Finding Your Roots

Gates: I'm Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Welcome to "Finding Your Roots."

In this episode, we'll meet film director Ava DuVernay, actor S. Epatha Merkerson, and musician Questlove.

Each will take a journey to unexpected places where their ancestors were scattered by slavery.

Merkerson: I've always wanted to know where we came from.

DuVernay: It feels like ghosts on paper.

Gates: Yeah.

DuVernay: It's kind of haunting.

Thompson: Until an hour ago, I didn't know who I was.

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

Genealogists combed through the paper trail their ancestors left behind, while DNA experts utilized the latest advances in genetic analysis to reveal secrets hundreds of years old... And we've compiled everything into a book of life... Merkerson: Oh my gosh!

Gates: A record of all our discoveries.

Thompson: Oh wow!

Gates: Can you read the percentage?

DuVernay: I'm Black!

I am Black!

Gates: This is your family tree in that record of slaves.

Merkerson: I'm blown away.

Gates: You are the only African-American I've ever met who can name the ship.

Thompson: I've been waiting for this all my life.

I'm not gonna cry.

Gates: Like so many Black people, my guests grew up wondering about the lives of their enslaved ancestors.

In this episode, they'll hear stories that most of us can never hear... stories that will reveal exactly how the slave trade shaped their families.

Challenging their preconceptions and inspiring them to see themselves in entirely new ways.

(Theme music plays).

Gates: Ahmir Khalib Thompson, better known as Questlove, is renowned for his musical genius and his seemingly boundless energy.

Fallon: Give it up for The Roots... Gates: He's a drummer, a DJ, a record producer, and a band leader... He seems to work 24/7... and music, not surprisingly, is in his blood.

Thompson: My dad, was a '50s doo-wop singer.

He had many labels back then, but probably the most notable was Chess Records.

Gates: Mmhmm.

Famous.

Thompson: They had, like, three local hits in the world of doo-wop, and then in the 70s he kind of built a show around my family, and built a really good nightclub act.

You know, they would perform at the Poconos, Catskills, Atlantic City.

Gates: The circuit.

Thompson: Yeah, it was, like, five shows a night.

Gates: God, that's a lot of work, man.

Thompson: It was typical.

Like, you know, first set at 7:00, last set at 1:00 in the morning.

Gates: Questlove was raised in the family business... quite literally.

He grew up surrounded by musical instruments... spent his time listening to records while other kids were out playing sports and when his parents went on tour, they took him along.

Thompson: I was nine years old running lights, like helping my dad cut light gels, doing electronic stuff.

They really weren't sweating that back in the 70s and 80s, like it was nothing for a nine-year-old kid to get a ladder and start, you know, placing lights on the stage.

Abstract soloist, drummin from the heart.

All the way from Philly.

Gates: It wasn't long before Ahmir was performing on his own.

In high school, he launched "The Roots" with his classmate and close friend, Tariq Trotter.

But the band, which would win three Grammys and see one of their albums go platinum, wasn't created solely for the love of music.

Is it really true that you formed The Roots to impress a girl?

Thompson: Yeah, yeah, I did.

She was talking about Prince, which instantly got my attention like someone else knows about Prince that, you know, so I was trying to figure out, like, how to Double-Dutch insert my way into the conversation.

And then, I caught myself lying.

I was like, "Yeah, I got a group, you know?

Me and um, me and Tariq are a group."

Yeah, and so then I ran to him and like, "If anyone asks you, we're a group, ok?"

Gates: So, did you get the girl, or not?

Thompson: I didn't get the girl.

Gates: Aw.

Thompson: I didn't.

But I got the career.

Gates: Like Questlove, Ava DuVernay is a veritable cyclone of talent and energy.

She's a producer, director and writer, working in scripted fiction and in documentary and succeeding brilliantly at both.

As one of only a handful of Black woman film-makers, Ava has overcome tremendous odds and she credits it all to her family.

DuVernay: Everything I do I'm trying to please them.

Make them proud.

Send them an email.

Send them a text.

Did you see this?

Just make them happy.

My mom notoriously gives the best reactions of anyone.

It's your birthday?

It's your birthday!

Congratulations.

We love to do things just to see her react.

Gates: That's great.

DuVernay: So I find that when I really dissect my career, everything that I'm doing is just to get my mother's reaction.

Gates: Alongside her mother, the most important person in Ava's upbringing was the man who raised her... her step-father, Murray Maye.

Ava refers to Murray as if he were her biological father and told me that he had an immense influence on both her life and her work.

Indeed, her breakout film "Selma", which tells the story of one of the most iconic chapters of the Civil Rights Movement, was set where Murray grew up... a fact that helped Ava give the film its uniquely intimate feel.

