The first time you see the darkness of your history, up close and personal.

I grew up in the North, the Midwest specifically, but always knew of my roots and my family that lived down south. I heard the stories of the conditions that my father had to face while trying to go to school in Morgan City, Louisiana. The struggles of generation upon generation of family members and the racism and hatred they faced. The injustices that were done to them. And the triumphs as they succeeded and overcame.  When I told my mother 20 years ago that I was moving to the south, she was genuinely afraid for me, because the perception of the world down here is very scary sometimes. 

I've lived in North Carolina for 20 years, and until a few years ago I hadn't really traveled around the area.  Most of my family still lived up north, so time off was spent visiting them. My trips to Georgia consisted of going to the airport, South Carolina was Myrtle Beach, and that's basically it. My husband is a native Californian and a huge history buff that has been down here longer than I have.  He never took the opportunity to travel around the area either, so we decided to take a trip to Charleston, South Carolina for the first time a few years ago. We did the obligatory downtown tour, walked around some shops, ate some fresh pralines, and then ended up near the water. I wasn't quite prepared for the site of a landing marking where slaves landed in this country. To see an actual sign and to stand where my ancestors were dragged off of boats in chains, beaten and starving, stolen from their Homeland and having no idea what was going to happen to them, separated from their families; it made me want to throw up. The visceral reaction that I had was almost unexplainable.

Slave Sale, courtesy of National Geographic

After that, shaken, but coming to grips with what I had seen, my husband booked us tickets to go to Fort Sumter. For people who don't understand or remember Civil war history, Fort Sumter was basically where the Civil War started. The South Carolina Militia fired on the Union Army in April of 1861, and the Civil War began. We got in this little boat and went across the water and walked around the fort. We saw some old cannonballs and the little holes where the soldiers were trying to hold off opposing forces and it was all pretty neat. Until we went inside.

I stood on a walkway and I saw actual bills of sale for human beings. Saw what their value was. How they were described. Whether they were good for field work, or housework, or if they were problematic. Slave auction records detailing cargo with the number of men, women, and children being sold. Saw that their names and their culture were erased. Instead of the names that their tribe and their families had given them, men were now called George and Henry, women called Jane and Mary. Men and women described as bucks and wenches, children called pickaninnies.  I still can't look back on  that day without breaking down in tears. I know how deep the bonds are in my family between my parents and my grandparents and me, my aunts and uncles, my cousins, my children. To imagine the terror and fear that these people must have felt, not speaking the language, not knowing what was going to happen to them, seeing their babies ripped from their arms, seeing their children and their husbands sent away, something inside me broke that day. Up till then, the history of my ancestors had been oral stories and movie adaptations. 

Courtesy of New York Heritage

http://slaveryandremembrance.org/collections/object/?id=OB0042

The entire way back on the boat I cried. I cried all the way to the car. I cried all the way back to the hotel. I felt like I could hear the echoes of thousands of tears. I felt like I could feel the heartbreak and the terror. I felt like I could feel the pain of a whip and the weight of chains around my neck and my wrists and my ankles. And it was absolutely devastating. 

The pain of slavery is still felt today, even by those who weren't there. And gaslighting someone and telling them that it was "so long ago" isn't okay. Every single person should see this part of our history up close and personal. And then ask yourself if you feel the same about slavery.