SHARPTON'S ANCESTORS OWNED BY S. THURMOND'S ANCESTORS....

Bacoo · (#1 (**permalink**))

Slavery Ties Sharpton to Thurmond

NEW YORK (Feb. 25) - Genealogists have revealed that the Rev. Al Sharpton is a descendent of a slave owned by relatives of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond - a discovery the civil rights activist on Sunday called "shocking."

Sharpton learned of his connection to Thurmond, once a prominent defender of segregation, last week through the Daily News, which asked genealogists to trace his roots.

"It was probably the most shocking thing in my life," Sharpton said at a news conference Sunday, the same day the tabloid revealed the story.

"I have always wondered what was the background of my family," the newspaper quoted Sharpton as saying. "But nothing -- nothing -- could prepare me for this."

"It's chilling. It's amazing."

Some of Thurmond's relatives said the nexus also came as a surprise to them. Doris Strom Costner, a distant cousin who said she knew the late senator all her life, said Sunday she "never heard of such a thing."

"My momma never would talk to me about nothing like that," Costner said of ancestors who owned slaves. "She only talked to me about good things."

The revelations surfaced after Ancestry.com contacted a Daily News reporter who agreed to have his own family tree done. The intrigued reporter then turned around and asked Sharpton if he wanted to participate. Sharpton said he told the paper, "Go for it."

The genealogists, who were not paid by the newspaper, uncovered the ancestral ties using a variety of documents that included census, marriage and death records.

Thurmond, of South Carolina, was once considered an icon of racial segregation. During his 1948 bid for president, he promised to preserve segregation and, in 1957, he filibustered for more than 24 hours against a civil rights bill.

Sharpton, who ran for president in 2004 on a ticket of racial justice, said he met Thurmond only once in 1991 when he visited Washington, D.C., with the late soul singer James Brown, who knew Thurmond. Sharpton said the meeting was "awkward."

"I was not happy to meet him because what he had done all his life," Sharpton said.
Thurmond was seen as softening his segregation stance later in his life. He died in 2003, at 100. The long-serving senator was originally a Democrat but became a Republican in 1964.

Thurmond's children have acknowledged that Thurmond fathered a biracial daughter. Essie Mae Washington-Williams' mother was a housekeeper in the home of Thurmond's parents.

Telephone message left by The Associated Press on Sunday for Strom Thurmond Jr. and an attorney who once represented Thurmond's biracial daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, were not returned.

Gmahogany. · (#2 (**permalink**))

I was wondering if anyone had posted this. This should give all of those who insist that reparations are not fair or doable because there's no way to know who was a slave or which whites owned them, stop talking out of their ass, but it probably won't.

Not only is it possible that most Blacks in Americacan document this stuff, it's LIKELY, because these crackers went through great pains to document and insure,file property deeds on ALL of the property they owned, be it: land, plows, horses,cattle or US(there most "valuable" property).

The Thurmond family wealth, is probably at least in part due to the free slave labor of Sharpton's great grandfather(or great great), ain't that a bitch?

impactplayer · (#3 (**permalink**))

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Gmahogany. · (#4 (**permalink**))

impactplayer wrote:

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Reparations still isnt doable because insome cases blacks are decendents of thier slaveowners. What about white immigrants who arrived after the slave era, would they pay? Itspossible 1 in every 5 AA's ancestors were white. What about whites withno visible African featuresbut substainal african ancestry? Enough time has past to have literally changed a "white" person "Black". Hell, your people could have possibly could have owned my people.It all becomes a slippery slope.

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How would being descendants of our slaveowners, negate a reparations claim? Just because a white man forced/coerced a female slave to have sex doesn't necessarily mean that the descendants were welcomed into the fam and received monetary benefit from that occurence, or that the "black descendants and the white "relatives" ever became one happy cohesive family unit, equally sharing in the profits of the "black desendants" labor.

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Why would white immigrants who came here after slavery be included when there would obviously be no paper trail connecting them to slavery? Nobody is talking about targeting random crackers. Furthermore, reparations claims would not only have to made towards individual families,(though in cases like Sharpton's where it can be documented and proven, why the hell not?). There are companies that are still profitable and in business that BENEFITTED and built their wealth/portfolio on slavery, by issuing insurance policies to slave owners, etc. If slave descendant can connect the dots between their antecedent who was deemed "property" and the insurance company that issued a policy on that "property", causing damage and profiting off of that damage/injury, why would that not be a legitimate claim?

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If the "whites with no visible African features", have the ability to document who owned them, like Sharpton can, and they don't mind ADMITTING their "substantial African ancestry", more power to em.

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This wouldn't have to be something that all AA's did. Those who feel it's all water under the bridge, and don't feel particularly 'injured" by what went down, or have murkier or less clear cut claims/documentationwould be free to not file/particpate in lawsuits.

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On a personal note I find this whole story suspect. Why is Sharpton so obviously overracting?Him calling a press conference about the whole thing was more bizzare than the connection itself.Theres just nothing new here. Africans were enslaved, we know the history. He shouldnt be surprised ifhesassociatedwith a popular American figuresince primarily white wealthy familesowned slaves. And

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since when did geneolgy become such a hot topic in this country? Why now?

