Spike Lee Who Do You Think You Are? USA

Let's go!

Spike Lee is one of America's most controversial film directors.

He was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1957,

but grew up in Brooklyn, New York.

I've always been interested in genealogy.

I know that my ancestors were stolen from the Motherland, Africa.

America still hasn't dealt with slavery.

I don't think people understand that 1865...

That's not that long ago.

So I'm only four generations removed from slavery.

Not a long time at all.

I would like to know all my ancestors.

Who was Massa?

I just hope it's not George Bush!

HE LAUGHS

Spike Lee first shot to fame in 1986 with his ground-breaking film,

She's Gotta Have It.

Not only the writer-director, Spike also starred as the motor-mouthed Mars Blackmon.

The success of this film enabled him to set up his production company,

40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks.

He's also a passionate chronicler of African-American experiences in film,

with movies like Do The Right Thing,

Malcolm X

and Miracle At St Anna.

But for all the attention he brings to African-American history,

Spike knows very little about the ancestry of his mother, Jacquelyn Shelton Lee.

We know everything about my father's side.

But my mother's is a lot less known.

It was during my sophomore year my mother died of cancer.

One day, didn't feel well. She went in the hospital.

Then she was dead, like, two weeks later.

It was a devastating blow.

I don't think the family really healed after that.

Today I'm taking my wife Tonya, and my kids Satchel and Jackson to her final resting place

so we can pay our respects as I begin this journey

into my mother's history.

Basically, I wouldn't have been who I am now if my mother had not, you know, gone.

It was like a sacrifice or something, you know.

I don't know if that makes sense,

but that's the way I feel, because when she died, I still hadn't...

I still had not even decided I wanted to be a filmmaker.

Everybody grab a rock.

She was always on our ass,

"You have to do better. You have to do better."

It was like, "Give us a break." So my drive...

I get from my mother.

My mother died when I was 19 years old,

and my grandmother, Zimmie Retha Shelton,

became the most important person in my life.

My grandmother put me through Morehouse College

and NYU Graduate Film School.

And she gave me the seed money for She's Gotta Have It,

my first feature film. She was a great woman.

"Mama," as we called her, died in 2006.

She was 100 years old.

And I had squandered many opportunities

to ask her what she knew about her family.

The legacy of her family.

So I want to find my ancestors going back,

way back to slavery... on my mother's side.

So I have to start with my grandmother, Zimmie Retha Shelton.

Spike's beginning his search in Atlanta, Georgia,

his grandmother Zimmie's hometown.

Zimmie was educated here at Spelman College in the 1920s

when it was unusual for a black woman to get a university education.

Spelman was founded just 16 years after Emancipation

and is America's oldest black college for women.

Spike's come to meet Peggy Dow, one of Zimmie's oldest friends.

-When you had She's Gotta Have It, remember that?

-The first film.

-The first film.

-Right.

She wanted to go see it and she didn't want to go by herself.

And I said, "Oh, I'll take you."

-HE LAUGHS

-We got dressed.

We got there, we were all excited.

And the picture started.

Now, Spike, I'm going to tell you that your grandmother, she wasn't prepared to see what she saw.

Naked people?

-And not only that...

-Butt naked, right?

The scene where you were in the bed with your sneakers on!

I couldn't get over that!

But, anyway, she was so shocked and so surprised about a lot of things in that film

that happened.

Well the picture was over and we went to leave.

There waiting outside the theatre was the press.

She says, "Oh, it was fine. It was fine."

But let me tell you, after the press had left and we'd left them and got to the car, she says,

"Wait till I see Spike!

"I'm going to tell him about that!"

But she was proud of you.

Thank you.

After graduating from Spelman,

Spike's grandmother settled in Atlanta.

Living in the segregated South during the '50s and '60s,

she witnessed some of the country's worst racial unrest.

My grandmother lived in this house.

We haven't had the heart to sell it yet.

Inside, it is exactly as she left it.

My sister Joie has come down from Brooklyn to see if there is anything here

to help us get back to our slave origins.

Well, I have something to show you that I've found.

-What's that?

-We have here...

Mrs Zimmie Retha.

-What is this?

-This is her death certificate.

Her father's name is Phillip Jackson.

Her mother's name was Jessie Anna Roseer.

And there they are.

This is Phillip Jackson?

He's a distinguished guy.

He really is, he's a distinguished-looking gentleman.

This is Mamma's grandmother.