DuVernay: The reason why I felt so connected to it, immediately, and not as intimidated by it as I guess I probably should've, in hindsight, but connected to it was because I'd been there, I'd spent summers there, Christmas vacations there.

He would talk to me about the legacy of the place... Gates: Do you think that "Selma" was a love letter for Murray Maye?

DuVernay: Oh, for sure, for sure.

Yeah.

I made it for him.

Gates: Murray passed away suddenly in 2016, Ava is still struggling with his loss.

In fact, one of the reasons she wanted to be in our series was to honor his memory.

Gates: What influence did he have on you, when you were growing up?

DuVernay: Big, just a very kind, quiet person.

You know, just incredibly, loving, loving person, so, he taught me; he was an entrepreneur.

Gates: Uh-huh.

DuVernay: So, he had a small carpet and flooring business, and so he taught me a lot about independence, you know, getting up in the morning and going to work, you know, even when it's dark outside.

Gates: Uh-huh.

DuVernay: And when I look back and try to trace where I got my independent spirit from and my entrepreneurial spirit, you know, not being satisfied working for people, not just being satisfied making films, wanting to distribute films, wanting to produce my own films, wanting to finance my own films, that really comes from my pops, Murray Maye.

Gates: My third guest is Emmy-award winning actor S. Epatha Merkerson, renowned for her star turn on the hit TV series "Law & Order", as well as for an array of stirring performances on stage and screen.

Merkerson: You're gonna carry this day with you for the rest of your life.

It'll be too much baby.

Gates: Epatha is a fearless performer, willing to take bold risks.

A characteristic that she says she inherited from her mother, who raised her and her siblings, all by herself, with a truly independent spirit.

Merkerson: My mother at 85 went skydiving.

Gates: No!

Merkerson: So that sense of adventure and belief in one's self is definitely from my mother.

Gates: So that's why you're crazy.

(Laughter) Merkerson: Exactly!

Gates: Did you go up in the plane with her?

Did you try to discourage her?

Merkerson: I did not discourage her because it was something that she wanted to do.

And after I saw the look of awe on her face as she descended I thought I'd have to try it.

Gates: And you did it?

Merkerson: And I'll never do it again.

Gates: Were you terrified?

Merkerson: I was.

Gates: I would never jump out of a plane.

Never.

For a million dollars... Merkerson: No!

Gates: I wouldn't jump out of an airplane.

Merkerson: But it was the look on her face, I'll never forget it.

And that's who she is.

At 76 she went back to college.

Gates: Really?

What an amazing person.

Merkerson: Yea, she's an interesting woman.

Gates: Epatha told me she's drawn on her mother's example often.

Never more so than when she moved from her hometown of Detroit to New York City, risking everything to become an actor.

It was 1978 and New York City was mired in a deep financial slump.

Epatha was twenty-five years old, living in Harlem on her own, desperately searching for work.

She soon found herself about as far off Broadway as you can get.

Merkerson: It was a little, tiny theater.

The building is now gone.

There's a, you know, a high rise where the building used to be.

But it was like guerrilla theater.

You'd go up three flights of stairs if the elevator didn't work, which it didn't sometimes.

The lights would go off sometimes when there was thunder uh and we'd just hold still and when the lights came back on we'd continue working.

It was just, you know, that was the kind of theater we were doing.

Gates: Did your mom want you to come home ever?

Merkerson: She was definitely thinking that I could do something better, that I was smart enough to do something.

Gates: Like go to law school?

Merkerson: Or something.

Yeah.

Get a real job but when my mother came to see my first show and I left a check stub on my dressing table so she could see how much money I was making, Gates: Oh, that's cool.

Merkerson: And she broke her neck to see it and when she finally saw the money she has never said anything since.

Gates: After that it was cool.

Merkerson: That was it.

"She's taking care of herself, yeah."

Gates: It was clear that all three of my guests come from tight-knit families.

But like so many African Americans, they have very limited knowledge of the lives of their ancestors.

Each told me that they knew little beyond their grandparents and nothing about their roots back in slavery.

All of that was about to change.

I started with Questlove, who was especially eager to take this journey.

Thompson: Beyond excited for this.

I've been waiting for this all my life.

To literally have roots... Like, what tree do you know can really thrive without any, any place in the ground?

Like, it's weeds.

Gates: But we're gonna find out.

Thompson: Is there, like, music under this, I can say this, "We're gonna find out right after this."

(Mimics dramatic music).

Gates: Our search began in Philadelphia, where Questlove was born and raised.

But it quickly moved south.

His maternal grandfather, a man named Robert Lewis, was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1904.

And using Alabama census records, we were able to go back three more generations on this side of his family tree.

