Living at Odds | 3. Making Amends for Ancestors
How To! with Mike Pesca
Peach Fish Projects
4.3 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 22 April 2025
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the third installment of our series Living at Odds, How To!'s Courtney Martin examines what it's like being in conflict with your family history. She talks with ancestors of the famous names in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court decision that affirmed racial segregation in the U.S. as "separate but equal." Later, researcher Kellie Farrish explains how reparative genealogy can unlock family history that's been lost or erased—and bring together descendants of enslaved people and their enslavers into conversations about the past, present, and future.
If you're enjoying Living at Odds, check out this How To! episode: How To 'Do the Work' of Racial Justice.
Do you have a problem that needs solving? Send us a note at howto@slate.com or leave us a voicemail at 646-495-4001 and we might have you on the show. Subscribe for free on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
This episode was produced by Maura Currie and Rosie Belson. Our technical director is Merritt Jacob, who composed original music for this series. Our supervising producer is Joel Meyer. Thank you to Dahlia Lithwick of Amicus and Sophie Summergrad for their help with this episode.
Special thanks to The Hearthland Foundation, which provided funding for Living at Odds.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi everyone, I'm Susie Weiss, and I've noticed there's just simply not enough podcasts in the world. So I'm launching my own. Let's go. Let's go, baby. Second Thought is a weekly show about pop culture. The stuff everyone's been binging, arguing about, obsessing over. Here's the thing about heated rivalry. I mean, even the most devoted swifties, I think we can agree, not our best work. We'll be hosting thoughtful conversations with culture's most important figures. Talk about genius. |
| 0:22.6 | Talk about generational talent. |
| 0:23.7 | Coming to headphones near you |
| 0:24.8 | on April 17th with a first guest you won't want to miss. Available wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:31.9 | If you're a white person in America and your family's been here for a long enough time, |
| 0:36.6 | the odds that your family |
| 0:38.4 | owned slaves are pretty good. A 2023 project found that among the living members of Congress, |
| 0:44.9 | presidents, Supreme Court justices, and governors in this country, one in five are direct |
| 0:51.9 | descendants of slaveholders. |
| 1:00.1 | The PBS series, Finding Your Roots, does this kind of genealogical review pretty often. |
| 1:06.8 | Here's CNN's Anderson Cooper finding out how his fourth-great-grandfather, an enslaver, met his end. |
| 1:10.0 | This clip starts with the host, Henry Lewis Gates Jr. |
| 1:13.8 | Boykin was murdered by a rebellious slave. |
| 1:14.6 | Wow. |
| 1:18.6 | Your ancestor was beaten to death with a farm home. |
| 1:21.1 | Oh my God. |
| 1:23.7 | That's amazing. |
| 1:25.1 | This is incredible. |
| 1:27.4 | I'm blown away. You think you deserved it? Yeah. You do. I am blown away. |
| 1:28.6 | You think you deserved it? |
| 1:29.0 | Yeah. |
| 1:30.5 | You do? |
... |
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