Lauren Jefferson, William Mayweather, and Tonya Groomes

00:08 Hello, my name is Tanya Grooms. I'm 45 and today is February 5th, 2020 11 and we are located in Atlanta, Georgia. And I'm here today with my daughter Lauren and my father bill.

00:27 Hello, my name is Lauren Jefferson. I'm 15 years old. It's it's the 5th of February 2011 in rent Atlanta, Georgia. And this is with my grandpa Papa and my mother Tanya. Hello. My name is William Mayweather. My I need to 71 today's date is the 5th of September 2011 and February Sarah location is Atlanta, Georgia a new relationship here. I'm with my daughter and my granddaughter.

01:00 Well, I guess guys we're really excited as a family because there's a book that won the Pulitzer Prize titled slavery by another name and in the course of chronicling the fact that slavery or forced labor didn't truly end in the US and for African Americans until the late 1940s the author decided to put a human face on the story and he picked someone who was forced into slavery after the Civil War in this case green Cottingham in 1908. Someone who died. Wow enslaved in a forced-labor camp and someone who was somewhat affiliated with a company that still isn't existence today. So that kind of actually accidentally fell into all of this research because he traced our ancestors and Davis family history in the book all the way back to Africa.

02:00 With the slave that we learned, you know you and I've debated debated whether he's skipio or you're a Scipio and there's a whole story about his name that's fascinating too. So we get to be traced all the way back to Africa. So what was interesting is when we discovered this and we got the book my brother your uncle Dorn, of course your son Daddy had a reading on the section that they told us to turn to and this is when Lauren I'm going to ask you in a minute after I read this little quick excerpt how you felt when you heard this for the first time.

02:37 This is when the author is trying to get some of the living descendants from this lineage of people and he wanted to interview daddy your uncle Uncle Louie. In fact, I didn't even realize it until this.

03:00 But I knew cuz I know it's just a paragraph or two. This is after he's trying to get cooperation for more information from Uncle Louie Daddy. And this is in the book on page 401. It says Cottingham turned away from the phone and repeat it to his wife says there's a slave named. Skip Cunningham born in 1802. There was Wonder in Cunningham's voice is he related the words but not the Wonder I had hoped for instead of astonishment and gratitude that a stranger had offered up the connection to Africa and a Lost Generation of cells that millions of American blacks claimed a visceral But ultimately almost never requited need to find the wandering Cunningham's voice was flat and heavy and sorrowful.

03:51 Purple that are past escaped lived at all. I thought to myself he's glad to know but he doesn't want to know anything else. His wife have been right from the first instant. Nobody around here wants to talk about slavery still I tried again. Could you help me contact your older brothers were still alive? Perhaps they'll remember more. I press gently. No couldn't do that. He said can I come to your home? I offered and share all that. I have found perhaps it would jog a recollection, perhaps there's a younger person with an interest in history. I could be there in a few days. I said no. No, I don't think so. So Lauren remember the reading of that tell us about that we were so you like what we want to know about this where younger people? Oh my gosh. We have to we have to get in contact with him. We have to find out about this. We were we were so excited, but we were also kind of like you were interested really what else could he know about?

04:51 Family, cuz we don't even know anything about this. We never heard of green. I personally had heard a green and I was just weird because I had just talked to Uncle Louie like that like last summer or like that have two summers ago and I was like, wow, we didn't even know anything about this whole interview at all.

05:09 So you remember what we did that night? So that night we went on to the website about this book and it said that there was something where you can contact the author and send him an email. So you would like okay Lauren check my email and make sure I make sense and everything a check the grammar. So I was looking over your shoulder while you were drafting this email. We didn't even know if he was going to answer the email cuz it was like it was midnight and or at least he replied at midnight or something at 9, and we were studying for a test before you send this email. We were really excited over like we probably won't hear anything since the book website and then like within like next two or three hours he replied and we weren't you were so excited the next morning when you told me cuz I think I already gone to bed and daddy. How did you feel when we brought this whole subject to you, not trying to find any of the ancestor. My point was just to give it up and all of a sudden he we got information this coming in. So it was somewhat excited.