Gates: Now, this is a page of the 1900 federal census right here, for Mobile, Alabama.

Thompson: "Joseph Lewis, head of household, age: 30.

Eugenia Lewis, wife, 27."

Gates: Have you ever heard those names, Joseph and Eugenia?

Thompson: No.

I never knew where I came from.

I don't think anyone really had a clue.

Gates: Joseph and Eugenia are Questlove's great-great-grandparents.

It appears that they lived their entire lives in Mobile, much of that time under Jim Crow segregation.

Records show that Joseph was a day laborer who worked at a lumber mill and Questlove couldn't help but reflect on the immense gap between his ancestor's fortunes and his own.

Thompson: I'm wondering if Joseph Lewis imagined me.

Like, imagined that maybe there's a time where, you know, a descendant of his could, could thrive or... Gates: And be successful, and make it in main... Thompson: Be alive... Gates: And make it in mainstream America.

Thompson: I'm thinking this period, just to navigate and survive, to make it from childhood to teen, to teen to adulthood.

Gates: A full-time job.

Thompson: And raise, it's a challenge, and, oh, man.

Gates: Joseph Lewis was born around 1870, which means that his parents were almost certainly newly freed slaves.

As we tried to learn about their lives before emancipation, we faced a significant obstacle.

Enslaved people weren't listed by name in most public documents, so it can be extremely difficult to find them in the historical record.

But in Questlove's case, we got lucky.

We were able to identify Joseph Lewis's parents and this led to an almost unbelievable discovery.

Gates: This is a page of the 1880 federal census, Ahmir, for Mobile, Alabama.

Would you please read the transcribed part of the census?

Thompson: "Charles Lewis, age: 60.

Maggie Lewis, age: 50.

Joseph Lewis, age: 11."

Gates: Ahmir, you just... Thompson: So, that's his parents?

Gates: You just met your third-great-grandparents.

These are your people, this is your blood.

Thompson: In Alabama.

Gates: Mobile, Alabama.

And we're back 200 years.

Thompson: Oh, wow.

Gates: Would you please turn the page?

Thompson: This is the best book I ever read in my life.

Gates: Would you please read where your ancestors were born?

Thompson: Oh my God.

(Laughter) Gates: You hit the jackpot.

Thompson: Oh, man.

Gates: According to the census, Questlove's third great-grandparents were both born in Africa.

This was an extraordinary find!

Very few African Americans are ever able to trace their ancestors back to Africa by name.

Thompson: "Charles Lewis, age: 60, place of birth: Africa.

Maggie Lewis, age: 50, place of birth: Africa."

Gates: How do you feel?

Thompson: I, like, I'm not over-acting.

I'm not, uh, yeah, I'm at a loss for words.

I'm just so overwhelmed right now, because I never, I mean, until an hour ago, I didn't know who I was.

I said I wasn't gonna cry, man.

Oh, I didn't know who I was or who I came from.

Gates: Much like Questlove, Epatha Merkerson came to me with fundamental questions about her roots... Her mother was born in the tiny town of Maringouin, Louisiana and Epatha believes that her ancestors have been in and around Maringouin for generations.

But beyond that, the shape of her family tree is a mystery.

Merkerson: I've always wanted to know where we came from.

And I have no idea other than, Maringouin.

And I remember when I was sixteen I got one of those little cassette recorders and my grandmother was visiting and I said to her, called her Momma Pearl.

I said talk to me about when you grew up and she was like no, turn that thing off.

You don't want to hear this.

And I said I do.

I want to know.

And she said it's painful.

You don't need to hear any of this.

Gates: Right.

Our researchers were able to discover some of what "Momma Pearl" withheld.

Census and marriage records took us back to Pearl's mother, Epatha's great-grandmother, a woman named Easter Hawkens and indicated that her parents, Peter and Martha, were both born in Maryland... likely in slavery... We couldn't find records to take us further.

But then we noticed something in Epatha's DNA... and suddenly the wall erected by slavery began to tumble down... Merkerson: Oh, my goodness, okay.

Gates: Now, this is a chart showing a genetic network: people who share significant amounts of DNA with you and your mother.

Each of these people is related to you in some way.

Merkerson: Oh, my God.

Gates: So guess what all these people have in common?

Merkerson: What?

Gates: You and everybody on that page trace your ancestry to one person.

You read the name at the top.

Merkerson: Patrick Hawkins.

Gates: Does the name Hawkins ring a bell?

Merkerson: Oh, back, back, to Easter.

Gates: Your great-grandmother Easter's maiden name: Hawkins.

Merkerson: Hawkins!

Wow.

Gates: So that means that Patrick Hawkins was more than likely one of your direct ancestors and since they share a surname, we imagined that he might somehow be connected to Easter your great-grandmother.

