the black Family reunion
My family reunions be so Black, we had Obama on our reunion t-shirts in 2009. I just attended my latest one a couple weeks ago, and whew! The Tatum Family of North Carolina is peak Black, including the ain’t shit cousins at the reunion who didn’t pay their dues and the bougie aunties who are mad we were staying at the LaQuinta again. Our family has been through so much, but our history is so rich…as it goes with Black Americans. But this Family Reunion was different for me. I’ve been thinking a lot about my family, what I know about them and what I don’t know about them. I decided that I wanted to start compiling our family history, and as Black families go, as soon as I told people this, I was unanimously voted to be the Family Historian. One thing that has stuck out to me abundantly is how well we are actually doing when you truly delve into from whence we came.
This is a story of perseverance. Don’t get me wrong – this country still owes us goddamn reparations. In the trillions. I went to the Biltmore in Asheville, NC (owned by Vanderbilts) a few weeks ago, and while the “largest residence is America” is definitely impressive, it also pissed me the hell off. The Vanderbilts made their money in the 1800s while my ancestors were enslaved, and they made it from shipping and railroads – the shipping industry that moved my people in bondage and the railroad industry that segregated us out until the 1900s. While the Vanderbilts had the opportunity to accumulate hundreds of millions of dollars, my great-great-great-grandfather recounted how his mother and sister were taken one day and sold to Mississippi (so he was told), after which he never saw them again. Ours is a tale of Two Americas, where the Vanderbilts would ultimately pay Black workers $1 a day to build their 180,000 square foot house. That tale tells of our strength and our resilience. But OH MY GOD, I’m tired of this fucking story of triumph against hallacious odd sometimes. I want us to get back what the fuck we are owed – with a lil bit of blood back on top if I’m bein’ honest.
My mother’s family (because dads’ sides :/) traces back to the original matriarch and patriarch who were released from slavery: Elijah and Electa Tatum. Before this journey as the Family Historian, I didn’t know anything about them other than they were married, they had 9 children together, and Elijah had another child with another woman. Those 10 children form the bloodlines of our family and they are like our version of clans. I’m a Jodia (Tatum), because Elijah and Electa’s son Jodia married Sara Peterson, had my great-grandmother Naomi who married Eutrich Davis, then they had my grandmother Minnie who married Ben Dixon – and they had my mother, Dawnelle. The Eugene Tatums belong to Elijah and Electa’s other son, Eugene, who had the most children aside from Jodia. Our clans are the biggest, but our family reunion this summer had descendants of 4 clans of Tatums present. We also had people from multiple countries, coming as far as from Japan to attend our family reunion.
We have a mix of high and lows in our family, but even for the people who could be doing better, not just in my family, but across Black America…I think are still doing pretty damn good. I mean, we have lived behind enemy lines for generations, with people who hate us trying to kill us over and over and over again. For example, in interviewing a family member, I learned of an uncle whose printing press (at the time, the largest Black press in the southeast) was burned down mysteriously when he refused to sell the building to white men for development. The colonizers of this country decimated other populations of people, but they couldn’t take us out, as hard as they tried. We’re still fucking here! Still joyful. Getting better all the time. Learning and earning degrees. Buying homes and building wealth. Shit, just enjoying life when we can is a miracle when you’re talking we came to this country in filth and bondage. So,
NOT TOO MUCH ON BLACK FOLKS!
As I’ve started learning more about my family, I get more introspective about our society and my role in it as a Black American woman. I also get more angry the more I learn about my own personal lineage in this fucked-up, racist, hellhole of a country, but more on that later. We might not be the Vanderbilts, but we built this shit and I need everyone to put way more respect on our name.