06:09 Ancestors now, do you know I've noticed it's been some resistance in the family to try to go this route and talk about this. What do you think? That's from how do you feel about talking about the past for me and looking at the past? I don't like little talking about the past because it's gone. It's not here anymore. It may be good for my granddaughter and maybe good for you in terms of trying to salvage what happened in the past, but for myself one of you and I don't get too excited about it because that's not too much that I wanted to really get some the fast we know it's interesting there been some very good side benefits about this whole process and one of them is really, you know, what kind of bugging you to go down and let's talk to Uncle Louie and let's try to dig up things and let's find things and and I thought it was a wonderful thing to just sit and listen to some of the stories he was telling that you guys kind of don't think you're a big deal. Do you?

07:09 Talk a little remember. You can't even buy you insisted that I take you to down into motor garlic to talk to Lauren and that's okay. We will do that and we got in the car with Joe from you too much of all that I know you wanted to go to some cemeteries and I think we spend what about a day and a half a day in the cemetery looking at Tombstone and you are recording information and after that we talked to Uncle away and I'll go live with someone willing to talk but not too much and that he did not want to get involved and doing any interviews.

07:47 He was someone laid back.

07:49 But I think baseball in our meeting with let me got somewhat excited about it because you were interested in it. So he may end up some day participating the things that I don't think people realize are interesting actually turn out to be pretty interesting. Like he was casually talking about you is a is a young boy and he was talking about what your father and end in he would do to try to keep you focus. You always such a smart smart child and you were big into the sciences and even though your father didn't have the education. He was in that environment where he saw all of these scientists and I found out things like you bought your Chemistry kids and they did tell me a little bit about some of the things I did have a I did have a chemistry set.

08:41 I was it was exciting to have this thing because no one I was always interested in doing things like that. And I guess one of the key things in terms of oh, that's a good one that you are. My dad wanted us to go to college and they and they insisted that we go and I think my older sister was the first one from the family at 2 to go and I was next in line. So I said, okay we will go so he spend some time and dug up money for me to go up to school in Alabama, which I did go.

09:19 And after what I got some what time I got to the Facebook do I really want to do that? And he was very smart even though he did not go to school. He wait till they and fitting company in Birmingham. It's okay. What I'm going to do. I want you to go with me and we going to look at some jobs that you would possibly have if you did not go to school. So it took a day out of his time to pick me up and he had me to walk through the plant.

09:49 And then the flat was very hot during that summer people were making valves and fittings for a water connection and after spending a day in that environment. I said, hey, it's the look I had better go to school because this is something that I really didn't want to want want to do is so basically all of that being exposed to things that will want to make you do different things all that was a good experience.

10:21 We don't Daddy you graduated. You were a good student. I know that's what you meant. Mom. And you guys were some of the few African-Americans to go to this black college. I think it's Alabama A&M and you guys still do a lot with that organism that that University now, but afterwards you wanted to go to grad school and guess what they wouldn't let you in the state of Alabama because you were African Americans would not these the planets if you wanted an advanced degree, and there was no school but I like that with off of that degrees in the state of Alabama with pay you to find another school to go to so they did do that. We decided to go out to Nebraska

11:07 Creighton University

11:09 And they paid the monthly fee for that experience. So I think them for that experience was good. And I think doing that time. I think Who would wear two kids but I you and you and you and you and your brother were born in the Nebraska thing you were thankful for that. But there was so many things that you couldn't do. I always find it interesting that like in talking with Uncle Louie. There's no sense of bitterness about these horrible stories. That was a brutal plant environment. There was no OSHA regulation keeping people healthy and safe and in the case of a lot of the people in this book, a lot of African-Americans were literally minding their business like the relative in this book and they were just randomly picked up charged with vagrancy thrown into jail. Never to be

12:09 Seen again forced into labor and they had all these institutionalize ways of doing that but I have found that a lot of times, you know, when I talk with people like Uncle Louie, there's no sense of anger. If you didn't know so you don't develop anger in your heart amount about what was going on. So you really don't look at it and then angry about what happened. I can remember when I was in college doing the 50s late 50s when the margin and King was was I was watching

12:53 Coming from Birmingham from Huntsville in my car and I was stopped in now.

12:59 In Birmingham on my way home and it just so happened my I had to work for a printing shop in one of Allah and wait for the mail.