Isn't that incredible?

Merkerson: That's amazing.

Gates: Just through DNA.

Merkerson: That's amazing.

Gates: Now we faced a question: how was this man "Patrick Hawkins", born over two centuries ago, likely in Maryland, possibly related to Epatha?

To find out, our genetic genealogist, CeCe Moore, began searching for a link... combing through DNA databases and comparing those results with records on the paper trail.

Through painstaking research, she uncovered a story unlike any we'd ever encountered before.

It begins in the archives of Georgetown University... where, in 1838, the Jesuit priests who ran the school sold a group of slaves to two planters in Louisiana... The documentation of this sale was invaluable because it listed the slaves who were sold by name and one name stood out immediately.

Merkerson: "Patrick, a man 35 years of age."

Gates: Now, you remember all your DNA cousins who descend from Patrick... Merkerson: Yes, yes.

Gates: That's Patrick Hawkins.

Merkerson: And that's how they got from Maryland to Louisiana.

Gates: He was sold by the Jesuit leaders of Georgetown University to Louisiana planters in the year 1838.

Merkerson: Wow.

Okay.

It boggles the mind.

For Georgetown University?

A Jesuit priest?

Gates: A Jesuit priest selling 272 slaves.

(Chuckle) Merkerson: Phew.

Gates: Epatha was still uncertain how Patrick Hawkins was related to her, but that was about to change.

Georgetown's archives contained an inventory compiled in preparation for the sale... It lists the slaves that were to be sold according to where they worked and it identifies their family members... Merkerson: "White Marsh Farm Isaac, about 65 years, Patrick, Isaac's second son, 35 years.

Letty, his wife.

Peter, his son, 5."

Gates: You know what you're looking at?

You're looking at the names of your family.

Merkerson: Wow.

My, I'm descended from these.

Gates: These are your people.

Merkerson: Wow.

Gates: There's your third-great-grandfather Patrick Hawkins.

We know his wife's name Letty.

Letty is your third-great-grandmother, Epatha, and their five-year-old son is your great-great-grandfather Peter.

Merkerson: They have names.

That's amazing.

Wow.

That's amazing.

They have names.

Gates: All told, Epatha descends from at least nine slaves who were owned by the Jesuits, including no less than three generations of her Hawkins family line.

For an African-American family, this was an astonishing discovery.

And as we dug deeper, we found something else... something that few of us are ever able to see, a description of how our enslaved ancestors were actually treated on the plantation.

Merkerson: "Generally, the master provided no bedding except a blanket and an old straw sack, which was placed on two or three planks laid across some old wooden horses.

Some might think it harsh treatment to make the poor Negroes sleep on the floor, yet, it is not hard to sleep thus, for custom softens things."

Ah, an old straw sack.

And these are men of the cloth?

Wow.

Gates: How are you feeling so far?

Merkerson: Uh, I'm saddened to, of course, you know, you always think about it but you never see it.

Gates: Never see it.

Merkerson: And when you can see it and then, it's a painful process but it's also joyful and so a part of the tears is, is joy that they were here and that whatever they went through they withstood it.

They lived through it, um, and they lived through it long enough to get to me.

Gates: Yeah.

They endured.

Merkerson: They endured.

Gates: Yeah.

Merkerson: Yeah.

It's, uh.

Gates: So that you can thrive.

Merkerson: And this will mean so much to my mother as well.

You know, my mother, who's 91, who's lived through so much raising five children alone, all of them college educated because she comes from this.

Gates: Yeah.

Merkerson: It explains her in a way that I never could.

Gates: Uhm-hum.

Merkerson: Amazing.

Gates: It's amazing.

Merkerson: Yeah.

Gates: We had now introduced Epatha and Questlove to ancestors who endured decades of slavery in Alabama, Louisiana, and Maryland... Gates: Are you worried about this?

DuVernay: I'm very worried about this.

I don't know if I'm worried about it, but... Gates: Turning to Ava DuVernay, we found a story about people who never endured slavery at all.

It began in New Orleans... where we were able to trace Ava back to her third great-grandmother, a woman named Celeste Glaudin.

We found Celeste listed in the 1850 census, which immediately told us something very significant... Because enslaved people were not listed in census records by name, we knew instantly that Celeste was a free woman of color!

Gates: I know that you've thought a lot about African-American history, and I know you've thought a lot about slavery.

But when you thought about it, did you just presume that all your ancestors had been enslaved?

DuVernay: I did, yeah.

Gates: So, what's it like to see this?

DuVernay: Well, I want to know what the circumstances were, and, um, yeah, who was she and how did this come to be?

