WEBVTT

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I think I'd like to
read a little bit--

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I wrote a book
called Generations,

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which is a memoir of my
father's family on this land.

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My father when he was in his
cups, and that was off and on,

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he used to say to me, "Lucille,
you are not the first Lucille.

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The first Lucille was the first
Black woman legally hanged

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in the state of Virginia."

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And I used to say,
wow, all right.

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And I didn't listen very much.

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But before my father
died, fortunately I

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became wise enough to
start listening to him

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when he would tell the story
of the ancestor who was called

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Caroline, Mammy Caroline.

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Born in 1822 among
the Dahomey people,

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kidnapped and brought
to America in 1830,

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walked from New
Orleans to Virginia.

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I used to tell my kids that--

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they want bus fare to
go around the corner.

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And I'd say Caroline walked
from New Orleans to Virginia

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in 1830, and they'd remind me
that it's now the '80s of 1900,

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forget it.

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And was sold to a
man named Bob Donald.

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So she was called Bob Donald's
Caroline or Caroline Donald.

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She worked in an orchard,
and she was a midwife.

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And there was also
at that time a man

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who was called Uncle Sam Lewis.

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And he had been a Christmas
present to the early family.

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I always wondered did they
have a bow around his neck?

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Did they put stickers
on them that said--

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I don't know how they did that.

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I'd like to see that.

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And he was a Christmas
present to the family.

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And he had become a
slave, too old to work.

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And so he used to
drive his master, who

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was called by my father,
old man John [INAUDIBLE],,

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around in the carriage
because he was also old

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and he was blind.

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Well, Uncle Sam Lewis driving
by the orchard one day

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saw Caroline Donald
and asked that she

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be bought for him for his wife.

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Now what did he want
with her, right?

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Because he was too old to work,
and they did not retire you

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at good ages during those days.

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However, she was bought for him,
and they had seven children.

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The first one was
called Lucille.

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And I have six, you know.

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And Lucille, after the
war between the states,

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a man named Harvey Nichols--

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I like to read this
in Connecticut,

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I often have because
I'm devilish sometimes--

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a man named Harvey Nichols
came from Connecticut

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with his family to
Virginia to make money.

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He was called a carpetbagger.

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And it is alleged--

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and now I have to say alleged
because Black history is

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usually alleged.

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Everybody else's
history happened.

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Ours is just alleged.

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And it is alleged that Lucy
had a child by Harvey Nichols.

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When the child was
less than a year old,

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she waited and she
killed Harvey Nichols

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and was tried and hanged.

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The alleged child
was called Jeannie.

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His alleged child was my
father, and I am truly

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my father's daughter.

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Anyway, this is a little
section of that book.

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The first part is in
my father's language,

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and then the later part
is in my own language.

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And what you want to remember
is that the blood grandfather

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is a white man from Connecticut
named Harvey Nichols.

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OK, here's my daddy.

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"Yes Lord, he was born
with a withered arm.

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And when he was
still just a baby,

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Lucy waited by the crossroad
one night for Harvey Nichols

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to come to her.

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And when he rolled
up on a white horse,

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she cocked up a rifle she
had stole and shot him

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off his horse and
killed him, Lou.

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And she didn't run away.

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She didn't run away.

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She waited right there by the
body with the rifle in her hand

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till the horse coming back
empty saddle to the stable

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brought a mob to see what
had become of Harvey Nichols.

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And when they got
to the crossroad

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they found Lucy standing there
with the rifle in her hand,

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and they didn't Lynch
her, Lou, because she

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was Mammy Caroline's child
and from Dahomey women.

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That's what I believe.

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Mammy Caroline got
one of the lawyers

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[INAUDIBLE] family to
defend her daughter

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because they was all lawyers
and preachers in that family.

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They had a legal trial, and Lucy
was found guilty and hanged.

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Mammy Caroline took the
baby boy Jeannie and raised

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him and never let him
forget who he was.

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I used to ask her sometime,
'Mammy, was you scared back

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then by Grandma Lucy?'

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And she would look
right at me and say,

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'I'm scared for you, mister.

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That's all.' She always
called me mister.

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She said I was Mr. Salle.

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And Lou, I always was."

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Later, I would ask
my father for proof.

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"Where are the records, Daddy?"

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I would ask.

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The time may not be
right, and it might just

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be a family legend or something.

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"Somebody somewhere
knows," he would say.

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And I would be
dissatisfied and fuss

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with Fred about fact
and proof and history

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until he told me one
day not to worry,

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that even the lies are true.

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In history, even
the lies are true.

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And there would be days
when we young Salles

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would be trying to dance
and sing in the house,

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and Sammy, my brother,
would miss a step

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and not be able to
keep up to the music.

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And neither one of us could
ever learn how to dance.

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And he would look over in the
corner of the room and holler,

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"Damn Harvey Nichols,"
and we would laugh.

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[APPLAUSE]

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We always blamed him for our
lack of rhythm in my family.

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You shouldn't have.

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Well, it was his fault.

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