-Lucinda.

-Jackson.

-She was a slave.

-Born a slave?

She was born a slave.

She looks like she has some Native American features in her.

-She was definitely born a slave?

-She was definitely born a slave.

Mamma was very close with... She called her granny.

-Granny would tell Mamma stories all the time and everywhere.

-An oral tradition.

-Yeah.

An oral history. So, Granny told Mamma that when she was little

she remembers all the slave children would be sitting around

and they would bring out their slop in a trough.

-Like pigs have a slop thing?

-Yeah.

Eating out of a trough.

So Granny didn't want to eat that way so she'd go around and she'd bop each kid in the head

with her wooden spoon.

And all the kids would be like, "Lucinda hit me! Lucinda hit me!"

HE LAUGHS

Then the master would come out.

-What was the master's name?

-I don't know.

Spike now knows that his grandmother Zimmie Retha's father was called Phillip Jackson.

And his mother was Lucinda Jackson, Spike's great-great grandmother.

We've always known that my grandmother Zimmie's family

came from the city of Dublin, in Laurens County, Georgia.

So I'm going there to see if I can find out more

about her grandmother Lucinda, who was born into slavery.

If I could find Lucinda's death records,

it might tell me more about her life.

'Melvin Collier is an expert in African-American genealogy.

'He's helping me search the records at the Laurens County library.'

I need to find out the year that Lucinda died.

How we going to do that?

OK, we'll look at the Georgia death records, and go from there.

Put in "Lucinda Jackson".

See what we find.

We have several Lucinda Jacksons.

Let's see if we find one from Laurens County.

-There it is.

-There it is.

We have a death date.

May 13, 1934.

Since we have a death date,

let's see if we can find an obituary for her.

Melvin and I are going through old Dublin newspapers

from around the time of Lucinda's death.

They put black people in the obituary, though?

It wasn't often, but sometimes, you know,

people may, you know, get lucky

and find their ancestor in the newspaper.

OK, hold on. Stop, stop.

I saw something.

May 13, 1934.

-There it is!

-There it is.

"The Passing of Mrs Lucinda Jackson."

My great-great-grandmother.

"The many friends of Mrs Lucinda Jackson regret to learn of her death.

"Mrs Jackson departed this life after a lingering illness, Sunday morning of May 13th.

"Mrs Jackson survived by three sons."

Three! Oh!

Oh, she had three sons.

-Wow.

-"Isaac Jackson,

"Phillip Jackson of the city,

"and Wilson Jackson of Jeffersonville."

You know, this would be considered a genealogical goldmine

to find your great-great grandmother

who was once enslaved, now she has an obituary in the paper.

And another thing, you notice... they gave her respect. Mrs Lucinda Jackson.

Along with his great-grandfather Phillip,

Spike now knows Lucinda had two more sons,

Isaac and Wilson.

But there's no mention of their father in Lucinda's obituary.

So who was Mr Jackson?

Well, maybe if we can look up the death certificate

for Phil Jackson, we'll find who was the father.

His father's name was Mars.

That's familiar.

Mars lives. HE CHUCKLES

Isn't that amazing?

When I was writing the script for She's Gotta Have It,

I was stuck for the name of a character.

And I called my grandmother up, and I said, "I need a name."

And she came with this "Mars."

I remember vaguely her saying

she had a crazy uncle named Mars.

But she probably said she had a crazy grandfather named Mars.

And it fit, because Mars, in the film, is crazy.

That's insane.

My great-great-grandfather's name was Mars.

So if Lucinda was born a slave,

definitely Mars was born...

a slave.

Both Spike's great-great grandparents, Mars and Lucinda,

were born into slavery.

Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries,

slaves were brought to North America from both the West Indies and Africa.

But after 250 years, the northern states called for slavery to be abolished.

Years of intense debate over slavery, liberty and states' rights

led to the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861.

The battle between the North and the South of the country

proved to be one of the bloodiest conflicts in American history,

lasting four years until the surrender of the Southern Confederates in April, 1865.

Spike is heading to the Georgia State Archives, just south of Atlanta

on the trail of his great-great grandfather Mars Jackson.

He's meeting historian Mark Schultz.

I got to find my great-great-grandfather Mars Jackson.

-He was born a slave.

-All right.

I want to know who owned him.

OK, I'll work through the census manuscript.

Mars Jackson.

-That's Texas.

-No.

-That's not him yet.