13:10 And at that particular time when I was shocked that I was asked. Where was I going with that part of the Year people with marching? I was telling him. I was coming from school and I shut that you can call the marijuana and baseball in that cold to him. They came back and I could go on my Merry way without any complication type things going on, but he kind of took me under his arm and I

13:54 I know the things that I just never understood is like you guys couldn't vote you weren't allowed to vote because you were black and you had to go through this long drawn-out process of taking tests and getting people to vouch for you yet. There's still no bitterness there. I mean you guys had to be practically, you know us history experts to pass that test to vote for that because my dad said look you going to have to have to be able to vote. Angie said he knew the importance of being able to vote so we had to go to the county seat take a test.

14:34 And I had figured that if we hadn't gone to college with a history course, we never would have passed that test and also that was a voting feet which we have to pay so that way things that the things that went on that.

14:52 I thought that we had to do to make sure that there we could do this with a good thing. Are you of any of this history of Georgia history? And I know that the same type of things are going on in Georgia in that time cuz we learned about the poll tax in the grandfather clause and a lot of other like literate like test and to take about history that a lot of people that if you really think about a lot of people who live there who are wider the time probably didn't know anything about this history or I didn't have to pay a poll tax and it's just very interesting of the different things that they had to go through to vote with a lot of people can just about willy-nilly so we learned about a lot of those type things in school, but I didn't know that Papa had to pay a poll tax and everything about and I didn't know that you know, what's interesting is always find it fascinating. Have you noticed your grandparents never really talked about those?

15:45 That itself never quite gotten my my head around that and then I realized oh my goodness. I haven't talked about some things. I remember cuz they're like vague memories of just how it was remembered Daddy when we would go to Montevallo in the summer and there was a public pool and it took me until adulthood to realize that 45. I was still dealing with segregation because we weren't allowed to swim when I was little girl at the pool accept on a certain day when black kids could swim and then you realize oh my goodness. This is just part of your reality and in your, you know, cuz I vividly remember all you can't swim on that day. And then you wonder how much of that is in your psyche, you know, are you paranoid about swimming in public pools now and you know, some of the some of the things that come out of bed and you realize oh my goodness this was going on and I'm only 45 and I was dealing with a segregated swimming situation as a child.

16:45 Are you guys have to go in a certain certain days you really need to get upset angry mad about it and electrical she slept. Well, that's the way it's supposed to be.

17:09 Hard on trying I had this hard time understanding how could these people put up with this? But what you realize is that it's kind of easy for you to fall into those patterns where if you don't make trouble you just go along and so, you know, it's always getting angry reading some of the whole riffic accounts of just brutality total abduction re-enslavement. And from what I understand reading this book. It wasn't just a few people these weren't the exception. Someone was institutionalized. That's the sum of the Cities under there tar Sheriff's Department salary by getting paid from a fact so they would arrest you they would get paid that they would pay the the the bathroom get this really discount. Right but they'd pay the sheriff they pay the and the judicial system and that was what was funding

18:00 Your judge your your whole system. So what you realize is that there's so many things did that that you're not aware of and it really makes you understand but it also explains to me why there's a whole categories of people who have a hard time adjusting or being successful. Everybody says over slavery ended a hundred years ago, but here it is reaching into my life at 45 as a child. And you say well why these people so far behind and and really how long have people really had the chance not to be behind it was not institutionalized and sanctioned by official government bodies.

18:44 Do you ever hear anything about any of this at school or I'll never heard of this at all ever in my life until we found this book and actually read the book and then wasn't there at school last year when we first started like hearing about all the stuff in the first like the book around like was like New Year's a little bit before Christmas and didn't I like go back to school and like I wrote something and I was talking about how half a million of these people wear it for us to go and like was it 1/3 of them survive the winter than in some of these some of these camps some of these facilities were so brutal that $30 a 30% mortality rate, which means these people died a horrible job. And then I remembered daddy hearing these stories about you know, we had on other not just this Cottingham Branch this in the book, but there were other people who worked in the mines. This is what you did for a living so they were burying degrees of how bad this was pending on your assignment your lot in life and some of this enslavement some people can wear sign.

