Living at Odds | 3. Making Amends for Ancestors

How To!

Slate Magazine

Business, Education, How To, Self-improvement

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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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 [email protected] 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. Want more How To!? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the How To! show page. Or, visit slate.com/howtoplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:36.8	like Juliet. She's now a trained technician.
0:40.3	And to her, the sound of machinery in need of repair,
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1:00.0	Eligibility conditions apply.
1:06.9	If you're a white person in America and your family's been here for a long enough time,
1:10.2	the odds that your family owns slaves are pretty good. A 2023 project found that among the living members of Congress,
1:14.6	presidents, Supreme Court justices, and governors in this country, one in five are direct descendants of slaveholders.
1:24.6	The PBS series, Finding Your Roots, does this kind of genealogical review pretty often.
1:30.3	Here's CNN's Anderson Cooper finding out how his fourth-great-grandfather, an enslaver, met his end.
1:37.3	This clip starts with the host, Henry Lewis Gates, Jr.
1:40.3	Boykin was murdered by a rebellious slave. Wow. Your ancestor was beaten to death with a farm home.
1:49.5	Oh my God. That's amazing. This is incredible. I'm blown away. You think he deserved it? Yeah.
2:00.0	I have no doubt. It's a horrible way to die,
2:03.1	Anderson. He had 12 slaves. I don't feel bad for it. Okay. Now, of course, most of us don't have
2:10.0	access to a historian like Henry Lewis Gates and his research team. It takes a lot of work to
2:16.0	dig this stuff up yourself, especially if your family doesn't
	...

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