Holloway:
How much do you know about black history? Even your family history? We'll talk about where to find it, how to gather it, and how to interpret it next on Black Issues Forum.

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Holloway:
Good evening. This is Black Issues Form. I'm your host, Jay Holloway. As we continue our focus on race relations, we hope that tonight you'll learn more about how the impact of race on our past might have some effects on today's culture. Tonight, we'll talk about the differences and accessibility of historical data between blacks and whites, how you can gather that information, and how it's been interpreted and misinterpreted in the past and presently today. Our guests today ar

Jones:
Thank you.

Harmon:
Thank you.

Holloway:
All right. Let's get right to the discussion here. Is there a difference, really, in accessing information, historical data, for blacks and whites based on the histories that we've had?

Harmon:
Well, you need to have a good understanding of the African-American history and there are three major time periods that need to be considered and each one of them have their own unique problems. It's the period of Segregation and then the period of Reconstruction and Civil War period, and then the period of slavery. So, if you're talking about the Segregation period, then you need to understand that records, the vital records of like births and deaths and marriages, are segregated.

Holloway:
When you say our library...

Harmon:
I'm the Director of the Family History Center, which is a branch of the Genealogical Library in Salt Lake City that belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ, Latter Day Saints, which is one of the largest genealogical libraries in the world, and they have about two million rolls of microfilm and that microfilm can be...

Holloway:
Now, before we get too much more into that, let me ask Ms. Jones, how do you see these? Do you agree with him that when you look at access in this type of information, does it generally fall in those three categories or how do you look at history?

Jones:
It absolutely follows those lines. As a matter of fact, it's very discouraging to people researching their, especially, slaves ancestors, who assume for some reason they can just go to the Archives and look on these slave lists per se of people, and they're very disheartened when they go to the Archives or a list and it's always listed with property. The reality of it is that the African-American and slave populations were chatteled. So, they were always included and counted with pr

Holloway:
Do you all find?in a show we did early on Black Issues Form, someone brought the point that we have so many problems today because not too many people really understand or have the sense of the history in their past. You all are both very much into that. Do you find that to be true?

Jones:
I find not only don't people have a sense of history of their past, sometimes they don't want to be bothered with it and often times when they are aware of it, it depends on who wrote, who published it, and who interpreted or misinterpreted it. So, one of the issues that we face today, as we struggle with this issue of race which is not going to go away simply by denying that it does not exist, is we seem to be under the misapprehension that race or racism is something that happened h

Holloway:
Well, we're going to talk to you later about some of those contributions that you can share with our audience, but let me ask Dale, how have you found the same reaction in your circles about race relations today and relations into history?

Harmon:
Well, I think when Alex Haley came along that made a big difference as far as the genealogy is concerned, that was not only for African-Americans but for everyone. It was a great increase in the interest in searching out your family history. We are seeing more African-Americans all the time that are getting interested in searching out their history, but it has been pretty slack in the past, I believe.

Holloway:
I want to take a break now and when we talk of improving race relations, it's gaining strong political voice. Even President Clinton is hoping to spur on genuine dialogue on the issue of creating a national panel, which is headed by John Hope Franklin here in our state, to promote racial understanding and a task force had been appointed by Jim Hunt on recommendations combating racial and religious violence, but as our North Carolina Now producer, Anthony Scott, shows us, one motionh a thousand words. Ted Harrison narrates this.

Harrison:Video
The film we've all come to see is a 90-minute documentary entitled "Family Name." It's the work of 31-year-old film maker, Mackie Alston. This is Mackie's first feature film and it's already recognized as an outstanding film making achievement. Since hitting the festival circuit, "Family Name" has won the 1997 Sundance Film Festival Freedom of Expression Award, The Bermuda Film Festival Grand Jury Award, and the Gotham Award for the Best Debut Feature Film by a New York Director. Here, at the North Carolina premiere of the documentary, there must be 250 folks mixing, mingling, socializing like one big happy family and for all they know, they just might be.