19:44 Work as slaves for a few months a few years and some of these people who were working. We're real criminals, but a lot of them work just like the person chosen by the author they were in the wrong place at the wrong time charged with vagrancy never to be seen again. And so what was fascinating is the fact that he follows these people all the way back to Africa and I had spent so much of my life collecting family history. You you see this diagram that people can't listeners can't see but you know, I collected photos of all of my great-grandparents and all of you know, all these childhood photos from you Dad and I had gotten all the way back to 4, I mean 3 photos of great great grandparents and to have somebody take that line all the way back to Africa.

20:33 Do you know you know my you know, my great-great-great-great-grandfather born in 1802? It was really almost like a confirmation that these people matter and you know, you say I've always known there important but it's kind of like you can see that there were lots of hard-working people who really don't know that much about including our own relatives. It was so fun looking at the 1870 census that the author share with me where for the first time skip Cunningham's name appears because it was the first time that it was the first sentence with sensors were African Americans were given names before they just been numbers or like property. But even even though he have been there we have to talk about the story of his name and how condescending it was really meant. Yes, wasn't it like that Skippy? I was like a Roman General in Africa was a Roman general. He was a major conqueror of Africa.

21:33 Apartments of Africa that Roman general would go around and he crucified so many did he crucified a lot of the Africans it was a slave Uprising and he crucified was it twenty thousand people in a single campaign with a mass murderer. So it was a joke giving him that name African name, of course not but it's just I guess I guess they're like, huh? Let's name him. Skip just like it is very practiced account to put these mocking renames of Africans and giving these ironic names. So it's it's kind of fascinating to look into the history.

22:19 Nnn really gather that I know you mentioned. The my thing is I'm trying to recall that we go in, Birmingham, Alabama.

22:31 Historical site that talks about the mountain thing the bus ride and I thought we visited that one time that we're not

22:41 The civil rights to

22:47 But anyway in Birmingham they say you have as a Civil Rights Institute of that got that covered some of this in the that you talk about gems in mind, but there's a museum here in Atlanta that focuses on Atlanta history in Georgia history. And I still think people to sugar coating it you go in and you have these life size mannequins of the genteel Southern lady dealing with the distress of the Civil War and she knows she's dressed in in full regalia and then they'll have a little placard saying oh by the way was really hard on the people that were enslaved at the time. I don't know if it's a sense that you know, people don't really want to talk about the fact that these people were reinstall Mac because this is not like a hundred years ago and it almost makes you beg the question of these kind of things still going on in some remote place or are we missing something?

23:47 Right now at my school and that we were learning about we're learning about the Atlantic slave trade right now because we finally gotten to that point in history and it was saying that in Saudi Arabia and an Angola like slavery was still going on until 1960 and I was like in my history book. It says that an AP World History lesson 19 62 and I was taking notes to my teacher and I said said that slavery didn't end in some places in the world until 1960 until like that. I like 50 years ago and he was like, yeah, I know it's crazy. But there's just something great interesting to think about that. It was you you wonder sometimes you know, what's going on. Now that you're a hundred years from now, somebody will be reading a book on and say what that was still going on. I can't believe in the book even went as far as to say is officially it's ended it ended like everywhere and 1960. But I mean, I'm sure even in like people children being abducted and why children soldiers and like sex

24:47 Gangsta obviously still goes on and we know about it but a lot of like it's only so much we can do about it even now people going to read and say well what could they have done to stop all this horrible stuff that's going on. So you kind of feel like while you know, what's going to be looking at our pictures. Like I've laid these pictures out cuz you know, I mean, this is Daddy. Do you know who this was one of my exciting things? I thought I was doing something for your sisters when I took them the sign book. I got Doug Blackman the sign the book for them for Christmas and and I took it down for them as a Christmas gift and they in return to talk to your relatives who for whatever reason a really secretive about their photos this man right here. That's Albert. He's in this book. In fact Albert is screen cottingham's Uncle so I have that photo right? There is my great great.

25:47 Grandfather Albert, and what's so ironic is when you sit through and you're looking through the papers the office shared some of his supporting documents that he used to craft the story that he tells of these people you see census reports daddy with your grandma with your mother on them and and you know, all of this information and you like I can't believe this is all out there and I was going to even tells you when they moved to keep you more about us than we do.