Let's double check that name and see what happens if we get rid of "Jackson".

Let's see what we get if we have an open search

with Mars... and residence Georgia.

There's something here. There's Mars Woodall

In Twiggs County.

Woodall?

Let me see what... what we get here.

"Mars Woodall."

What's this right here?

-He's a farmer.

-A farmer?

There's a...

-Lucy.

-..a Lucy.

-Short for Lucinda.

-It very well could be short for Lucinda.

"Wife."

And then we've got Isaac, Phillip...

And Wilson.

-Wilson.

-Wilson and Isaac and Phil

were the children of Mars and Lucinda.

That's them.

That looks like a good match.

He's a farmer.

-A farmer is independent.

-Right.

-So he's running his own show.

-Has land probably, too.

-He may have land. He may be a renter.

But at this point in time in 1880, you're going in the name of Woodall.

The end of the Civil War in 1865 brought emancipation to America's four million slaves.

Many freed men and women took the last name of their former slave owners as their own.

Jackson is the surname that Mars chose to use later in life.

However, in the 1880 census, his family name is recorded as Woodall.

You asked earlier about tracking him back to see if you could find out

-his former owner.

-Right.

So we're probably not going to be looking for Jackson now.

It's going to be looking for Woodall in the area right around Twiggs.

-Uh, let's go on back up to...

-Uh-oh, are we coming to this moment?

-We're coming to this moment.

-Who owned him?

-We're going there.

We're going there.

And we're going to look for a Woodall...

Twiggs County, Georgia.

There's a match. Uh, there's three here.

What it looks like to me is man and wife right there.

-Mm-hmm.

-And their son.

Let's go see James Woodall.

August, 1860.

This is the 1860 census.

So right before the Civil War breaks out.

We're looking for...

James Woodall - farmer.

He's a farmer. He's got a big plantation.

This is the value of the property.

And at that time, that was - this is a big place.

The only Woodall that we find in Twiggs County...

We've got, uh...

your great-great-grandfather and mother

in Twiggs County.

-Mars and Lucinda.

-Mm-hmm.

That's who owned them.

Uh, I think that's... that's very likely.

There is the slave schedule that we go to.

We're going to look for a James Woodall.

In Twiggs County.

There is James Woodall.

These are all his slaves. Let's count them.

One, two, three, four,

five, six, seven, eight...

One of those nameless people could be

my great-great-grandfather Mars,

but because he was a slave,

he wasn't deemed important enough to be named.

A little-known fact is that,

according to the United States constitution, at the time,

slaves were considered to be three-fifths of a human being.

After emancipation, former slaves were promised 40 acres of land.

The promise became known as 40 acres and a mule

because it was believed this was the minimum requirement needed

to make a living.

For the majority of slaves, the promise was never honoured.

So even though they were free, many were still dependent on their former slave masters.

In the 1880 census, Mars is listed as a farmer.

To find out if he owned the land,

Spike is looking at the agricultural census for that year.

So, let's see if we can find Mr Mars Woodall.

And this is the census of agriculture?

Twiggs County, State of Georgia, 1880.

Here, down this line here, is actually Woodall, Mars.

That says, "I'm an owner of this land".

-He owned.

-He owns.

-He's a landowner!

-He's a landowner, 1880.

80 acres...of tilled land.

-80!

-80 acres, which is pretty...

-That's two times 40!

Yeah, two times 40. He's doubled up your...

-You got some catching up to do with that 40 acres!

-I know!

He's got 200 worth of livestock which is a lot of livestock.

He's got two working oxen here...

two milk cows...

um, six other cows, I guess beef cows...

-two...

-How many pigs?

-Ten pigs.

-Ten pigs.

-Ten pigs.

-Chickens?

-Chickens, he's got a mess of chickens,

he's got... I saw...

and he's got peas he's raising too.

-He's got sweet potatoes that he's raising.

-Mm, sweet potatoes, sweet potatoes.

-Right, that's an African import.

-It is.

He raised 650 worth of produce off that farm.

That's a lot of money in 1880.

Now, some of this they were eating themselves,

-raising corn, taking it...

-They'd sell the surplus, right?

Exactly, they're taking the surplus to sell, so he has a very successful farm going right now.

And this is 15 years after emancipation?

-In less than a generation he's got...

-How did he get that land?

Is it plausible that...

he bought this land from Woodall,

-or it was loaned to him?

-It sure is.

