both Broadway and in Hollywood.

Much like Sunny Hostin, Jesse's parents have diverse backgrounds.

His father is African American, while his mother's roots lie in Europe.

And just like Sunny, Jesse's parents were intensely committed to social justice.

Indeed, to hear Jesse tell it, his childhood home was a kind of training camp for political activists.

WILLIAMS: They'd have meetings and gatherings in the house.

They would consistently be talking about politics, what's happening in the world, what's happening in this country.

Um, and it was, you know, I grew up with a real consciousness around working people, labor rights, just being in service to Black folks and working people... GATES: So it sounds like your, your parents were interracial, radical hippies.

WILLIAMS: That's right, that is an accurate description.

GATES: My kind of people.

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

GATES: My generation.

WILLIAMS: For real.

GATES: Them's the good old days, man.

WILLIAMS: For real.

GATES: Jesse not only embraced his parents' views, he set out to follow in their example.

After graduating from Temple University in Philadelphia, he remained in the city teaching public high school, while also aspiring to become a filmmaker with a focus on African American history.

He'd find his true calling almost by accident.

WILLIAMS: I dabbled a little bit in, in modeling this one summer and that, that agent offered a, you know, said, "Do you wanna come in and read for 'The Sopranos'?"

GATES: Hmm.

WILLIAMS: And I did.

And I got called back.

And in that process of auditioning is when I realized, like, oh, I'm telling the story, too.

I kind of thought the actor was the last thing you put in.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: You know?

You write it, you produce it, you get a set and you tell them what to say and they say it.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: But I could say this 17 different ways.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: I can give a completely different intention.

I could change just an intonation on that syllable.

Whoa, I didn't realize.

I'm late to the party here, but that became fun and interesting and it felt doable.

And it felt, also, like, um, uh, the margins were pretty decent if I, I could, I could use the money.

(laughs) GATES: Jesse would soon have far fewer worries about "money."

His 12 seasons on "Grey's Anatomy" took care of that.

But even so, Jesse retains the idealism of his youth.

He's deeply committed to an array of social causes, sits on the board of a civil rights advocacy group and has been an active supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement.

What's more, Jesse remains fiercely devoted to his parents and profoundly grateful for the unique foundation they gave him.

WILLIAMS: Being a, a, a product of a White New England family and a Black Southern family, those divergent, those very different experiences have been such a blessing.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: I've been, I've had such a wealth of, of, um, of, of experiences that have informed my sense of self and understanding of this country, and social behaviors, and the meanings underneath them.

You know?

GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: And so, my parents have had a hand in every element of my success.

It's their success.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: It is purely an extension of what they poured into me.

GATES: Meeting my guests, it was clear that both had been shaped by their progressive parents.

Now it was time to look at their roots to try to uncover ancestors who may have influenced them as well, even if those ancestors lived far more conventional lives.

I started with Jesse Williams, and with his mother, Johanna Chase.

Jesse knew that Johanna's maternal line led back to Sweden, but the details of that line had been forgotten.

We set out to recover them and started with the woman who brought the line to America.

Jesse's second great-grandmother, Inga Sofia Ekstrm.

WILLIAMS: "The little baby girl from Burseryd, Inga Sofia.

Parents organist and school teacher, heir A. M. Extrom and his wife, Lovisa, Johann's daughter.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: 19 years old.

GATES: That is your great-great-grandmother's birth certificate.

WILLIAMS: Wow.

GATES: And she was born on April Fool's Day, 1855 in Burseryd Perish in Sweden and you can see where Burseryd Parish is on the map.

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

GATES: Have you ever been anywhere near there?

WILLIAMS: I've been to Stockholm once, uh, maybe five years ago, my first and only time in Sweden.

GATES: Well, that's where your people are from, man.

WILLIAMS: Wow.

GATES: That is your ancestral home.

JESSE WILLIAMS: Wow.

I had no idea.

Burseryd Parish.

GATES: Burseryd is a tiny farming parish in western Sweden.

By 1855, the year Inga was born, her family had lived in the area for centuries.

Inga would likely have spent her life here, too, were it not for the fact that she was a gifted singer, and that changed everything.

In the spring of 1871, Inga left Burseryd to study at the prestigious Royal Music Academy in Stockholm.

WILLIAMS: I drove past the Royal Music Academy.

