Transcript | Ep. 110: Family Secrets with Morgan Jerkins
Morgan: I am a descendant of those who were enslaved. My people survived that system. The least I can do is speak their names now, at the very least.
[Theme music]
Caroline: Hey y’all and welcome to Unladylike. I’m Caroline.
Cristen: I’m C, and the descendant you just heard is Morgan Jerkins. She’s talking to us today about her book, Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots. And Caroline, you led this conversation with Morgan because digging up family history is one of your favorite things!
Caroline: Yeah, I’m obsessed with genealogy it’s fair to say. Like I’ve been researching my family’s history for over a decade. I’ve taken all the DNA tests, I’ve shelled out literally thousands of dollars in Ancestry.com memberships fees at this point, and delightfully, I’ve swapped emails with dozens of elderly distant cousins in faraway states over all these years.
Cristen: OK listeners, the fact that Caroline just said delightfully. I mean, this is one of my favorite things about Caroline. Because what is so delightful about it?
Caroline: Oh I mean listen, I love connecting with people over history. I love a history book, but there is nothing that connects you to the events of the past as immediately and as intimately as studying your family tree, studying the existence of a person who helps turn an abstract concept into something concrete. So, for instance my family is Southern and it’s not a leap of the imagination that there are slave owners in my family tree. And so, rather than slavery being this concept in history. For me, when I go back and actually look at the records of people I am descended from and see the names of the human beings they owned. That, that is real. That makes it real. And it also makes it really hard to argue that we are distantly removed from history.
Cristen: Well, there are tons of other genealogy nerds out there that you could’ve talked to … so what was it about Morgan Jerkins and her journey of finding out about her family history that made you really really want to talk to her?
Caroline: Morgan's story is sort of the other side of the coin of my family's history in the South, like whereas my white relatives left behind really honestly easily traceable genealogical records for the most part that I can access from the comfort of my desk chair. Morgan's enslaved ancestors didn't have that. Not to mention, she and I do share the complicating factor that not a lot of people in our families passed down stories or genealogies. Like, before each of us started our respective family history investigations, we didn't have much more than scraps. So to uncover her family's roots, she went on a road trip to recreate her ancestors journeys across America. And, you know, that ultimately led her down to coastal Georgia and South Carolina, over to Creole country in Louisiana and into Black settlements in Oklahoma and California as well.
Cristen: Yeah, it was almost like she was having to sort of make her own analog ancestry.com, because on the way, you know, she interviewed distant relatives, recorded oral history, collected photographs like that's the way she was able to slowly piece together her family tree and also how it fits into these larger, often untold histories of Black America.
Caroline: Right. And in doing so, her trip revealed some uncomfortable truths ... Along the way, Morgan had to reckon with her own identity and her perceptions of blackness
Morgan: What I had to realize was, even though I'm researching my ancestors, I cannot superimpose my modern framework on what these people did to survive, you know. Because whatever choices that they made, whether I think they were right or wrong, if they didn't make them, I most likely wouldn't be here. That is difficult to contend with, but that's the thing about history. History doesn't care about your feelings.
[Stinger]
Caroline: When Morgan was growing up in New Jersey, her family didn't talk about where they came from — and who they came from. Like, anytime Morgan asked her mom why the family sang certain songs or held certain superstitions, her mom would just dismiss the question with, 'That's just what we do.'"
Cristen: Morgan's dad also jokingly called her the "milk man's baby" because of her lighter skin. So from an early age, she just had this nagging sense that she needed to know more about her background and what was so unmentionable about her own family history
Caroline: I want to know about your family and what you were told about your own past when you were growing up. So, what did your parents tell you about where you came from or where they came from?
Morgan: Well, so I was predominantly raised by my mother. I knew, figuratively speaking, that our family was from the South somewhere, but I didn't know where exactly. Our lives I felt like were just so much - so South Jersey that I didn't really ask. My dad, on the other hand, was - is different. My dad is 15 years my mother's senior. He actually migrated from the south, My dad was born and raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He was the son of a North Carolinian woman and a Houston born veteran who had Louisiana roots. but that was pretty much it. So I definitely knew there was something larger there, but I did not get the fullness of that, until I started investigating for this book.
Caroline: Was that Southern history or those origin stories purposely avoided, or just something that folks didn't really talk about or think about?
