Finding Your Roots

(upbeat tones) -

Henry Gates

That is your great-grandfather, that's Robert Robinson Taylor. That's a wonderful photo. My mother and my grandmother both talked about him a lot during my childhood. -

Henry Gates

Robert Robinson Taylor has the distinction of being the first black person to graduate from MIT and the first professionally trained black American architect. The legendary Booker T. Washington enlisted Taylor to help build the Tuskegee Institute, one of the earliest colleges committed to educating African Americans after the Civil War. How did Valerie's great-grandfather manage to accomplish so much? Given that his father was a former slave and that he was born in the South just three years after the Civil War ended. Could you please turn the page? Yes. You know who that man is? I have no idea who that is. Who is that? -

Henry Gates

Well my dear, you are looking at Robert Robinson Taylor's father. Your great-great-grandfather. Henry Taylor. Oh my goodness. And Henry was born a slave in Cumberland County, North Carolina in 1823. How did a black man born during slavery have the wherewithal and the resources to send his son to MIT? So let's try to answer this question. The suspense is killing me. -

Henry Gates

We discovered a clue in a letter that Robert wrote describing his father's ancestry. In the letter Robert claimed that his father's father was a man named Angus Taylor. When we searched for Angus Taylor in the census records we discovered that Angus Taylor was a white man, and he owned a small farm in North Carolina with seven slaves. -

Henry Gates

Now this is part of the federal census taken in Bladen County, North Carolina in the year 1850. And it's the slave schedule. Could you please read the highlighted section? It says name of slave owner, Angus Taylor. Remember Henry was born in 1823 so we're looking for a slave who was either about 26 or 27. Can you see someone that fits that description? -

Valerie Jarrett

Twenty-six year old male, black. -

Henry Gates

That is Henry Taylor. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. -

Henry Gates

Now according to the letter, Henry Taylor believed that Angus Taylor was not just his owner, he was also his father. Amazing.