Frequently, ex-slaves who got ahead, who got land,

used relationships with previous masters,

that they had some kind of good relationship with,

to put in a good word for them.

If it wasn't Woodall giving him a loan,

it's going down to the bank and saying, you know,

"I can speak for this man.

"I think he's a hard worker. He's a responsible guy."

Because once you get that first break,

the next break's easier.

It's just getting something to work with.

So it all comes down to ownership of the land.

-It did.

-Get some land.

-It did for these people.

-Get some land.

All I want to know, this 80 acres, where is it?

Where is his 40? That's in the map room over here.

We're going to take a look and see if we can find out where it is.

This is the original document?

This is the original document, this is the L-shaped district,

in the north-east part of the county that Woodall was finding.

The nice thing with this map is it shows where the streams are.

That's going to be important for farming, you need the water.

All through here, there is a stream coming through here,

all kinds of natural irrigation.

This is what's called body land. That's where you made your money.

It tended to be difficult for black folks to get access to that kind of land on their own, after slavery.

They went to a place like this, where the land was barren.

Off the roads, sandier soil.

Here they are, these people have connections, respect,

some kind of thing that's giving them access to really good land.

So that's where they were. Right there.

Amazing. He was a farmer.

Had a lot of land.

That was the number one goal coming out of slavery.

You wanted to be a landowner.

You lived off the land. You worked the land.

This area, Twiggs County, in the middle of Georgia,

it was hostile for negroes at that time.

The Klan was roaming.

This area was also known for lynching.

So in order to do what he did, he had...

..great adversity.

Spike is on his way to the land that was thought to have been owned

by his great-great grandfather, Mars.

That's Georgia clay right there - Red Georgia clay.

It is hard for me to believe I'm walking the same 80 acres

that my great-great grandfather, Mars Jackson, owned and worked.

This is a magnificent view.

And at one time,

my great-great grandfather, Mars Jackson,

owned this land.

In tribute to Mars,

I had sent to me from New York

what I wore in my first film,

She's Gotta Have It.

This is it. This is what Mars looked like.

Many years later. But it all started here.

It was not an accident that I called up my grandmother

to ask her for a name.

That was a spirit.

That was a spirit that made me pick up the phone and say,

"Mamma, I need a name."

That was the spirit of Mars that made that happen.

And his wife Lucinda.

The United States of America may not have given Mars

his 40 acres and a mule,

but it looks like he did much better than that.

He had more than 80 acres.

Before I go,

there's one last thing I must do.

Dig up some of this land.

I'm going to show it to my children.

Say, "This is where you came from, this Georgia red clay."

The sun's about to set here.

And we got to get out of here.

They said, "Don't let the sun go down on your black ass.

"You better get out of town, boy,

"if you know what's good for you."

"Oh, yes, massa. No trouble, sir.

"No trouble, I'm leaving right now.

"Just passing through, minding my business."

The red clay on my hands is the same dirt Mars worked,

making a life for himself and his family after the civil war.

Unfortunately, no one knows what happened to Mars

or how he lost his land after the 1880s.

But he set the bar high early.

To go from a slave to a landowner?

Now I know where my family gets that entrepreneurial spirit.

Spike's found out as much as he can about Mars.

So now, he's turning his attention to Mars's wife, Lucinda -

his great-great grandmother.

He's received a copy of her death certificate.

It says her parents were...

Wilson Griswold and Matilda Griswold.

But who were they?

Because the slaves weren't freed

until after the civil war ended in 1865,

the first possible census that Lucinda's parents,

Wilson and Matilda, could have been listed in, is 1870.

So I'm going to try to find Griswold here.

There's a... Matilda Griswold.

She's a cook.

And she was... It's listed here,

Matilda is a mulatto, mixed race.

Hmm.

In Griswoldville.

Matilda Griswold.

Mulatto.

Given that both Lucinda's parents were called Griswold

and her mother lived in Griswoldville,

it's likely that Griswold was the name of the man who owned them.

We don't see Wilson Griswold on this census,

who is Lucinda's father.

So where is Griswoldville, Georgia,

and what happened to Wilson Griswold?

I'm meeting Daina Berry,

a historian of the 19th century south in Macon, Georgia.

So let's look at Griswold, OK?

So this is the 1850 slave census schedule.

And we have here Samuel Griswold.

Then, as we look to see how many slaves he has,

these are all Griswold slaves.

-He owned a lot of slaves.

-Very, yep.