Morgan: I think it's a little bit of both. I mean, it's a common thread a lot, for descendants of Black migrants to not have the full picture of why their people left the South. And oftentimes it's because the - you know, the people who did leave the South, their grandparents or their great grandparents, they don't want to talk about it. It's often because of trauma. The Great Migration is - was the biggest mass movement in American history. Its official years were 1910 to 1970, millions of African-Americans fled the South because of Jim Crow, because of racial terrorism, my great grandfather being one of them. And it wasn't until the creation of this book that not only did I find out why my great grandparents left the South, but my mother — my mother was in her 50s — she didn't even know where my grandfather was born. It's just, they didn't talk about it. It was never - it was never brought up.
Caroline: Can I ask you why did your family leave the South and how do they fit into - how do you fit into that Great Migration story?
Morgan: I mean, I could tell I could tell one part of it. My great grandfather was driving one day in Americus, Georgia, and he accidentally hit a white man with his car. I don't know if he injured him. I don't know if killed him. All I know is, that was a death sentence, because at that time, Georgia was second to Mississippi in terms of lynchings. My great grandfather was not a stranger to that. He's heard of people he knew getting lynched. And he knew he had to run. And he, you know — he was able to get transported to a swamp and hide out there and, you know, he - he came back after another Black man was found - another Black man's body was found in that swamp. When a white mob found that he was back, they came to his workplace, and his boss, you know, came out with his Winchester rifle and said, you know, the first man to try to touch him, I’ma shoot him. I'm paraphrasing. And even though my - my great grandfather was left alone, he married someone from a neighboring town, he had a family, he knew he couldn't stay there long. And, he, his wife, and his children, boarded a train from Georgia to Philadelphia where thousands of other black refugees were, and that was that. And I think the the legacy of that is when I sat down with my grandfather to ask him about why they left, the first thing he said was, I guess I could tell the story now.
Caroline: Wow.
Morgan: Implying that it had been a family secret. And that is the legacy of the Great Migration, is that, there I was - in 2018, 2019 writing about all these omissions and gaps because things were not told to me.
Caroline: Mm hmm.
Morgan: And things were perhaps not told to me because of the fear of death. Right? And it's these moments in Black life where the randomness and suddenness and confrontation, with a white person can mean immediate annihilation. It can mean the end of someone's lineage. You either have a choice. You flee, or you stay. And that is how I came to be, it was because of my great grandfather's decision to flee. It was because of his decision to know that he had to flee and hide in the swamp. You know, and I think about that a lot when I think about Black lineages and Black threads, is that all it takes is one moment for the rest of somebody's family history to be changed forever.
Caroline: Why was it important for you to go to all of these places, Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Oklahoma, California? Like, why did you need to go there in person?
Morgan: Because, I wanted to feel that heat and that humidity. I wanted to see the land for myself. I wanted to trace their steps, and to also go back for the people in my life that had never been there It would be one thing if my people moved and migrated so much because - out of their own volition, and they kept documents, they kept recordings, they kept photos with labels of who everyone was and where the photo was taken and when it was taken. But that wasn't the case. So, the reason why I traveled to the South and across the Midwest and West, was to not only - only have a fuller sense of my identity, but my place in the larger mosaic of American history.
Cristen: We’re going to take a quick break. When we come back, Morgan takes us to Louisiana where she discovers a branch of her family tree that she had no idea existed.
Caroline: Don’t go anywhere.
[Stinger]
Cristen: We're back with Morgan Jerkins.
Caroline: Now, C, I mentioned earlier that Morgan and I both have families that weren't big on passing down family stories ... and we also both have dads who sometimes ... randomly drop significant bits of information out of nowhere
Morgan: And, my dad basically just told me that his father was Creole when we were sitting at Applebee's one night. It wasn't like we were sitting around a fireplace. And, you know, while he's having his - one of those mixed drinks that they have -
Caroline: Mm hmm.
Morgan: I'm just sitting here dumbfounded, trying to make sure my jaw doesn't hit the table because I'm like, you can't just drop a bombshell like that.
Caroline: Well why was that such a bombshell?? like what was your take on Creole people and Creole culture?
Morgan: I mean, I kind of just thought that it was just light skinned, uppity black people who didn't want to label themselves as Black. That's what I thought. It was the most reductive thing ever. Basically - I was like it's just Black people who speak French.
Cristen: Morgan’s side-eye makes sense. Creole identity and history has gotten pretty flattened over the centuries, almost to the point of erasure.
Caroline: Right. And it's gotten flattened because Creoles don't easily fit into racial or ethnic binaries. Creole originally meant people who were born in Louisiana who descended from the French or Spanish. But over time, it became a looser label/term for mixed-race folks and free people of color.