I've seen it.

I did not know that I had a family member who'd studied there.

GATES: So this was not a family story that was passed down?

WILLIAMS: Not to, not to my, not to me.

GATES: She moved more than 250 miles away from home when she was only 16 years old.

WILLIAMS: Wow.

GATES: Can you imagine?

WILLIAMS: Wow, wow.

GATES: What are you feeling?

This is a big deal.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, it is a big deal.

It is a big deal.

Um, yeah.

It's, it's incredible to imagine and, and all, so looking back and understanding what came of, you know, how, what, how our family developed, but to think about her having no idea what, what is to come, um, in generations ahead and just setting out, just setting out to pursue your craft and try to make a life for yourself, especially away from your family, um, in the arts.

GATES: When Inga enrolled in the Royal Academy, the school had only been open to women for 15 years and opportunities for female musicians were quite limited, but Inga didn't seem to care about that.

In 1873, when she was still a teenager, Inga joined what became known as the "Swedish Ladies Quartet" and began to tour Europe.

Just three years later, the group arrived in America to considerable fanfare.

WILLIAMS: "It is safe to say that in all its long and honorable career, no performance has occurred in every respect so perfect as was this.

The Swedish Ladies sang the difficult part songs of Schumann artistically and with surprising effect.

The quaint national songs which they gave in the last half of the concert were charmingly sung, and elicited a hearty encore."

GATES: Not a bad review.

WILLIAMS: Not at all.

That's a wonderful review.

GATES: Inga performed with the New York Philharmonic, the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States, and her quartet was a smash.

What do you think she was feeling?

Was she terrified, exhilarated?

WILLIAMS: I think both.

I think certainly exhilarated and at some level, we're all terrified, uh, when you're putting your neck out there.

So, so that's, that's bravery and you know what?

The more I look at her the more I see a couple members of her family in her face.

Actually, yeah.

It looks like my cousin.

GATES: This concert was the beginning of an extended tour that would take Inga's quartet to some of the largest stages in the United States.

It would also prove to be the high point of Inga's career.

In 1883, six years after arriving in America, she married a fellow Swede in Chicago, started a family, and saw the quartet disband.

So what does that tell you about what it was like to be a female artist in those days?

WILLIAMS: Right.

Right.

You become a, I imagine, some degree of a kept woman or you're, uh, your aspirations are, uh, subject to the man's aspirations.

GATES: Yeah, if she were alive today, do you think she would've wanted to do both, work and have a family?

WILLIAMS: Yeah, I would imagine especially when it seems to be bringing you joy and success and you're this young.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: Wow.

This is mind-blowing.

I did not know any of this.

GATES: Inga and her husband would eventually settle down in Minnesota, where they raised five children.

And though she would never again perform on the big stages of her youth, Inga did not abandon her gift.

Records show that she worked as a voice teacher, and even gave concerts as a soloist.

WILLIAMS: It brings me joy to see that she continued with music, not just as a teacher, but she was able to still perform.

GATES: Yeah, despite the fact that she had five kids.

WILLIAMS: Uh-huh, wow.

GATES: Do you think you inherited anything from this ancestor?

WILLIAMS: I'd like to think I inherited some, um, some bravery, um, some risk-taking, you know, ability and-and talent.

But I-I think that there, um, to be able to set a course like that for yourself and take advantage of the confidence and faith of others, some, a lot of us can get it and squander it.

But to take advantage of it and to honor it and to see it through, um, at that time as a young woman.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, that's pretty, that's incredible.

GATES: Inga's story illuminates the joy of genealogy, showing how we can find surprising connections to distant ancestors.

But turning to another line of Jesse's family tree, we came to a man who would elicit a very different emotion.

In the archives of colonial Massachusetts, we saw that Jesse's 8th-great-grandfather, Joseph Herrick, was chosen to serve as constable in the town of Salem in the year 1691.

WILLIAMS: Wow.

GATES: Any idea what a constable did?

WILLIAMS: Uh, no, I mean, some-some local official with some-some regional or local responsibility of some kind.

GATES: Joseph had to arrest residents of Salem who had been accused of crimes.

WILLIAMS: Oh, he's police in some form?

GATES: That's right.

WILLIAMS: Law enforcement.

GATES: So let's see what happened next.

Please turn the page.

WILLIAMS: Oh boy.