So a large slave holder. A large slave holder.

-But that makes sense, because it's Griswoldville.

-Even has a town named after him, right?

-Right. He named the town himself.

-Yeah.

So that brings us to where's Wilson, right?

-Where's Wilson?

-I've come across this document.

This is actually a contract for slaves to work in a business.

They worked the cotton gin business.

The owner is Griswold.

And he's naming his slaves to be hired out.

"George, Jerry, Henry, Little Jackson,

Matthew, and Wilson."

-There he is.

-Wilson.

And the thing I think was most interesting about this

is that when you have slaves that are named,

they're obviously valued slaves.

-So these are probably skilled mill workers...

-Right.

-Uh, mechanics.

They'd go into the gin shop, and that's when they did the work.

And that's probably where Wilson was,

-which means Griswold owned skilled slaves.

-Right.

And I also came across this document.

"On or about the 21st day of November last,

"The federal army under General W T Sherman..."

Mmm-hmm!

"..came to the residences of said Sam Griswold

"and destroyed by burning his grist and saw mills, "foundry, gin shop.

"Said enemy also took and carried away five negro men,

"four of them mechanics."

-All right. That might be him.

-Mmm-hmm.

As the union army commander for the north,

General Sherman conducted a strategy of total war

and scorched earth in Georgia.

He destroyed industries that supported the southern confederacy,

including the cotton gin factory in Griswoldville,

where Wilson built and maintained cotton engines.

This was just one stop on Sherman's march from Atlanta to Savannah.

So, Wilson...

might have left with General Sherman.

It's possible.

-Either taken or killed.

-Killed?

We don't know that. They never returned. They never saw them again.

-This is 1865.

-Right.

-So right before the war ended.

This is in February. The war ends in April.

An ancestor of mine was on a plantation...

that General Sherman...

came and burned to the ground.

Exactly.

-That's history right there.

-It sure is.

Absolutely.

There's nothing left of Griswoldville today.

There's just a street sign, train tracks,

and a plaque commemorating the spot

where the cotton gin factory once stood.

The factory and the town were destroyed during the civil war.

The Confederate Pistol Factory.

"In 1862, to meet the pressing need

"of the confederate states' army for revolvers

"of the Colt pattern,

"the Griswold cotton gin company's plant on this site

"was converted to a pistol factory."

"In March, production of cotton gin machinery was discontinued

"and retooling was begun.

"The Griswold and Grier revolver is known to collectors

"as the brass-framed Confederate Colt.

"It is the most common of all Confederate-manufactured revolvers."

MOUTHS

So...

not only were they slave owners,

they were supplying Colt pistols

for the Confederacy.

And Wilson, my great-great-great-grandfather,

worked there.

And Sherman's march towards the sea,

they burnt down this factory

and, er,

that's really the last time, Wilson, we know what happened to him.

Either...

Which I hope is not the case.

Either he died protecting massa's factory,

or...

he became a sab...a saboteur...

CHUCKLES ..and started - boom! - blowing stuff up...

as the Union approached

and left with Sherman's army. We don't know what happened.

Griswold historian Bill Bragg is joining Spike

to shed some light on Wilson's experience at the cotton-engine factory.

-Hi.

-How you doing?

-Bill Bragg.

-Spike Lee.

-Nice to meet you.

-How you doing?

-Pretty good.

-So you got some information?

-A little bit. Let's see what we have here.

This was built right here.

-That's authentic?

-This is authentic.

And there's a good chance that my

great-great-great-grandfather, Wilson Griswold, built this.

Oh, yes.

He would have to have been involved in part of the process.

Right. It's like a factory - everyone works on a certain part.

Oh, then, he definitely had a part in this.

No other pistol manufacturer in the Confederacy made more than this one did.

This factory here, made more than any of the others.

My great-great-great-grandfather...

built this Confederate... CHUCKLES ..pistol.

-Exactly.

-Which was used to kill...

..the people who were coming to liberate him.

-Yep.

-A-ha...

-The irony.

-Yeah,

very heavy irony.

-So no pictures of the...?

-No pictures of the factory.

What about Massa Griswold?

-LAUGHS

-There is a picture of him.

That's probably around 1860. He had a stroke by that time

and he doesn't look real happy.

"Mm, mm, mm," as my grandma would say.

-Is this the only known picture of him?

-That's the only known picture.

What about...? What was his wife's name?

-Oh, Louisa.