26:21 Now Green County hams Imagine Green Cunningham's a he's the man who dies in the book. That's how the book is really kind of trying to get that human face to the story of human trafficking so built around green and into this is the story of kind of in the book where they bring in our ancestry login here. It's like sometime in the 1890s Henry Cottingham died that screams father the circumstances of his death were recorded in June of 1900 Mary Cottingham abandoned briarfield were so many black descendants of the Cottingham farm at once congregated leaving behind only Henry's younger brother Albert with his own wife and ten children.

27:03 Do you know who those 10 children are your grandfather's one of them George and you know, what else you discover when you get this book? Can you read through it and detail because this story is woven into these horror stories that the doctors also telling, you know, he kind of follows you and then brings you back to this family, but do you really know what you realize you realize daddy that something that you didn't know because I didn't even know you or your grandfather. George was named after his grandfather. These are names we didn't have

27:33 So, you know these names aren't even accidental and what we wouldn't have known that until we get the genealogy and your you know, and that's my triple great-grandfather. His father was the African.

27:45 So it's kind of like moving that that all this information is out there and it's been documented and and and it seems meaningful because I remember I've often had this pool for these people these ancestors, you know, these people who make us who we are and I and I often wanted to imagine who they were and how hard they worked and it's almost like honoring them when you have a chance to trace them back and acknowledge. Oh my goodness you worked hard and that's why when I collected these pictures always collecting with the story. So I found out as much about the Elbert in the book. He was Reverend Robert Cottingham according to the people your your sisters and you wonder about the good Reverend and his Sunday Best in this photo in front of us and his son George and his Sunday Best with his with his horse. He was a horse whisperer. Daddy. Did you know that your grandfather?

28:46 And trade horses. Did you know it's what I do now is I can like the story with every photos children are there in the background of the pictures? Yeah. She's the baby on the porch. She's a top-10. Look they just to be nice, but we have to acknowledge that these people struggle these people were mistreated, but they harm. A life for themselves and they and they had their days when they could dress up with dignity and in the cigar and it's staying there with his prized horse because from what I understand he had the prettiest horses and he would train them and he would move around and people with random.

29:30 But you don't want to do that, but that's probably why you don't remember him daddy, you know, he died and he died because he was kicked according to the stories by horse you found with all the pictures on them. They can see the house over the years. It has a lot of history behind even though it's kind of modified now, but if you go back to Laura's house and then places the same environment same house area, but modified serve that house has a lot of history.

30:02 I have a picture of that end in my collection of photos. Remember Daddy when you were being nice and patient with me and we were looking at the house. The only thing that's changed. Is that front porch. So next time we're in the hills with so beautiful about this in a way we go to Montevallo all the time. We visit your sisters. We have all these relatives that we really aren't talking to and this is kind of reconnecting us the cousins and uncles that I didn't even realize we're still around to landmarks that now become more significant when you realize the history behind them and in I think it's bringing about relationship.

30:43 You know, it's it's bringing about relationship and it's reminding us that you know, if everybody's important everybody has a really rich important history and story and end. So it's been kind of nice I even talked you have another living Uncle daddy in New York Uncle Maurice.

31:01 I called him up you gave me his number reluctantly remembers when I gave it to you.

31:12 Chemours who moved and escaped all of this and he definitely is not going to go down memory lane with you. He's very forward-thinking kind of cool guy, you know, he's got to be pretty old and he sounds Young on the phone with him and he's focused on now and you know today is he got out of there long time ago just makes you want to go see him. I'm like well, maybe we can all you know, go to New York and see your uncle and you know, Uncle Louis XI we visit with him when we talk is when we sat down together something that's generally not done and your family is those broad family reunions. Everybody's kind of private.

32:12 That's where we are. I'm sorry.

32:18 But you know, it's it's been a nice process and I don't know I think that what the takeaway is. We need to honor these people and their lives and kind of the things that they suffered through and and yet at the same time not use it as an excuse the same way they did these people look at these photos these people live richly they overcame a lot of adversity. They make sure that you got a great education and got out of there and in the end the beauty of it is is the south is a really come fix conflicting place for a lot of people because I love this out. I'm a southerner true and true. So it's always been hard. It's almost kind of like, you know, you still want to look at all the beautiful things about the south even though there's this history and there's easier these atrocities. You always want to say UK.