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He called a press conference on it, because it was being discussed ANYWAY. Ancestry.com was using the story to get new subscribers. It's was on the front page of their site, last I checked. I don't get why his response is suspect to anyone. How would you respond? How would any of us respond? Are u sure you would resond how you THINK you would? I think that's a very individual thing. There is certainly no set protocol for how to respond to finding out WHICH specific crackers OWNED your family,lol. Particularly one that includes a well knownperson who spent most of his life doing dirt in reference to Black folks, in general, whom you've had the DISPLEASURE of meeting at one time, and didn't like.

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Sharpton didn't even initate the thing. A black newspaper in NY asked him if he would particpate in having his DNA traced for Black History month, like Oprah, Whoopi, and others have. He said yes. While Ancestry.com's genealogists were tracing leads on his paternal great grandfather, they came across court records,documenting the ownership.

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Genealogy has become a hot topic because of all of the strides that have been made in mitachondrial DNA, etc. The average person now has the wherewithal to easily and fairly inexpensively, document ,specify , and prove some ish, that we formerly had to speculate about/wonder about.

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....Intriging......Intriging indeed.

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Bacoo · (#5 (**permalink**))

Would the Black ancestors of Black slavemasters have to pay reparations or would they be exempt because they are Black??

Gmahogany. · (#6 (**permalink**))

Bacoo wrote:

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Would the Black ancestors of Black slavemasters have to pay reparations or would they be exempt because they are Black?

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Nope, they would not/should not be exempt. If the Blacks who were owned by these Black slave masters families could document that they were owned by them like Sharpton;Their asses can get sued,too.

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Why are people acting like this is so complicated? There were three things at work here. THere was the INDIVIDUAL slave owners(that would have to be documented by the families of the decendants and pursued by INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE/FAMILY/DESCENDANTS,if they so chose), there was the PRIVATE BUSINESS aspect,:insurance companies/shipping companies, etc. who benefitted and profited, and there was the GOVERNMENT itself, which would be more of a class action thing. They all played roles and can all be addressed in a three pronged approach.

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When the government paid the Japanesesurvivors and families of WW2 interment camps, reparations, back in the 1980'/90'ss for shit that happened in the 40's.The tax money of people working in the 1980's was used to pay for shit that they had nothing to do with, andpossibly weren't even alive at the time of. So all of the confusion and overcomplication of things isn't really valid.

Bacoo · (#7 (**permalink**))

Its hard to get people who worship their master (singing amazing grace every sunday) to turn around and sue their master. They are too busy imitating him to think about attack.

Gmahogany. · (#8 (**permalink**))

This Sharpton stuff has me researching my family's roots, trying to see if there are any Crackers with 2 nickels to rub together that MY FAM might be able to go after....

Seriously though, ancestry.com has a 3 day free trial, where u have access to billions of online records. You just put in the names/dates/places of relatives that you do know as far back as u can go, and it does searches to find information on them. That info might give you info that you DIDN'T have when you started, so then you can go back further. They have:birth certificates, census records, death certificates, military records, immigration records, marriage certificates,land deeds/wills, etc(i found my paternal grandfather's WW2 military record). I'm already back to 1855 with one line of my family, after only a couple of hours of researching. Already found info 2 generations back further than what I started with. It's fascinating, ya'll ought to check it out.

Shemsi en Tehuti · (#9 (**permalink**))

Gmahogany. wrote:

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Bacoo wrote:

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Would the Black ancestors of Black slavemasters have to pay reparations or would they be exempt because they are Black?

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Nope, they would not/should not be exempt. If the Blacks who were owned by these Black slave masters families could document that they were owned by them like Sharpton;Their asses can get sued,too.

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Why are people acting like this is so complicated? There were three things at work here. THere was the INDIVIDUAL slave owners(that would have to be documented by the families of the decendants and pursued by INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE/FAMILY/DESCENDANTS,if they so chose), there was the PRIVATE BUSINESS aspect,:insurance companies/shipping companies, etc. who benefitted and profited, and there was the GOVERNMENT itself, which would be more of a class action thing. They all played roles and can all be addressed in a three pronged approach.

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When the government paid the Japanesesurvivors and families of WW2 interment camps, reparations, back in the 1980'/90'ss for sh*t that happened in the 40's.The tax money of people working in the 1980's was used to pay for sh*t that they had nothing to do with, andpossibly weren't even alive at the time of. So all of the confusion and overcomplication of things isn't really valid.

That is not a fair assessment at all. The majority of the Black slave owners had "papers" on family members such as brothers, sisters, children, and wives. They had to buy them from slave masters to reunite their families. It is callous and absolutely nonsensical to make these families pay restitution when it was their only way of uniting their families and loved ones. If anything, they should get more restitution for having to put out money to be with their families and loved ones.

Bacoo · (#10 (**permalink**))

There were a number of Black slave owners who owned slaves to work their plantations and even contracted slave hunters to find their runaways.

Shemsi en Tehuti · (#11 (**permalink**))

Bacoo wrote:

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There were a number of Black slave owners who owned slaves to work their plantations and even contracted slave hunters to find their runaways.

This is true, but I would still argue that this behavior was learned from Whites. As Dr. Khallid Muhammed stated, when you deprive a man from his knowledge of self, he will automatically take on the characteristics of his oppressor. This was demonstrated clearly in the creation of the country Liberia. The first thing these freed Africans did was enslave the Africans there. Therefore, it shouldn't be seen as these Africans should pay, because they needed healing as we even do today.