Cristen: When Creoles moved away from the South during the Great Migration, many held onto parts of the culture, while others — like Morgan's Dad’s family — distanced themselves.
Morgan: Mind you, my father had never gone to his ancestral homeland, Louisiana, a large part on my father's side is from St. Martinville, Louisiana. It's like it's part of the Acadiana region, very Cajun, very Creole, has one of the highest concentrations of French speakers in the country. Now, granted, I always knew I was African-American, you know what I'm saying? But I had no knowledge that there are sub-ethnic groups of African-Americans, and I'm just going to just take a moment to explain that.
Caroline: Mm hmm.
Morgan: Black, as we know, is a race. Black is diasporic. You can be Afro-Peruvian, you could be Afro-Argentinean, you could be Afro-Panamanian. African-American specifically is an ethnicity. What I didn't realize is, because of the expanse of the United States, because of its different regionalities and its distinctions, there are even subcomponents of the ethnicity. So you have Creoles, you have the Gullah-Geechee people, you have Freedmen, right. And what I had known about Creoles at that moment that my father told me was very little. I often - I honestly assumed that they were just light-skinned Black people who didn't want to be considered Black, because of the French influence. And when I traveled down to Louisiana, I got humbled, many times over, because I just thought, because I'm African-American, by virtue of me being in America, all of my ancestors were enslaved.
Caroline: Well, but then you get to Louisiana and you learn a lot of stuff that complicates that assumption.
Morgan: Oh absolutely. I mean, It wasn't until I got to Louisiana that, not only did I find out that during slavery, there were thousands of Black slave owners and slave owners of color, there were also free people of color. And my family was part of those people. Part of my family was not only enslaved, they were also free people of color and they were also slave owners. So to have to reckon with having ancestors who perpetuated white supremacy did not sit right with me. Because what it had - what I had to do was figure out, now what does my Blackness mean? Right, when you find out that you have ancestors who were - who survived during the plantation economy perpetuating oppression to other people. And I think that was a hard thing to contend with. Another thing was - was to contend with was, the the Creole family or, dynasty, rather I should call them, that I did fieldwork with. I was with the family of the woman. Her name is Tracy Antee Colson. She's the 17th descendant of Marie Coincoin. Marie Coincoin was the lover of a very prominent French merchant, named Thomas Pierre Metoyer. And she bore him several children. And he manumitted their children, and they - and he - and they were able to get hundreds of acres of land, in what is now known as Natchitoches in Cane River, Louisiana. And at one point, they were the wealthiest free people of color community in America. Now, when we hear about relations between enslaved black women and white men during antebellum there, it's always rape. Trigger warning. Rape, rape, rape. Not one time did I hear her ancestor - her descendants say rape. Not one time. And of course, that didn't sit right with me, because that's not the narrative that I was taught. The parts that I wrote about Louisiana, my lineage and what I found out there, man, was I scared. I was so scared of how the information was going to be interpreted, perceived, and most of all felt, by those in my community and those who weren't.
Caroline: As you learn more about your own family history, we watch you really connecting with people and connecting the dots and, I don't want to say get called out, but but people like point to your exact features and say -.
Morgan: Yeah (laughs).
Caroline: oh, you must like basically, like you must have roots here, like you're somebody's kid or you're somebody's granddaughter. And so can you tell us about “moon eyes”?
Morgan: Sure. Oh my God. Yeah. Oh. So We went to this festival in Lafayette, and this woman out of nowhere says to me, “Oh, are you from St. Landry Parish?” And it just made me stop because I was like, “No, I'm from you know, my family's from St. Martin Parish,” is only an hour away from St. Landry Parish, an hour it - so. And one of the other women who I interviewed, other Creole women that I interviewed, she was like, “It's because of those half moon eyes.” And I got emotional, because I can't stand my eyes. When - every time I smile in pictures, my mom always tells me to open my eyes because they become like slits. And I can sometimes and I can't, but I get them from my father. My father and I had the same eyes when we smile. And when that moment where someone gave a name, a beautiful description to those eyes, and then another woman almost guessed the parish where my people are from I was like - it really demonstrated to me that no matter how far you go, you can always come home. That's what it said to me. It doesn't matter if you're one generation removed or eight generations removed, like you are -it said to me, like, I am, like my face is the summation of all my ancestors. And it doesn't matter how far I've been from where they walked of those lands. If I go back, I'm always going to be home.