GATES: Jesse, this is a warrant taken on February 29th, 1692.

Would you please read that transcribed section?

WILLIAMS: "Complaint on behalf of Their Majesties against Sarah Osborne and Tituba an Indian woman servant, for suspicion of witchcraft and thereby much injury done to Elizabeth Parris, Abigail Williams, Anna Putnam, and Elizabeth Hubbard.

GATES: This is a warrant for two of the first women arrested in the Salem witch trials.

And your ancestor, Jesse, arrested them.

WILLIAMS: Whoa.

GATES: Yeah.

WILLIAMS: Wow, wow, okay.

GATES: Sarah Osborne would die in her jail cell and, though Tituba would be set free, this wasn't the end of Joseph's involvement in the infamous trials.

A month later, he took custody of two more women accused of witchcraft: Martha Corey and Sarah Good.

Both would be hanged in the madness that followed and remarkably, Sarah was even related to Joseph through marriage.

What do you think Joseph's thoughts were about the trials?

Do you think he believed he was doing right, or do you think this was all crazy and it was just a job and he had to do it?

WILLIAMS: We, you know, I-I would, part of me would suspect that, caught up in the momentum and the chatter and gossip of this, there's probably some belief that it's right and you're serving and protecting.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: The personal angle, the fact that there's a relation, does make me wonder if there's some kind of grudge or something.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: And you just throw her into the pot with everybody else.

Or you do believe it so much that, unfortunately, I, you know, I've gotta... GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: I've got to, um, take you in even though, because for the greater good.

GATES: Yeah.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, yeah, this is wild.

GATES: I have a final thing to show you about your 8th-great-grandfather, Joseph.

Please turn the page.

We jumped ahead about 26 years.

This is a page of Joseph's probate file.

He died on February 4th, 1718.

Would you please read the transcribed section?

WILLIAMS: "I give to my son John my Negro woman Hannah after my wife's death."

GATES: Jesse, your 8th-great-grandfather enslaved a woman named Hannah.

WILLIAMS: Wow.

GATES: What's it like to learn that?

WILLIAMS: Wow, I didn't know that.

Okay, uh, that's really interesting.

It doesn't, I can't say it's astonishing.

It's brand new information I did not know.

I, you know, you wonder.

You always wonder, of course.

Um, it's also interesting that her name is almost my mom's name, Johanna.

Um, wow.

GATES: We don't know if Hannah was the only human being whom Joseph held in bondage.

All we do know is that at the time of his death, he was a slave owner, leaving Jesse to contemplate how he and his liberal-minded mother had arisen from such a source.

What do you make of this guy, of your ancestor?

WILLIAMS: That's a... Well, he enslaved somebody.

Uh, that's not a small, medium, or a large thing.

That's a catastrophic, heinous thing.

It's, um, it's, uh, complexing, conflicting in, which is life.

That's part of it.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: Um, but uh, I'm all the more proud of how far this family has come since them.

GATES: Mmm.

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

GATES: Much like Jesse Williams, Sunny Hostin was about to learn that her mother's family was far more complicated than she'd ever imagined.

The story begins with her maternal grandmother: Virginia Romero Diaz.

Virginia was born in Puerto Rico in 1924 but settled in New York City as a young woman and eventually played a major role in Sunny's upbringing.

HOSTIN: We were very, very close.

And um, the only words she knew in English were, like, curse words.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HOSTIN: And she would, she would use those.

You know, some people would call it crass, but she was a real spitfire, man.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HOSTIN: She really was.

GATES: Hmm.

Did she tell you much about her life?

HOSTIN: She did not like speaking about her life, actually.

And what was always intriguing to me is that, um, I would go back to Puerto Rico and, on vacation, to learn more about the island.

She never went back.

GATES: Hmm.

HOSTIN: She never went back.

And she would just say, you know, "Too many memories."

GATES: Our researchers now made the journey that Virginia had chosen to decline.

And in the archives in Puerto Rico, we uncovered her birth record, which lists the names of her parents: Agustn Romero Campos and Anastacia Diaz.

They're Sunny's great-grandparents.

HOSTIN: Wow.

GATES: They were married in September of 1918, 105 years ago, and already had five children when Virginia was born in 1924.

HOSTIN: Really?

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HOSTIN: So there were two, two siblings I don't know about.