Alston:Video Clip
There really is one community of people who have given their lives or offered their stories, at least, so that we could get this film out?that come together to create this film and if they were unhappy with it, it would be very, very, very upsetting.

Harrison:Video
The community Mackie refers to is actually rooted in two places. One is located in the town of Inez in Warren County. The other settled around Pittsboro in Chatham County. What makes this film so special is the story it tells. "Family Name" is, one on the one hand, Mackie's personal journey, but it's also the story of the lives of so many other people.

Alston:Video Clip
It's about the legacy of slavery in America and it begins with really my realization that my family was one of the largest slave-owning families in North Carolina.

Harrison:Video
Mackie exposes America's system of social prejudice through an intimate, often funny, sometimes disturbing three-year discovery of his own connection to the Alston Family name.

Alston:Video Clip
My approach was?again, it was a very personal one. It was "let's start having these conversations...what can I learn from both the white and black Alstons? If I encourage them to have conversations that they had not normally had, particularly with each other across the fault line of race, what will I learn?"

Harrison:Video
The opportunity for dialogue came after the screening at a reception where everyone was invited to gather, eat, and talk. Featured prominently in the documentary is Mackie's father, Wallace McPherson Alston, II, a naval veteran, a preacher, and the closest living link between the film maker and his past.

Alston:Video Clip
"...in our society is that we have a high tolerance for injustice." It's kind of embarrassing to think that my family was a part of probably the greatest social evil that our culture has ever known but I knew that already, and I guess that has been in my subconscious, if not in my conscious, mind ever since I had any sense of who I was or what I wanted to be or do. I've had the monkey of racism and segregation on my back since I was a child and I think for that reason I've

Harrison:Video
Mackie found the roots to the Alston Family tree buried in the soil in Pittsboro, North Carolina. His name was Jack Alston. He was an influential slave owner known as "Chatham Jack" because of the vast amount of land he owned and the power he held in that county. Johnny Stone is a direct descendant of "Chatham Jack" Alston.

Stone:Video Clip
My mother was an Alston. "Chatham Jack" was her fifth great granddaddy. Even when I was growing up, I knew there were a lot of Alstons and I used to play with some that lived up behind us. We'd all get together and play ball and, at that time, I didn't relate my grandmother's name to their name. You know, they were just Alstons. She was an Alston. You know, as a kid you don't think about that until you get older.

Harrison:Video
Fred Alston lives one block away from Mackie in New York City. Fred was raised in Inez, that other Alston enclave in Warren County. Fred says taking this journey with Mackie connected him to his ancestors.

Alston:Video Clip
Now, see, that used to be my great grandfather's house back here. It's gone. It's gone. I do feel closer to people of African descent that came before me as a result of this.

Harrison:Video
Accompanied by his son, Jeff, throughout the project, Fred says the experience has greatly benefited the younger Alston.

Alston:Video Clip
It's instilled in him pride, instilled in him a sense of history, a sense of purpose. It's added some dignity to his life, I think.

Alston:Video Clip
Well, it's given me, of course, information that I never had before. It feels like I'm a part of something larger, I guess. That it's not just my immediate family, you know. It's just me, my mother, my father, my grandmother. There's a larger picture to it, you know, and I realize that now. I realize that a lot and that's what's changed me, you know. It's a larger picture.

Alston:Video Clip
My choice was to try to tell many stories in this film and bring them together and show how, though we are different, many of these stories are linked. I think that people have to believe that we can be honest together. That we can do that. That we can weather that storm, if that's what it is, and through that understand each other better and have some kind of relationship.

Holloway:
Viewers of UNC-TV will have the opportunity to see this "Family Name" program, in its entirety in the 90-minute documentary, when it airs nationally on PBS this spring on POV, right here on UNC-TV, but we have two people in the studio now who are helping to keep history and genealogy alive here in North Carolina. What's your reaction, either of you, to what you saw there? Is that constant with what your history and research in genealogy has found?