Caroline: Tell me how that felt, though, in in terms of rooting yourself, because to me, studying family history gives me such a - a stronger sense of of - that I have people. And especially coming from like a really small family that's not really like into togetherness, going going back gives me a sense of, I do come from somewhere. I do have these roots. So how did it how did it feel in terms of, like, your perception of family and belonging and rootedness?
Morgan: Well, I think after you know, I say this at the end of my chapter, like, I realized that I'm not just an African-American woman. After I started - after I left Louisiana, I started to identify as an African-American and Creole woman because that's who I am. I thought that I didn't really have a place in my own culture because I had never been to Louisiana. I'd I’d I’d never seen a bayou. I had never made étouffée, you know, but it's deeper than that. Regardless, it's just because I've been away for a while. That's the way I like to put it. So, you know, moving forward, I identified myself much more expansively than I had before when I went there.
Cristen: We’re going to take a quick break. When we come back, Morgan reflects on how her trip changed how she sees Blackness and shares some tips for budding genealogists.
Caroline: You’re gonna love it. Stick around.
[Stinger]
Morgan: And the thing about is when you go to certain parts of the South and they speak of their ancestors in present tense. It's so palpable, you can cut it like a knife, that energy is so hot. But then again, why wouldn't it be, if you're living only three miles down from the plantation in which your ancestors labored? Why wouldn't it be? You got to look at it every day.
Cristen: We’re back with Morgan Jenkins.
Caroline: So when you go to Louisiana, you’re grappling with a lot of your own assumptions and you talk about how basically you can't judge a book by its cover, and you meet a woman Kelly who doesn't necessarily, quote, unquote, look Black. She’s the one who told you that you had half moon eyes. And meeting her gives you a lot to think about. About race and identity and appearance when you're in Louisiana. So what did meeting Kelly force you to kind of come face to face with or what it sparked, what realization it sparked.
Morgan: Now, here's what I'll say. Like, I don't think Kelly would identify as Black. She definitely is a Creole woman, but I just thought she was straight white. I legitimately thought she was straight white. I was like, what am I doing at this white woman's house? And then I realize I'm like, no it’s it's much more complicated than that. And she recognized her privilege, but she didn't really have a say in what her skin color would look like. And so I had to think about that, like, I don't know all African-Americans. I don't. Yes, I mean, I could say, OK, if I look at you and I'm like, OK, the nose, the lips - but there are some African-Americans that don't have wide-set nose and lips. They're still Black. And so that is something I had to reckon with was just like, how do we account for how large Blackness is? How do we account for our own blind spots in our own community? I'm still learning that, that's something that, you know, is irresolute indefinitely.
Caroline: Mm hmm. Well, how did - how did this exploration change how you saw yourself?
Morgan: Just I mean, I can - for one thing, I can - if I ever am blessed enough to have a child, that child will be able to trace three hundred years of their family history. They can speak the names of their ancestors. I have photos now. I have census records. All different types of records on the Web I identify as different than where I identify - I though I was just Black. That's not the case anymore, like after - doing my travels, I now and also speak the names of the place from which my family migrated, that also feels good to the - to know those different threads.
Caroline: And you talk in the book about how oral histories that are passed down really complicate documentation.
Morgan: Yeah.
Caroline: And yet you're sort of weaving these two things together, right? In your book, you're documenting what you found by chasing down these oral histories.
Morgan: Mm hmm.
Caroline: So, what did you gain in doing this research and interviewing the people that you did? And what do we lose when we don't pay attention to those oral histories?
Morgan: I think the thing is, is like I think I just gained more knowledge. It was it was a humbling experience, one after another, to realize just how distinct African-American are - Americans are from one another, depending on region but, you know, we also had these overlapping experiences of, you know, systemic oppression and disenfranchisement. And I think, you know it's important for us to listen to these oral histories, because documentation is in the hands of the powerful, in this country the hands of the powerful are white people. So, if we just push oral histories to the background, just being, you know, speculative, not something to be seen as just as important as written documentation, we're losing a large swath of knowledge production from marginalized people, especially Black people. So that's why we have to take them seriously. I would even go so far as to say that oral histories are a lifeline or one of the bloodlines of African-American life.
Caroline: Right, exactly. What was your - what was your family's reaction to your curiosity and tracing all of this history?
Morgan: Oh, man, I wish you could see my face right now like (laughs) I found family, through my book. You know, not only was my dad proud of, my mother proud of me, I had - I found family members through my book. Literally a few weeks ago, from this recording, a man emailed me and said, hey, I read your book and I grew up alongside your father when we were kids in North Carolina, and I had no idea we were related.
Caroline: Ah.