Gates: Ava's questions led us to the archives of the St.

Louis Cathedral in New Orleans.

Here, we found baptismal records for Celeste and her sisters... which show that Celeste was, in fact, born free, as were her parents, Ava's fourth great- grandparents.

A couple named Henry and Magadeline Glaudin... What's more, we soon learned that Henry and Magadeline were born in a most surprising place.

DuVernay: Saint Domingue.

Gates: You ever hear of that island?

DuVernay: No.

Gates: It became the Republic of Haiti.

DuVernay: Oh, wow.

Is that right?

Wow.

Gates: Did you have any idea, in your wildest imagination?

DuVernay: No.

I had no idea.

It's just fascinating that your whole history is just blank.

Gates: Totally blank.

DuVernay: You just don't, we just don't know.

Gates: For a black person, your roots, as descended from free people, are extraordinarily deep.

DuVernay: Rare.

Gates: Extraordinarily deep.

DuVernay: How did they come to be free in Haiti?

Gates: That's what the Lord sent me here to tell you.

DuVernay: Okay.

I'm glad you have the answers.

Gates: The answers lay back in New Orleans, where a woman named Maria Glaudin was born in 1819.

Maria was Celeste's older sister, the daughter of Ava's fourth great-grandparents Henry and Magdaleine and her baptismal record told us something striking about her parents.

Gates: Your fourth great-grandmother, Magdaleine, is listed as a free mulatta, but there's no color indicated for your fourth great-grandfather, Henry.

Do you know what that means?

DuVernay: He's white.

Gates: Very good.

Henry was a white man.

DuVernay: Okay.

Okay.

Gates: There, there you go.

DuVernay: Got you.

Gates: That's right.

The queen of Black documentary film.

DuVernay: You knew it was going to be in there somewhere.

Gates: Yeah.

DuVernay: I knew it was coming.

Gates: Most of us know it's there somewhere, but we know where, in your case, and who.

DuVernay: Yeah.

Yeah.

Gates: Ava's fourth great-grandfather, Henry Glaudin, was born on the island of Saint Domingue in November of 1779.

At that time, the island was a French colony and it was a center of slavery in the New World.

And evidence shows that Henry's father, a Frenchman also named Henry, played a role in the slave economy.

Gates: You're looking at an ad that was published on May 30, 1780, in a Saint Domingue newspaper.

Can you read the translation?

DuVernay: "A Negro Congo, named Toni, stamped P.Binet and above it H.Glaudin, fisherman by trade, ran away three weeks ago.

Those who recognize him are requested to arrest him."

Gates: Now, that ad was placed by Henry Glaudin, Sr.

Ava, your fifth great- grandfather was a slave owner.

DuVernay: Got it.

Gates: Read the first line again, a Negro Congo.

DuVernay: "Named Toni, stamped P. Binet and above it H.

Glaudin."

Gates: Right, stamped.

DuVernay: Yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh.

Gates: Stamped.

This tells us that Henry branded his name on his slave.

DuVernay: Mm, mm, vicious.

Gates: And this isn't the only ad for a runaway slave that was placed by your ancestor.

We found three others.

So, as far as we know, Henry owned at least four slaves, and possibly more.

DuVernay: Mm.

Mm.

And branded them.

Gates: And then his son made the decision to have a child with a Black woman.

DuVernay: Yeah, fascinating.

Gates: Ava wondered how her family got from Haiti to New Orleans... The story is so amazing that it could be her next movie!

In August of 1791, enslaved Black people on Saint Domingue rose up against their masters.

Launching what we now call the Haitian Revolution, the largest and bloodiest slave revolt ever staged in the Americas and the most successful slave revolt in the history of the world.

Fighting would last for more than a decade, but by 1803, the outcome was clear.

As a formidable Black army, led by their brilliant general named Jean-Jacques Dessalines, marched across the country, exterminating the remaining French.

As they neared the port of Jeremie, where Ava's ancestors were living, her fourth great-grandfather, Henry Glaudin, made a desperate decision... He and his family fled by boat to Cuba.

DuVernay: "The city of Jeremie finds itself on the verge of being attacked and sacked by the rebel blacks.

My passengers appeal to your righteousness so that you might act to allow me to sail up to the port.

Henry Glaudin."

Gates: That is a petition for asylum, actually written, by your fourth great-grandfather.

And he wrote that to the governor of Cuba.

So, when the rebels advanced on Jeremie, your ancestor split.

DuVernay: Right.

Gates: And he fled to Cuba.

DuVernay: Good call.

Gates: So, are you relieved to find this out, that your ancestors were spared this siege, right?

DuVernay: Well, it's so interesting, you say your family, your family, aren't you happy to know your family is safe, and but for me, I'm listening to this story from the side of the people... Gates: I know.

