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Sharing family history is a big part of family reunions. Making a family tree is one way to understand the history, but there are lots of other interesting ways to tell the story.
You can:
- Write and act out skits based on family stories.
- Collect pictures for a family photo album or scrapbook.
- Compile recipes for a family cookbook.
- Sew a family quilt using squares contributed by family members.
- Put together a time capsule at one reunion, to be opened at a later reunion.
There are a bunch of resources out there that can be helpful in tracing your family roots. But be sure to start in your own backyard! Interview family elders and record what they say. And remember that family reunions are history in the making, so record information from younger members, too. You might even want to videotape your activities and interviews for the sake of future generations.
If it's hard to find out any details of your family's history, you might try exploring the history of your town, your school, your place of worship, or the experiences of other people whose ethnic, racial, geographical, or economic background is similar to yours.
Or, try documenting the stories of your close friendships. Friends, like family, can create community and a sense of belonging. You can use any of the ideas on this page to create a shared history of you and your friends.
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Brandon
I just read a book called The Life and Times of Peter Still. The brothers' and sisters' names are Peter, Levin, Mihallah and Kitturah.
I remember that their father's name was Levin, Sr., and he bought his freedom. He told his wife that he would be heading up to the North. His wife came to the North -- escaped -- but later the master found out that she had left and sent hunters out and they found her. And they brought her back and locked her up. So she wouldn't be able to get out. And she came back to the house in the North later, but didn't take all of her kids; she only took two, the two sisters, and left the other two to a man named King. She leaves her two boys, Peter and Levin. The boys are thinking that this man is going to take them to their mother. But he really isn't, he's going to take them to a man named Fisher, who is a master.
Keaira
Peter Still met two white men who helped him. And they helped him get his freedom. He had actually worked the whole time he was in slavery, and saved all his money. And he pretends to be all sickly and old and his master sold him to these two white guys and they traveled with him to the North under the pretense of taking their little slave along with them, and they set him free.
He got to Philadelphia and he went to the Freedman's Bureau to get help -- because once they got out of slavery, people didn't have clothes or a place to stay. And he was telling the story of how he was sold and he knew his momma went to Philadelphia, 'cause that's what an old woman back home had told him. And that "Slaves be free in Philadelphia!" That's a quote from my grandmother's storytelling. And lo and behold, he was telling the story to William Still, who was his brother. And that is how he found his family and became reunited with them. After the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, the whole family met up. And that was the first family reunion.
Brandon
And they used to sing a song: "Help me find a white man you can trust. Tell him you got stole from your momma in Philadelphia."
Keaira
And his brother Levin, who would be Levin, Jr., he never felt that he would ever find a white man that he could trust and he died in slavery. He was beaten to death, actually. But Peter kept hope and he found not one, but two, white men that he could trust. And after he got to Philadelphia and had his freedom, he crisscrossed the North and Canada and raised enough money to buy his family out of slavery. $5,000. His story's just an amazing one that can give hope to anybody. It's things like that that make having family reunions just great.
Peter's mother's actual name was Sidney. She changed it when she got to the North, because she figured slave catchers would catch on to Sidney, but Charity might be a little harder to find. She was a church-going woman, and when Peter started looking for his momma he checked all those churches. And she loved her family, and she was a strong-willed woman.
Brandon
Charity had 18 children. One of them was Will Still who entered the world in 1821 and died in 1902. He was an abolitionist. An abolitionist is like, say, a journalist, but writes stuff about the Underground Railroad. He wrote stuff about our family.
Keaira
William Still did a whole lot of things for Philadelphia. Just an incredible man. He was instrumental in the desegregation of streetcars, he worked for the Freedman's Bureau, and he has been called the "Father of the Underground Railroad." After Harriet Tubman, who had gotten hundreds of people out of slavery. She worked hand in hand with William Still.
Because once they got to the North, former slaves had no money, they had no clothes, they had no jobs, they had nothing, they had been in slavery their whole lives. And so he would set them up in homes in the North and give them clothes and jobs. And his wife was just an amazing woman, all of these people would come to his home, and some of these people would have lice, and ticks and fleas. And all kinds of things, 'cause they had made this hard journey out of slavery. She would take them in and bathe them and feed them and clothe them. And sometimes hide them until they could get on to actually living free. 'Cause they were technically free, but then you've got to LIVE free.
Brandon
Even though the slaves were beaten to death, they still didn't give up. They got whipped with scars all over, they said. Slaves barely had time to see their parents, their aunts.... Some kids got whipped to death. I can't bear to imagine that.
And I think when some slave children were born they just died, 'cause they weren't living in good conditions. Living in mud, barely fed, all they fed them was a piece of bread or something. I can't imagine how people could live through that.... If it was me...
I think it was their spirit and the love that they cherish that kept them going. They never broke apart. There is not anything that I wouldn't do if my aunts and uncles were getting whipped. I would just say "Hey, come on, let's get back up, we can make it out." We would still keep going. In our souls. 'Cause I'd know there was someone there for me.
Keaira
We pass down these stories and we try to keep our history alive not for bragging purposes -- like ahah, ahah, the big family, the long history -- but because they are lessons, they are ways of learning from your ancestors, from what people have already done. And you can say, "yes, that works, yes, this is what I want to do." I want to be that type of person, who will persevere to the end.
Another family member, Dr. James Still, was the Black Doctor of the Pines. He used fresh herbs and tree roots. They would be lines leading up to his visiting room. White people, black people, people of all colors. He was just that good. I believe he taught himself to read, which is just amazing that someone who taught himself to read could become such an amazing doctor.
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