GATES: Yeah.

HOSTIN: Wow.

GATES: And um... HOSTIN: She never mentioned that.

GATES: If you look at those photos on the left, at the time of Virginia's birth, her family lived in the barrio of La Perla, an impoverished community located in Old San Juan.

HOSTIN: Yes, mm-hmm.

GATES: And you can see photos of it on the left.

What's it like to see that?

HOSTIN: You know, I made sure when I, um, first started going to Puerto Rico, to visit La Perla.

GATES: Oh, really?

HOSTIN: Because my grandmother was very proud of the fact that she was from there.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HOSTIN: Which it, it's right on the water.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HOSTIN: And La Perla is the pearl.

So it was supposed to be the pearl of San Juan.

GATES: Right.

HOSTIN: But it was a barrio as well.

And in fact, the first time I visited, the drug lords wouldn't allow me entrance.

GATES: No kidding?

HOSTIN: Yes.

Until they found out that my grandmother was from there.

GATES: Hm.

HOSTIN: And then I was able for a little while, with them escorting me to walk around.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HOSTIN: Just a bit, there were certain places I couldn't go.

GATES: Hmm.

HOSTIN: Um, because it was, they just sort of ruled it.

Now recently, I went back and it's been, been cleaned up a bit.

GATES: Hm.

HOSTIN: So they're no longer kind of ruling it.

GATES: Hmm.

HOSTIN: And um, you're able to walk around this area a little more freely.

But she was very proud of that.

GATES: Wow.

HOSTIN: Um, and she was like, "It makes you tough."

GATES: Records in San Juan show just how tough Virginia's childhood actually was...

Revealing that she lost three of her siblings before her tenth birthday.

And then, in quick succession, saw both her mother and her father pass away.

HOSTIN: That's horrible.

It's just one thing after another for her.

GATES: Yeah.

HOSTIN: Just one thing after another.

GATES: Yeah.

HOSTIN: It makes a lot more sense now that she refused to go back.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HOSTIN: I mean, I invited her several times.

You know, "Nanny, come" I used to call her Nanny.

"Nanny, come-come to Puerto Rico.

You know, I'll put you up at the Ritz.

It's gonna be great."

Um, no-no desire.

GATES: Yeah.

HOSTIN: Zero.

And no desire to talk about her time there really either.

GATES: Well, all of this loss occurred before the age of 12.

HOSTIN: Yeah, I can't imagine it, actually.

GATES: Mmm-hmm.

HOSTIN: I can't imagine that.

GATES: Perhaps unsurprisingly, the tragedy of Virginia's youth gave way to an adulthood that was filled with challenges.

She had a very brief relationship with Sunny's grandfather, a man named Augusto Beza Perez, before settling into a solitary life in New York City and while it was easy to understand why Virginia had turned her back on the past, in doing so, she left Sunny knowing almost nothing about her deeper roots.

We set out to restore what had been lost, and traced Sunny's grandfather Augusto back three generations to a man named Fermn Beza.

He lived in a region of Puerto Rico known as Aguadilla.

You ever hear of him?

HOSTIN: No.

GATES: Well, Fermn Beza, you just met your great-great-great-grandfather.

HOSTIN: Wow.

GATES: Your third great-grandfather.

HOSTIN: I've never heard the name, no.

GATES: Fermn died in Aguadilla at the age of 63, which means he was born 200 years ago, minus one year.

HOSTIN: Wow.

GATES: He was born in 1824.

HOSTIN: Wow.

GATES: Did you know that you had such deep roots in Aguadilla?

HOSTIN: No-no, I know when my-my mom learned that her father was in Aguadilla.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HOSTIN: But other than that, no.

I mean, I've been there, but I didn't know the roots went back that far.

GATES: Sunny's roots in Aguadilla were about to connect her to some painful history.

Our researchers discovered that her third great-grandfather Fermn was the son of a merchant who was likely involved in the slave trade, and Fermn himself owned at least one human being.

What's more, moving back on this line, we found that it originates in Galicia, Spain, evidence of Sunny's deeper ancestry and her family's ties to Spain's colonial past.

What's it like to learn of this tangible connection to Spain?

HOSTIN: I married a Spaniard.

Half Spanish, half Hatian.

GATES: There you go.

HOSTIN: Um, wow.