Jones:
I would be surprised if shows like this did not happen in the South. This is very typically a Southern story. Any county, any town, any city?North Carolina, South?you will find black/white families who share the same name. Sometimes, same physical characteristics. It's even more evident when we do the study of Reconstruction history and we learn that the children of slave holders and slave mothers were sent to school and that the history of the reconstructed South is a history of t

Harmon:
I've just seen some statistics recently that said that 75% of African-Americans had a white ancestor and 15% had predominantly white ancestors. So, I think that's quite evident that this is a typical.

Holloway:
Now, when we talk about interpreting that, what does that mean for the white families? Do those percentages then become the same or are they the opposite? Is it is 25% white or...you follow what I'm saying?

Harmon:
I haven't those statistics, so I couldn't answer that.

Jones:
Well, far and away from the statistics, this is what it says about the...look at white supremacy and racism in the South and in America. We have to remember that liberty and justice are feminine and they're white feminine characteristics for our nation. When we examine the foundation of modern racism in terms of white supremacy?immediately following the Civil War on down to (inaudible) versus Ferguson in 1896?we see a denouncing of all things human that relate to the African here in and theologians and professional educators, you had this very human breeding experience going on quite unmoved by what's happening

Holloway:
Now, all of this information that you all have accessed and compiled, tell us how you put this together and how others can go about putting things together. We talked about the difference in accessibility but let's move to you, Mr. Harmon. How did you compile that information or how was it put together?

Harmon:
Well, you have to start out with yourself and work back from what you know to the unknown. So, you start out with searching in your own family, find what records are available in your own home. Then, you begin to interview your relatives. That's very important. Particularly with African-American history is the oral history and then at that point, you have to start searching in vital records, in births, deaths, and marriages. Then, one of the very important tools is the census rec

Holloway:
Ms. Jones, in terms of the societal fix that you look at historically, I know that you've done some special research on how different contributions that African-Americans have made during these historical times. How did you go about getting that information and share with us some of the things that you found?

Jones:
Well, basically, I started with self. I'm from eastern North Carolina. There were certain foods I ate, certain words I spoke, certain patterns of lifestyle that I had that I knew were particular to blacks in eastern North Carolina. I majored in History in school. I'm not particularly like a folklore but as a Fellow at Historic Stagville, it all came together. There were characteristics or cultural contributions that blacks retained from Africa to North Carolina. And, then, I star

Holloway:
The front porch?

Jones:
The front porch and I always tell students and they go, "Da," but that's one of the fascinating things about Southern social history. It's things such as fried foods, hot sauce, that makes us Southern?so African in its origin. It's important that our students?black, white, Native American, Asians?it's important that all of our students know that each group has a contribution that has been made to this state, to this culture, and that we get it into the curriculum and that way you lea

Holloway:
I want to talk about some of those interpretations, now, of that but before?in terms of architecture, I know from just reading your background you made a discovery about the Duke Chapel. If you could, share that with us.

Jones:
Well, no, I did not make the discovery. It was not I. It was there, it was just not in print in very many places and interpreted. In terms of the lives of African-American architects, who seem to be the last frontier to be written about, certainly Julian Abel had been discussed since the 1980's as the architect for Duke's West Campus and part of the East Campus as well. The West Campus is the Gothic campus. The East Campus is the one that we associate more along the lines of the cMIT and he designed Tuskegee and Tuskegee later fo

Holloway:
Mr. Harmon, we just have a few minutes left here, what about the interpretation of a lot of this? How have you seen this in your community of genealogists, in terms of different interpretations of these historical facts or genealogy?

Harmon:
Well, a lot of genealogists interpret them different and it makes it pretty difficult sometimes to figure out if you're really tracing the right line, for example.

Holloway:
So, you said interpretations vary in the whole genealogy. You know, it's so much we could talk about on this and we really have run out of time, believe it or not. I just want to thank both of you for coming in and we tried to touch on our history here and, hopefully, we have a better understanding of addressing our past. So, we hope you, at home, as well have learned more about the impact of race on our past and it might have some effects on today's culture and, hopefully, you'r

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