33:18 Beat a summer day walking down the dirt road as a little girl going down to the pond skipping rocks. You can't beat the sound of those putting those weird bugs that make that summer. What is it saying? Yeah, you can't miss it. You can't be mean and and worrying about the mosquitoes in the making homemade ice cream omigosh. That's delicious. So it's still all ourselves so you can see how these people

33:51 Do all this adversity and if you read this book, you'll be sitting there just this crying. I mean it's brutal, but you can also Imagine The Picnic there's a picture and I think it's a mama's people cuz you know, I've been collecting photos for Everett. It's a family reunions. It's around 1940 and I think my mother is an infant with a group of her relatives in it and they're out there for a Sunday Kind of picnic in are they up there all dressed to the nines in their Sunday Best and despite the adversity and all of the things going on those four people who were there for a good time. So I guess part of the reason I often wonder daddy if you're reluctant to talk is because you don't want to be a victim. You don't feel like your life is a tragedy and so I think the Norton get people like you to talk we got an honor the fact that it's been a good life and you had a good time when you say

34:51 Is conflicted we want people to know but at the same time we don't want to paint these people. I like to think of these people like the people in their Sunday Best, even though you probably knew this may have been this man's only nice they may have ever had as Reverend.

35:06 Albert Cottingham

35:08 But you know of it that life their life was rich and happy in all my happy memories of the Southern childhood, you know can it can also be part of this narrative to like when I talk to my friends are like people I know who live in the North and then like all the South man. Is it hard for you to live there? No it all those things have happened to your parents to your grandparents being a black individual isn't what you feel disenfranchised. Sometimes don't you feel like you should feel angry and only can know I love where I live. It's sort of like when someone's talking about a family member and of course, like you'll be the first to say wow, man that my family ever really made me mad or sometimes that's just really upsetting but you still love them is still like you love where you live and there's a lot of Rich memories about where you live and what a beautiful things you've been through the sadness and it's just a beautiful thing to have a rich culture even if part of it inside.

36:05 Daddy, do you have any Vivid memories that you know something from your childhood that you want to share are the protected main one of my friends came over to play marbles and

36:23 Normally we would get in the backyard and shoot more of us and they would win. My mom has that I would say go in the city Mama. They got my mama's and she would come out and make them give me my mother. So that was kind of interested in terms of things to remember.

36:43 It's it's kind of like, you know, sometimes it's what you focus on in life. Sometimes it's how you choose to see it. But at the same time, I think it's important that the story of the plate this re-enslavement is told that the brutality that's in this book is given and Vivid detail because these captures they kept meticulous records of torture and murder and of the system of how it was institutionalized how this count. In fact, which it when you read the book you'll see that and parts of the book a lot of your city of Atlanta was built was laid bricks.

37:21 It was a it was a very very well, you know, but these are things that nobody really wants to celebrate because as much as will tell the stories of the horse in the atrocities of what we went through as much as well tell the stories and you can you imagine the perpetrators going home to their kids and saying yeah, I just killed, you know, six co-workers and no sew a lot of this has to be forgotten because you don't share those stories when you were the perpetrator. Nobody may know but the bricks that you know that make this beautiful city the rich post, you know Civil War reconstruction. Made with slave bricks. I don't think that's something that's always celebrated. But at the same time educating doesn't diminish the beauty of the sea.

38:10 It just it just gives us a rounder more holistic picture so that we can move forward understanding why there are people struggling for Generations cuz it's generational type of situation would be hard to overcome if it's still even touching me, you know in terms of my memories of segregation at 8:45.

38:34 So helpfully, we will all be able to to share this Rich history in a positive way he has because I know it's type of a cliche but they say that if you don't know your history are doomed to repeat it, and I'm sure things like this are going to happen again, but maybe at on a lesser scale because we did something about it and we talked about it and we realize that it was wrong.

38:57 There's some semblance of this going on with another sub group or people who are helpless or powerless or disenfranchised is your friends would say then maybe we all have a duty to do something about it ourselves, you know, and in the meantime daddy in your case, you've done so much. You can relax enjoy your retirement and then let us enjoy you so you don't have to take up this calls with you.

39:29 Any way anybody else have anything to say in closing? I realize this was on the top of your to-do list, but I'm here and I appreciate you for it.

39:44 Thank you God.