I'm-I'm-I'm a little bit in shock.

I-I just always thought of myself as Puerto Rican, you know, half Puerto Rican.

I didn't think I was, uh, my family was originally from Spain and slaveholders.

GATES: Yeah.

Yeah.

So how are you feeling, my friend?

HOSTIN: Um, I just, um, I think it's actually pretty interesting that, um, my husband and I have shared roots.

GATES: Yeah.

HOSTIN: So I, I do appreciate that.

Um, and I think it's great for our children to know this information.

Um, I guess it's a fact of life that, uh, this is how some people made their living... On the backs of others.

GATES: Sunny's Beza ancestors are not her only tie to Spain.

Her mother's family tree contains at least one other line to Galicia and several lines to Spanish communities in the Canary Islands.

What's more...

Sunny's own DNA testifies to an even greater connection.

Almost a quarter of her admixture is from the Iberian peninsula.

A fact that took Sunny by surprise.

HOSTIN: I mean, I had no idea of the Spanish roots to this extent.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HOSTIN: I'm still sort of shocked about the depth of the, the ties, I guess to Spain.

GATES: What do you think all these White people just came up out of the ground?

HOSTIN: I just... GATES: They had to come from somewhere.

HOSTIN: I'm just kind of surprised.

Um, I mean, my mother's family does look White, so you know?

GATES: What you got against Spain?

HOSTIN: Just the colonization of the people, um... GATES: Ooh.

HOSTIN: But um, you know, I'm, and I'm surprised that they were enslavers, actually.

GATES: Yeah.

HOSTIN: Um, that's... That's disappointing and it's... GATES: That's, that's a lot to deal with.

HOSTIN: Yeah.

GATES: Has it changed anything about the way you think of your mother?

HOSTIN: No, um, my mother certainly identifies as Puerto Rican.

GATES: Right.

HOSTIN: Um, and non-White, actually.

So I hate this for her.

GATES: She, she's gonna see how deeply White she is.

HOSTIN: She is.

GATES: We'd now traced the European roots of both of my guests.

It was time to focus on their African-American roots.

For Jesse Williams, that meant sending our researchers to Valdosta, a small city in south-central Georgia.

Jesse's father was raised here, and his grandfather, a man named John Williams, was born in the nearby town of Boston.

But Jesse's knowledge of this part of his family ends with John's father, Nathan Williams, and Jesse was hoping we could go further.

We started with the 1920 census for Georgia, which shows Nathan supporting his wife and young children by working in a lumber mill, a grueling and dangerous job.

WILLIAMS: Wow.

GATES: Nathan likely worked 10-hour days during very busy seasons, performing quite heavy labor, felling trees, or loading logs for transport.

Now, he's only three generations away from you.

WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm.

GATES: Can you imagine that kind of life?

WILLIAMS: Uh, I, I can imagine it.

I haven't done it, but I can, I can imagine it.

Um, particularly when I spend time down there.

I remember just growing up going down to Georgia, and then hearing stories about, you know, my father working in a tobacco, uh, tannery, and family members picking peaches and cotton.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: And you know, you're, that kind of hard work is something you hear a lot about.

But uh, it's quite something else to place a name and a person with it, and, and think about how hard he was working.

GATES: Do you think a job like that would put a strain on a marriage?

WILLIAMS: I think a job like that would put a strain on everything.

GATES: Unfortunately, Nathan would soon find his job and his marriage too much to bear.

By 1928, he had left his family and had settled down with another woman just 30 miles away, where he helped to raise her children.

WILLIAMS: Okay.

GATES: And your grandfather John was just eight years old when this happened.

WILLIAMS: Right, right, okay.

GATES: How do you think this affected your grandfather?

WILLIAMS: I, I would imagine it affected him greatly, I mean, because it also sounds like, to my understanding that, from this point on, he was no longer in the kids' life.

GATES: Right.

WILLIAMS: So a divorce is one thing, that's hard enough even if you still maintain a relationship with your parents in two households.

But when one is no longer, uh, with you, and you have the knowledge, or do or don't have the knowledge that they've gone on to start another family, um, that can be pretty devastating, um, especially at that young age.

Old enough to remember him, and old enough to feel the sense of loss.

GATES: Nathan's departure not only pained his son, it also put a tremendous burden on his wife: Jesse's great-grandmother, a woman named Elvia Willams.