DuVernay: You know what I mean?

I'm like then what happened, and you're saying the family, from the people that they're revolting against, so that, emotionally, is a disconnect for me.

Gates: I know, it is.

But if Dessalines had gotten there first, poof, this would be like a science fiction movie.

DuVernay: It's true.

I'd just disappear.

Gates: You'd disappear.

Yeah.

You wouldn't be here.

DuVernay: See, I thought I was going to have some revolting ancestors in Haiti.

I was going to be like yes!

But alas, the other way around.

Gates: The Glaudins were among roughly 20,000 French subjects who fled to Cuba during the Haitian Revolution.

But events back in Europe would soon bring an end to their sanctuary.

In 1808, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Spain, installing his brother on the throne.

In an act of defiance, the Spanish colonial government in Cuba expelled nearly all of the island's French refugees... so the Glaudins were forced to flee once again, this time to New Orleans... completing a journey that violates Ava's most fundamental ideas about her own roots.

DuVernay: I mean I guess I just assumed there would be slavery in the line in the traditional way that I've come to learn it and know it which is based here, in the States, you know?

Gates: Right.

DuVernay: But they arrived to the States so late in that line, and he wasn't even Black.

Gates: Right.

DuVernay: I don't even know what I'm my mind is reeling and trying to figure out how, how we became, how this happened.

Gates: Yours is not the typical up from slavery this is not when we were picking cotton.

DuVernay: That's what I thought, though.

Gates: It wasn't happening.

DuVernay: I mean but isn't it so odd that part of... I mean, you know, not that it's been romanticized, but that, that, that, that there is this kind of singularity of narrative around African Americans in slavery, that there is this kind of shared, you were brought here from the continent on slave ships, and you landed somewhere, probably in the South, and there was this, you know, this long line of, but slavery, a, touched many different parts of the world, beyond the United States.

Gates: Slavery's as old as civilization.

DuVernay: Yeah, and, um, you know that there were other ways to get to this place.

Gates: And there is not one standard narrative.

DuVernay: It's not one standard narrative, but that's become the narrative.

The truth of us is complicated.

Gates: It's very complicated.

DuVernay: All of us.

Gates: Yeah.

DuVernay: Yeah.

Gates: We had already shown Epatha Merkerson how her maternal ancestors, the Hawkins family, arrived in Louisiana... revealing that they had been sold into the deep South by Jesuit leaders in 1838... but there was still more to the story... and to appreciate it, we needed to step back in time, back to the 1630s, when Jesuit priests arrived in Maryland, fleeing religious persecution in England.

To support themselves and their mission, which came to include Georgetown University, the Jesuits began operating tobacco farms.

By 1838, they had six Maryland plantations, covering almost 12,000 acres.

And to run them, they needed labor... Gates: And you might be able to guess what kind of laborers they used.

Merkerson: My family.

Wow.

That's extraordinary.

So they left England to be free from persecution to practice religion and then they persecute folks when they get here?

Gates: That's it exactly.

You got it.

Merkerson: Yeah, yeah.

Gates: By 1838, the Jesuits owned close to 300 slaves including three generations of your family, your bloodline.

Merkerson: Wow.

This is like a trip.

Gates: The Jesuit plantations operated for more than a century... but in the early 1800s, Maryland's tobacco market declined and the Jesuits struggled to keep up.

As debts mounted, the very survival of their prized university was at stake.

The documentation of this process still exists in the archives of Georgetown; allowing us a unique glimpse into the mindset of the men who owned Epatha's ancestors and the mechanism by which her family was forever altered.

Merkerson: "Were the servants sold, 1,000 could be made from the land besides supporting the missionaries.

The sale of the servants should bring at least 16,000 which would bring 1,000 interest."

Gates: In 1833, the priests then, began considering selling their slaves, referred to there as "servants," in order to raise funds.

When the sale was finally approved in 1836 by the Catholic Church in Rome, the university found a Catholic buyer in Louisiana willing to pay $115,000 for the slaves.

Which converts to between $3.3 and $7.5 million today.

It's difficult to know the precise value but what is agreed upon by scholars is that the university owes its very survival, its existence today to the sale of Black human beings.

Including people whose bloodline goes directly from 1838 to... Merkerson: Me.

Gates: S. Epatha Merkerson.

Incredible.

Merkerson: This is quite extraordinary.

A university, a religious organization.

Okay.

Wow.

I really don't know what to say that you can air.

I just feel like anybody I know should be able to go to Georgetown, you know what I'm saying?

They should be able to go to Georgetown for free.

Gates: I agree.

Merkerson: That's how I feel.

And maybe I'll just go there and take some classes.