Morgan: And he emailed me all of these old pictures from the 1800s and 1900s on that side of my family.
Caroline: Oh, my god.
Morgan: He emailed me manumission letters, manumissions meaning like, when, you know, slave owners would free their slaves and they were free. He emailed me copies of that. I found family. I did an interview with NPR. Get this, you're going to really like this one. Oh, my God, just I get chills just thinking about it. I visited Butler Island Plantation in - and it's not too far from Darien, Georgia. I went on a noninstitutional tour of Butler Plantation with a descendant of one of the enslaved people who toiled on that plantation. And I told NPR that if you go there today, there's an historical marker for a white woman who wrote about her, who wrote a diary about her time there. But there is nothing that commemorates the enslaved people that work there. And the woman that that was giving me the tour, she had been trying to give a historical marker to commemorate her ancestors and those of others for years.
Caroline: Mm hmm.
Morgan: After I did that interview, a white woman DM'd me on Instagram and told me I was listening to your NPR interview and I had to pull my car over. My name is such and such, and one of my great grandfathers was the owner of that plantation at the time that the woman who gave you that tour, at the time that her ancestor was working there.
Caroline: Oh, my God.
Morgan: And she was like, if you can get me in touch with this woman in any way, I would love to help to commemorate these people. And that is exactly what I wanted. I wanted people, especially white people, to understand that that history is close. And that's what I was hoping for, for people to read my book and say, hey, wait a minute, like now I want to research my family history, too. Hey, wait a minute, I think I recognize family in here, too. Hey, wait a minute, my family at one point has to reckon with the aftermath of slavery too. So that we can reconcile some things and reckon with some things as a nation. That's all I could ask for with this book.
Caroline: Well, I just loved talking to you so much -.
Morgan: Thank you.
Caroline: And people in my life are sick of me talking about genealogy, so it was so great to be able to interview you about you, your exploration.
Morgan: Thank you.
[Stinger]
Cristen: Caroline, I am so curious to know, having talked to Morgan Jerkins. What have you, the genealogy nerd, taken away from it?
Caroline: Oh, gosh, I mean, the main thing that that our conversation reinforced is just how close history is. That's something that she and I talked about. We are we are not far removed from the things that our ancestors did and did to each other. History is very close and it reaffirmed my passion for learning more about it, honestly, because in studying family history, you're studying the history of where you come from, you're studying the history of America. You're studying the history of why we relate to each other the way that we do. And that that can only be a good thing to to learn more about our history. And something that I so appreciate is honestly being able to use my ancestors as keys to the past. Learning about their lives is what has helped me learn so much more about our country's history, about things like privilege and just reaffirming my love of discovering family and a sense of rootedness. Yeah, I just - talking to Morgan just made me excited about family history all over again.
[Stinger]
Caroline: You can find Morgan Jerkins on Twitter @morganjerkins. Don’t forget to pick up her book Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots is. Plus, her new novel Caul Baby is out now!
Cristen: You can find us on instagram, facebook and Twitter @unladylikemedia. You can also support Cristen and me by joining our Patreon; you’ll get weekly bonus episodes, listener advice and our undying love at patreon.com/unladylikemedia.
Caroline: Nora Ritchie is the senior producer of Unladylike. Gianna Palmer is our story editor. Shruti Marathe transcribes our tape. Our music is by Flamingo Shadow, Amit May Cohen and Sarah Tudzin. Mixing is by Andi Kristins. Sound design and additional music is by Casey Holford and Andi Kristins. Executive producers are Peter Clowney, Daisy Rosario and Unladylike Media.
Cristen: This podcast was created by your hosts, Cristen Conger
Caroline: And Caroline Ervin of Unladylike Media.
Cristen: Next week, we’re talking with Chelsea Devantez, comedian and host of the podcast Celebrity Book Club.
Chelsea: This will sound so corny, but these books have saved my life and continue to save my life. I, I had a really traumatic childhood myself and. And it it really makes you wonder if a certain type of person is drawn to the arts, but what I think is more likely is that a lot of people have trauma in their life, but because they become celebrities, they will open up about it in their books. And they're really all of them or most of them are incredible roadmaps into how you truly master your trauma and become a more powerful, successful, hopefully better woman.
Caroline: We talk with Chelsea about the celebrity diva construct — particularly when it comes to Mariah Carey and Celine Dion.
Cristen: You don’t want to miss this episode! Make sure you’re subscribed to Unladylike. Find us on stitcher, spotify, apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Caroline: And remember, got a problem?
Cristen: Get Unladylike.