Elvia had three children when her husband moved out, and no clear means of support.

Ultimately, she found work as a maid and by 1940, records show that Elvia was earning $120 a year, roughly $6,000 today.

It's a shockingly low wage, but Elvia kept her family together and close by.

Indeed, she was living just a few miles from her son John when she passed away in 1952.

She had to raise three children alone after Nathan left her.

So she must have been a pretty tough lady.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, yeah.

GATES: Do you see anything passed down to your grandfather or to your father from her?

WILLIAMS: Um, well like, almost all Black folks who've made their way through this time is, you know, figuring out how to stretch and be an alchemist.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: Make something out of nothing over and over and over and over again, and be able to spread it to feed as many mouths as you need to.

And um, she did that on $120 on a good year.

GATES: Right, that's hard to even imagine.

WILLIAMS: In a good year.

Yeah, yeah.

GATES: As it turns out, Elvia was not the only survivor in her family.

Moving back two generations, we came to her grandfather, Jesse's third great-grandfather, a man named July Hadley.

July was born about 1828 in Georgia, which means he, almost certainly, was born into slavery.

Searching for evidence of his life, we noticed that there was a White slave owner in Georgia named Samuel Hadley who died in 1851.

Digging deeper, we saw that Samuel's estate records include a familiar name.

WILLIAMS: "Inventory and appraisement of the estate of Samuel H. Hadley, deceased.

One Negro man, July, $600."

Well, there you go.

GATES: Jesse, we believe that that's your third great-grandfather.

What's it like to see this, the name of your enslaved ancestor on the...

This document where he's being left like a piece of property... WILLIAMS: Yeah.

GATES: Which legally he was.

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

GATES: Similar to a-a piece of furniture?

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

GATES: What's it like to see that?

WILLIAMS: Well, it gives us, you know, it...

It's helpful.

I take satisfaction from knowing it and seeing it and be able to name it when it's been unnamed for so long, um, and name him obviously when it's been, when he's unnamed to me for so long, um.

So it gives me, you know, someone and something to, to honor.

GATES: Like almost all enslaved people, July Hadley left very few records behind.

But we were able to learn a little more about his life, starting with a map of the estate where Samuel Hadley held him in bondage.

We believe that July likely worked this land planting cotton and perhaps unsurprisingly, the area was familiar to Jesse, even today.

WILLIAMS: Wow.

And we're, I mean, we are, you know, when I, all the time I spent in my life down here in Lowndes County with my family, um, it's very close.

We haven't geographically gone very far since then.

GATES: Mm-hmm, no.

Same with my family.

WILLIAMS: You know?

Like we're right there.

They would say a stone's throw, so I can and will visit this land.

And there's, oh, I see Boston.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: So that's where my grandfather was born.

GATES: Yes, that's right.

WILLIAMS: Wow.

Damn.

Um... Hmm.

It-it-it makes me wanna go touch it.

It makes me wanna go be there.

GATES: July Hadley passed away sometime around 1890, likely in the same part of Georgia where he spent decades in slavery, but there is a heart-warming coda to his story.

In the 1900 census, we found July's son, Isaac Hadley.

Isaac is Jesse's great-great-grandfather and he, too, was almost certainly born into slavery, but as this census shows, when freedom came, Isaac transformed his life.

He learned to read, became a landowner, married, and raised ten children.

WILLIAMS: Wow.

Got a huge family, all this property, can read and write.

This is a incredible turn of events despite just unfathomable opposition.

GATES: That's right.

WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm, wow, wow.

GATES: What's it like to see that?

WILLIAMS: I feel lucky to be able to put a point on it and be able to name it and have a place on the map to point to, something to explore further and share with my children.

It's, it's so much different to be able to have any level of, any level of precision, any level of actual naming.

So I can sit with it and think about it and say his name and um... GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: And take him with me now.

GATES: Yeah.

WILLIAMS: It's a big deal.

GATES: Turning back to Sunny Hostin, we set out to explore her African American roots and focused first on her grandmother, a woman named Mary Cummings.

Sunny knew her grandmother well, but Mary rarely spoke about her past.

And Sunny knew almost nothing about Mary's deeper roots.

We set out to change that and soon uncovered a secret.