Gates: Epatha's words may very well prove prophetic... Georgetown University is still wrestling with the implications of the sale... An independent group called the "Georgetown Memory Project" has calculated that the 272 slaves sold in 1838 have at least 8,000 living descendants today.

Initially, a university official tried to deny this, claiming that the slaves succumbed to fever upon arriving in Louisiana.

But the truth eventually came out.

In 2016, the president of Georgetown, John DeGioia made an official apology and held an open conversation on Georgetown's history.

Merkerson: And so this story of my family is still alive.

Gates: Um-hum.

I'm going to show you one more thing.

Merkerson: Okay.

Gates: Would you please turn the page?

Merkerson: All right.

Gates: Now, you see that?

Any idea what that is?

Merkerson: Isaac Hawkins Hall.

Gates: The university decided to rename one of their buildings as part of a larger effort to address its history.

So they renamed that building... Both: Isaac Hawkins Hall!

Gates: In memory of your fourth great-grandfather.

Merkerson: Get out of here.

Gates: You know why?

Merkerson: Oh, my God.

Gates: Because Isaac's was the first name on that 1838 sale document.

Of all those people it started with your fourth great-grandfather.

Merkerson: Oh, my gosh.

Look at that.

Amazing.

Spirit of Georgetown Residential Academy.

Isaac Hawkins Hall.

I love this.

Gates: How amazing is that?

And you were directly descended from this guy.

You have DNA from this man.

He's your great-great-great- great-grandfather.

Merkerson: That's deep.

That's really deep.

Gates: It's deep.

You couldn't have made this up.

Merkerson: No, I'm telling you.

I'm telling you.

Wow... Gates: We had already taken Questlove back to his third great grandparents, Charles and Maggie Lewis, who were born in Africa.

Now, as we dug deeper into their lives, we noticed something strange: Charles was born around 1820; Maggie around 1830.

And those dates stood out because the trans-Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in 1808.

After that, very few Africans came into the United States.

Meaning that Charles and Maggie must have been smuggled into this country illegally!

We'd never seen this before in the series.

And it led us to a stunning story... Gates: Now, Ahmir, this is an article that's published in the newspaper called the Tarborough Southerner on July 14, 1860.

Thompson: "Arrival of a cargo of African Negroes.

Schooner Clotilda with Africans arrived in Mobile Bay today.

A steamboat immediately took them up the river."

Gates: On Monday, July 9, 1860, a ship called the Clotilda arrived in Mobile Bay carrying 110 African slaves.

It's the last known slave ship to come to America.

Your family settled less than two miles from an area, Ahmir, you ready for this, known as Africatown, which was founded by survivors of the Clotilda.

Thompson: I'm frozen, man.

Gates: You know, every African-American that we know wants to know where in Africa they came from and then how they came here.

You are the only African- American I've ever met who can name the ship!

Thompson: I'm on the absolute last ship that ever came here.

Gates: The story of the Clotilda begins with a man named Timothy Meaher.

A plantation owner and steamboat captain in Mobile, Alabama.

According to newspaper accounts, in 1858, Meaher made a wager, betting that, in spite of the law, he could bring a shipload of Africans into the United States.

The Clotilda was used to win that bet.

In 1860 it sailed to the kingdom of Dahomey, now part of the Republic of Benin, purchased roughly 125 human beings, then sailed back to Mobile with Questlove's ancestors on board.

Gates: This was published in the Pittsburgh Daily Post on April 15, 1894.

Would you please read the transcribed section?

Thompson: "Of course Captain Timothy Meaher was a defender of 'the institution,' and declared that despite the stringent measures taken by most of the civilized powers to crush out the oversea traffic, it could still be carried on successfully, offered to wager... that he would 'import a cargo in less than two years.'"

Gates: That man made a bet with another man that reshaped your entire family tree.

A bet.

Thompson: Oh my God.

I can't stop looking at this person.

Gates: Questlove wanted to know more about what his ancestors endured.

We showed him the journal of the captain of the Clotilda, a man named William Foster.

It describes in detail how he obtained his cargo.

Thompson: "From thence I went to see the King of Dahomey.

We went to the warehouse where they had in confinement 4,000 captives in a state of nudity from which they gave me liberty to select 125 as mine."

Gates: The odds, think about the odds, man.

Thompson: So, 4,000 chosen... Gates: There were 4,000 captives, all in enslaved.

The Kingdom of Dahomey was famous for selling slaves, and they sold slaves to Europeans.

White man shows up, he's trying to satisfy this bet, make some money, and he picks 125 people.

Just by random accident, one of them is your ancestor.

What's it like to learn all this, to be able to name and see on a map the very place in Africa that your family comes from, to know the circumstances?