-Louisa. You got a picture of her?

There is a picture of her.

-Neither one of them look real happy.

-THEY LAUGH

Whoo!

Now, let me ask you a question.

Wilson Griswold...

..married a woman named Matilda.

In the census, she's listed as mulatto.

Is there a chance... he was her father?

Oh, yes, there's a chance.

There's a good chance, particularly if you look at, um,

all of the other similar situations here in Central Georgia.

At the very beginning of this journey,

I wanted to know all my ancestors.

Now we know. There's also a good chance

that I might be related to this person.

To find out more about his ancestor Matilda,

Spike has returned to historian Daina Berry.

How can I find out, who were the parents of Matilda?

-Is she the daughter of Griswold?

-Good question.

-She's listed as mulatto.

-Right, looking at slave narratives,

-I looked at a number of the narratives from Jones County and neighbouring counties.

-Right.

There were female slaves talking about being the daughters of their owners in their narratives.

-So that definitely sets a precedent for that particular community in this region.

-Right.

And looking at some family papers, I came across family memoirs

of the Griswold family

from the granddaughter.

Here where they're talking about Griswold,

the grandchildren mention they never spent time with him

because he was with his favourite negroes.

He gave them money. You know, she talks about

they would constantly slip in,

beg him for money and would always get it.

He just loved some of his negroes.

-Love them how?

-That's a good question.

And we know his wife... almost hated negroes.

Why do you think that is?

Very good question.

I did some research and came across a descendant...

of the Griswold family.

-That's alive today?

-Yes. And I think she would like to meet you.

-So...what are your thoughts?

-Does she know she owned slaves?

-THEY CHUCKLE

-I'm quite sure she does.

LAUGHTER

Spike's on his way to Arlington, Texas, to meet Guinevere Grier,

a direct descendant of Samuel Griswold,

the slave master who owned his ancestors.

'I've really been, uh...

'trying to keep an open mind.

'She had nothing to do with slavery.

'I still have this problem about human beings owning

'other human beings.

'How many white Americans even think about that?

'That their ancestors owned slaves?

'Do they think about that or do they just try to...

'block that out of their minds?' BELL RINGS

CHUCKLES

-Hi.

-Hello.

-Mr Lee.

-How you doing, Guinevere?

-Please call me Guinevere.

-So...

-CHUCKLES

..I understand

that we have Samuel Griswold in our lives.

-Who was he to you?

-He's my great-great-grandfather.

And what about you?

My great-great-great-grandparents...

-Right, both.

-..Wilson and Matilda Griswold.

-Right.

-They took on the name...

-Mm-hm.

-..of the slave master.

-Right.

And your great-great-grandfather

was possibly the father of

my great-great-great-grandmother.

We are possibly third cousins, twice removed.

Twice removed.

-THEY CHUCKLE

-I have a famous relative.

Throughout the years, I would just...

be in the airport in New York,

or anywhere in America,

and just see a random white American say,

-and think to myself, "You know, I could be related to that person."

-Mm-hm.

And I never thought any more about that.

-CHUCKLES But now...

-Yeah.

-..it's hitting me in the face.

-I'm on your couch, and we're cousins.

-Wow.

You've been...

-You know what I would like you to know...

-What's that?

SIGHS

-Slavery is awful.

-Mm-hm.

Um, the situation of the people...

who lived for generations after,

you know, was really horrible and bad. But I think a lot more people

were just as horrified by both slavery

and the treatment of blacks in our country.

I just... I think that...

I don't want you to apologise for what the ancestors did.

You had nothing to do with that.

-Excuse me, I'm getting snivelly.

-LAUGHS

-How do you feel about it?

-How... how do I feel?

-Yeah?

-About Samuel Griswold, your...?

-Well, I can't love the man.

-Mm-hm.

I just can't. Or his wife or any slave owner,

because I just...

How can you own another human being?

So do you know who you are?

Oh, I've always known who I've been, who I am. But now I know more.

This journey's been very meaningful.

It's a living record...

of my ancestors

on my mother's side of the family.

And my grandmother, she'd have been proud of her ancestry.

She'd have been happy that we're doing this for sure.

I hope that my children understand

that they're on the shoulders of great people.

They should use that to motivate them to excel.

History's very important.

I am who I am today based upon my ancestors.

Hopefully, in the future,

I'll do a film, a slave epic.

Really do something that, um, deals with the complexities

that happened on the plantation.

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