In the 1940 census for Columbia County, Georgia, we saw Mary listed as a seven-year-old girl, living with four siblings and her mother, Lilly May Green, in the home of her mother's parents, but one significant figure was notably absent.

HOSTIN: Um, who is missing?

GATES: Lilly May was the mother of all those children.

HOSTIN: Right.

GATES: Who's the father?

HOSTIN: Oh, yeah.

Because she's 25, but living at home... GATES: Right.

HOSTIN: With her parents.

GATES: With... HOSTIN: With all those kids.

GATES: All those kids.

HOSTIN: Very understanding parents.

GATES: Yeah.

HOSTIN: I guess.

Unless they were all on a farm together somewhere.

GATES: Well, your grandmother, Mary's father, is not listed.

Do you know anything about him?

HOSTIN: No.

GATES: Hmm, okay.

HOSTIN: Not at all.

GATES: Please turn the page.

HOSTIN: Oh, boy.

I'm scared to turn the page.

Okay.

GATES: Mary's father was a man named Robert Cummings.

And by the time the 1940 Census was recorded, Robert had left his family never to return.

We believe that he and Lilly may have separated sometime after 1937 when their fifth child was born.

So how do you imagine their split affected your grandmother, Mary?

She was just a child.

She would've been between six and nine.

HOSTIN: Well, I know she was very close to her mother.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HOSTIN: But she didn't talk to me, at least.

Maybe she spoke to my dad.

She didn't speak to me much about her father.

GATES: Uh-huh.

HOSTIN: So that's pretty telling.

GATES: Yeah.

Have you heard anything about Robert's life?

HOSTIN: No.

GATES: After the split?

HOSTIN: No.

GATES: No.

Please turn the page.

(laughter).

HOSTIN: It feels like I'm about to learn something.

GATES: This is his draft card.

HOSTIN: Oh, wow.

GATES: Would you please read the transcribed section?

HOSTIN: "Robert Willie Cummings."

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HOSTIN: "Age 37.

Address, Augusta Richmond, Georgia.

Person who will always know your address, Estella Hadley."

Huh?

"Place of employment, Bell Aircraft Camp Gordon, Augusta Richmond, Georgia."

GATES: You're looking at your great-grandfather's World War II registration card.

HOSTIN: Wow.

GATES: By the time this was recorded, Robert had moved to Augusta and unfortunately this is the last record we have of him.

And we don't know what happened to him after 1942.

What have you heard from your grandmother?

What kind of relationship did she and her siblings have with Robert following their parents' split?

Not a word.

HOSTIN: I don't recall her ever saying anything about it.

No.

GATES: Well, even though we can't trace Robert forward, we can trace Robert backwards in time.

HOSTIN: Okay.

GATES: Our search led us to what's known as Morrow Precinct, a tiny unincorporated hamlet in Columbia County, Georgia.

Here, we found Robert as a young man and discovered that he too grew up without a father.

HOSTIN: "Cummings, Mandy.

Race, Black.

Age, 55, single.

Place of birth, Georgia.

Occupation, farmer general farm.

Robert W., son.

Race, Black.

Age 15.

Place of birth, Georgia.

GATES: There's your great-grandfather, Robert, at just 15 years old in the household of his mother, your great-great-grandmother, Mandy Cummings.

HOSTIN: Mandy.

GATES: Have you ever heard of her?

HOSTIN: Never.

Wow.

GATES: Mandy, her proper name was Amanda was born sometime between 1869 and 1871.

And as you can see Amanda is listed as "single" on that census.

HOSTIN: Yes.

GATES: Your great-grandfather, Robert's father, is not listed in the household.

HOSTIN: That's a pattern.

GATES: Unfortunately, at this time, we are unable, positively, to identify Robert's father.

Amanda never appears to have been married.

HOSTIN: That is a pattern.

GATES: Right.

HOSTIN: Which is crazy because, um, I have such a great dad.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HOSTIN: And I think he wanted to make sure to break this cycle.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HOSTIN: I think that was important to him.

GATES: This story was about to take a surprising turn.

Moving back one generation from Amanda, we came to her father, a man named Dean Harris.

Dean is Sunny's third great-grandfather.

He was likely born into slavery in Columbia County, Georgia around 1835, and sometime after emancipation he adopted the surname "Cummings."

But that's not all he did.