Thompson: I mean, all types of emotions are running through my head.

Uh, I feel sad, I feel angered, I feel confused, I feel lucky.

Gates: Questlove now knew more about how his African ancestors came to the United States than anyone I've ever met.

But there was still another beat to their story.

Captain Foster's journal indicated that when the Clotilda arrived in Mobile, the captive Africans were transferred to a steamboat, taken to a hiding place on an island in the Spanish River and then sold.

We don't know who purchased Questlove's ancestors, but we do know that after they were freed, Charles and Maggie Lewis became farmers, living close to the river where they likely came ashore in America.

Many of their descendants still live in that area today and thanks to them, I had one last thing to reveal... Could you please turn the page?

You, Ahmir, are looking at your third-great-grandfather.

That is your original African ancestor, brother.

That is Charlie Lewis.

Thompson: How?

How?

How?

How'd you?

Gates: The photo comes from a descendant of Charlie Lewis like you, one of your cousins.

Thompson: That's my great-great-great-grandfather.

Gates: That is your third-great-grandfather.

Thompson: The eyes are the same.

Gates: You know how lucky you are, Ahmir?

It's a miracle.

Thompson: I've never imagined this in my entire life, that I'd see this.

I just have to keep looking at him, 'Cause those are my eyes, man.

Gates: Well, now you know where they came from.

Thompson: This is coming full circle.

Gates: The paper trail had now run out for each of our guests.

But Ava still had one remaining question... Surveying her family tree, filled with both the enslaved and those who owned them, she wanted to know how African she really was... There was only one way to know, through her DNA.

She took an admixture test, which reveals a person's ancestral heritage over roughly the last 500 years... giving Ava the chance to see exactly what percentage of her roots are European... as opposed to Sub-Saharan African... Gates: I want you to take a guess.

You've got a lot of white people in that family.

DuVernay: I know.

Gates: Okay, just take a wild guess.

DuVernay: More than 50%.

Gates: European?

DuVernay: Yeah.

Gates: Okay, let's see.

Please... DuVernay: I wouldn't have said that before, but... Gates: Let's see if you're right.

Please turn the page.

Can you read the percent?

DuVernay: I'm Black.

(Laughs).

I am Black.

Gates: Welcome back.

Welcome back.

Welcome back.

You're blasted off to St.

Domingue... DuVernay: You're funny!

Gates: Santiago de Cuba.

Can you read those percentages?

DuVernay: 57.3 percent African, thank you, 41.5 percent European.

This makes me so happy.

Gates: I can tell.

DuVernay: This just makes me so happy.

Gates: Wait, but what difference does it make?

DuVernay: I had had a whole narrative in my head of like it doesn't matter, it's how I identify, it's how I'm seen in the world, it's how I, you know?

I did the whole thing, but I totally just felt like my heart just burst open, because it does make a difference to me.

What a great thing.

This was an incredible, incredible experience.

Gates: This marked the end of my time with Ava, Questlove, and Epatha... But for Epatha, the journey wasn't over... Merkerson: Wow.

So, did you know, did you know all about of this?

Gates: A few weeks after we met, she traveled to Louisiana... to join a reunion of the descendants of the enslaved women and men who were sold and scattered by the Jesuit leaders of Georgetown in 1838... Speaker: We are here today to continue this journey of learning about our history.

Speaker 2: We are heirs of their strength, grit and their love.

Merkerson: And how did you decide to gather all the information?

It's just always been coming?

Did your family talk about it?

Woman: My grandfather said we were from the North.

Man: Alright, smile.

Gates: Miraculously, more than 200 people, many of them Epatha's newfound cousins.

Merkerson: It's a little overwhelming.

Gates: Gathered here, united by the fate that their ancestors shared, bound together in the memory of long lost friends and family members to embrace for the very first time.

Merkerson: Glad to have you here!

Woman: So good to be here.

Family.

Merkerson: Yeah.

Excellent.

Woman: Thank you!

Gates: That's the end of our journey.

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

Kimmel: I'm, kind of, the family historian.

Narrator: Next time on "Finding Your Roots" Jimmy Kimmel.

Kimmel: I videotaped my relatives as they get older, I'd keep all the family photos.

Narrator: Marissa Tomei.

Tomei: I do love being Italian.

I love my particular family's heritage, our traditions.

Narrator: And John Turturro.

Turturro: With my family, nothing surprises me.

Narrator: From Italy... Gates: It took so much courage.

Kimmel: Either courage or desperation, I don't know.

Narrator: To a new life.

Tomei: Wow.

Narrator: Italian roots... Turturro: This is a big journey.

Gates: Big time.

Narrator: On the next.

"Finding Your Roots".