HOSTIN: "Personally appeared before me this 15th day of July 1867, Dean Harris, who makes oath as follows, "I Dean Harris, do solemnly swear in the presence of Almighty God that I will faithfully support the Constitution."

What?

Um, "And obey the laws of the United States and will, to the best of my ability, encourage others so too."

Signed, Dean X. Harris, sworn to and subscribed before me, Registrar of the 25th Registration District.

Did he vote?

GATES: He registered to vote.

HOSTIN: Wow, that's cool.

Wow.

Now you got me crying.

That's amazing.

In 1867 to register to vote.

GATES: And he couldn't even write his name.

The "X".

He signed the document with an "X".

HOSTIN: He signed with an "X".

Yeah, wow.

That's amazing.

GATES: Dean registered to vote at a perilous time in American history.

In the years following the Civil War, the Reconstruction Acts gave Black men across the former Confederacy Civil Rights that they had never held before, and they exercised those rights vigorously; electing a wave of black politicians and passing a series of laws crafted to create a more equitable society, but a backlash was coming, as White southerners refused to relinquish the power they had held for so long.

Testimony given by a reverend in Dean's town gives a sense of what happened next.

HOSTIN: "It was in July 1868.

The Ku Klux Klan had visited our little town of Thompson and had beaten a friend of mine pretty severely.

That night they visited my house.

They were very well armed, had pistols, shotguns.

That was on a Saturday night.

On Sunday, I received a letter not to stay in the house because they were gonna visit me again.

A week after I left, they went on and beat another colored man pretty severely."

Yeah, it was dangerous to vote.

GATES: What's it like to know this was happening in the town where your ancestor lived?

HOSTIN: It, it shows you the courage it, that was required for him to do that.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HOSTIN: And it, it just, it just shows you how strong he was.

GATES: By the end of 1871, the year this testimony was given, Georgia's White democrats had taken back control of their state government, aided by the nascent Ku Klux Klan and a terror campaign designed to suppress the Black vote.

But, as it turns out, Sunny's ancestor was not about to be deterred.

Sunny, you're looking at voter registering roles from the years 1886 to 1894.

What do you see?

HOSTIN: Uh-oh, he didn't stop.

Wow.

Republican, 1886, Cummings, Dean.

1887, Cummings, Dean.

1888, Cummings, Dean.

1889, Cummings, Dean.

He's like me, I never miss a, um, a chance to vote.

1890, Cummings, Dean.

1891, Cummings, Dean.

1892, Cummings, Dean.

1893, Cummings, Dean.

1894, Cummings, Dean.

I mean, he couldn't be stopped.

GATES: Your ancestor registered to vote nine times between 1886 and 1894 despite... HOSTIN: Oh, gosh, wow.

GATES: Terrorism.

HOSTIN: The intimidation and the domestic terrorism.

GATES: You got it.

Dean was not intimidated.

HOSTIN: No.

GATES: He consistently exercised his right to vote.

HOSTIN: Wow.

That's awesome.

I love that.

GATES: The paper trail had now run out for each of my guests.

These are all of your ancestors.

HOSTIN: Oh, my goodness.

GATES: It was time to show them their full family trees.

WILLIAMS: Oh, wow.

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

For each, it was a moment of wonder.

HOSTIN: You found everyone!

WILLIAMS: This is a massive gift to our whole family.

GATES: Providing a chance to reflect on the sacrifices made by women and men on both sides of the color line, who laid the groundwork for their success.

WILLIAMS: I feel more full.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: Um, I feel more full in a, in a, in a space that was otherwise, um, blank and didn't really have a utility, but this does if that makes sense.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: Like a, I feel like this is something I can do something with.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: Um, and, and all of that.

Uh, it just completes a picture.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

I'm, I'm really grateful.

Thank you.

GATES: What do you think you inherited from your ancestors?

HOSTIN: Well, certainly the determination to be involved with societal politics.

GATES: Yeah.

HOSTIN: For sure.

GATES: Yeah.

HOSTIN: I'm such a fighter when it comes to that.

I actually never understood why it's so important to me.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

HOSTIN: Maybe, you know, they say in Puerto Rico, el sangre llama.

You know, the blood calls you.

GATES: Blood, yeah.

HOSTIN: And maybe that's part of it.

GATES: Could be.

That's the end of our journey with Sunny Hostin and Jesse Williams.

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