00:00:16:15 - 00:00:40:21
Jonathan Knight
I struggled with how to tell this story. Am I the right person to do it? How can I tell the story of people enslaved by my family? I was removed from it by time and generations and I was comfortable with that distance. I was afraid of finding myself in this history. I was afraid of being called out for all my privilege.

00:00:41:12 - 00:01:11:09
Le Datta Grimes
When I got the email saying that, there was a descendant of Richard Bibb, who was a film maker who wanted to tell this story. I honestly was in disbelief. Immediately, I want to know, is this a real filmmaker? And so who is he? Do we have the same ideas about this story and how to tell it? And so I look him up and I realize it's a white man, and immediately I did have reservations about that.

00:01:11:22 - 00:01:30:14
Le Datta Grimes
I could not be a part of something that was going to whitewash this story and not tell it in all of its ugliness. And I did not know whether or not Jonathan, the filmmaker, was doing the work of anti-racism.

00:01:33:10 - 00:01:56:03
Jonathan Knight
When the murders of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Sandra Bland went unpunished. It sparked uprisings around the country. Those protests shook away my sense of racial progress, and I was embarrassed by how complacent I had been. I saw just how protected I was by my privilege and my whiteness.

00:02:00:00 - 00:02:34:14
Le Datta Grimes
This is literally a story of black freedom. Black empowerment. Because it's not just the story of this slave holder, who frees these people who should never have been enslaved, and he bequeaths to them land, houses, tools, money. It's the story of how these people choose to use those resources to build three free black towns in rural western Kentucky.

00:02:35:00 - 00:02:38:16
Le Datta Grimes
Prior to the civil War.

00:02:39:22 - 00:03:05:00
Jonathan Knight
This story was told in family histories. Richard Bibb's descendants bragged that he freed the people he enslaved. It made them feel good and made it easier to gloss over the evils of slavery in our past. But this is a unique story for a different reason. It was mentioned as an afterthought, but when I read that those formerly enslaved people founded black communities that were still connected to the land they inherited.

00:03:05:06 - 00:03:31:01
Jonathan Knight
I was shocked that this was part of my family's story and was so overlooked. If I was told about Richard Bibb as a kid, I had totally forgotten it when I got an email from my sister Rachel. She found the entry in the family history that our grandmother meticulously compiled over 50 years ago. She dug a little deeper to find that our ancestor's house was still standing in Kentucky.

00:03:31:11 - 00:03:37:18
Jonathan Knight
It suddenly had new relevance to both of us. The Civil War seemed to be reigniting in the streets.

00:03:39:17 - 00:04:04:16
Rachel Knight
Soon after Charlottesville. It made me start thinking about our own Southern roots. That march really was surprising to me to see these white men who weren't trying to hide who they were. The pride that some Southerners still feel towards that and the Confederate flag. And thinking about our own history and thinking about how removed we were from that.

00:04:05:20 - 00:04:20:04
Rachel Knight
I was fascinated to learn that she has in here, pictures of the Bibb house from 1970. So she traveled there.

00:04:25:00 - 00:04:47:15
Le Datta Grimes
Immediately upon hearing this story, I was like, wow, I have to find out what is that about? What is that story? Who is Richard Bibb? Who are these freed slaves? Who are his children? What happened to that land? I think in anybody's mind, not just a journalist. You know, the story in and of itself creates questions.

00:04:49:04 - 00:04:55:12
Jonathan Knight
Le Datta introduced us to Michael Morrow. She knew he was the key to finding our connections to this story.

00:04:56:09 - 00:05:25:22
Michael Morrow
For the last three years, I've researched slaves that were freed by Major Richard Bibb in his will in 1839. As a kid, I stumbled up on the story about being around members of the Bibb family and listened in to talk about their ancestors. As I started researching, it became like a disease to me. I just got more interested and interested in the story.

00:05:27:07 - 00:05:48:10
Jonathan Knight
Our ancestor's grave sits in a field a few miles out of town. Michael wanted us to see it, but I wasn't sure that morning if I was ready to connect with Richard. Bibb. I feel like this is, this is right back at the beginning. This is the start of our story. I want to learn more and figure out where he belongs in my own story.

00:05:49:18 - 00:06:01:11
Rachel Knight
I do feel some kind of connection, it's not necessarily built on affection, but it is a personal connection. I think that's important because their story is our story.

00:06:02:11 - 00:06:10:06
Jonathan Knight
However much you want to, you don't necessarily invent yourself. You've been invented before you were born.

00:06:11:21 - 00:06:41:17
Michael Morrow
Major Richard Bibb was a Revolutionary War soldier. He was born about 1752 in Virginia. He was born into wealth. His father, John, was a kind of wealthy man. When the revolution broke out, Major Bibb headed to the Episcopal Ministry. But he joined the revolution. And legend has it that a slave convinced him that slavery was wrong. And later became a pastor in the Methodist Church.

00:06:41:17 - 00:07:20:11
Michael Morrow
About 1799, he moved to Kentucky. He first moved to Lexington and Bullitt County area about 18, maybe hundred, 1801, 02. He came to Logan County and as far as we've been able to research, he first went to an area called McCloud Station and after he established Bibb's Chapel, he later moved to the Clarksville Road and had a farm. And then by 1814, 1815, he came to the city of Russellville.

00:07:21:08 - 00:07:44:05
Michael Morrow
And by that time, his first wife had died. And he married his second wife and built a mansion in Russellville for her. And by 1839, he's in his 80 year, he's real old, and he decides to free his slaves.

00:07:44:05 - 00:08:05:23
Jonathan Knight
Bibb's Mansion sits in a quiet, leafy neighborhood. In his day, the estate would have covered three or four city blocks. It was built from the ground up by enslaved people. Rachel and I had come all this way to see it, but it wasn't an easy first tour.

00:08:08:20 - 00:08:16:13
Rachel Knight
So after Major Bibb freed his slaves, his children still kept their slaves.

00:08:16:14 - 00:08:17:19
Michael Morrow
Most of them did.

00:08:17:19 - 00:08:19:02
Rachel Knight
Yeah...

00:08:20:16 - 00:08:44:12
Jonathan Knight
We moved through the house slowly, examining each room. We had lots of questions, but I still didn't feel any real connection to it. Then we climbed the last narrow set of stairs to the slave quarters in the attic. It was hot up there, and I can only imagine what it was like for the enslaved people who lived in this cramped space.

00:08:46:02 - 00:08:51:04
Jonathan Knight
The men working for Michael had been up there for hours, scrubbing off a century worth of soot.

00:08:51:08 - 00:08:54:05
Le Datta Grimes
This is kind of what oppression feels like.

00:08:54:05 - 00:08:55:14
Jonathan Knight
Yeah, this Is living in an oven.

00:08:55:19 - 00:08:56:08
Le Datta Grimes
Yeah.

00:08:58:18 - 00:09:23:13
Jonathan Knight
Slavery felt very real up there. It felt uneasy. The people who lived in this space were enslaved by my family. Michael had gathered some Bibb descendants and community members to see the progress on the Future Museum. I didn't know how we would be greeted. They had no reason to welcome us, and I don't think they were ready to give us the benefit of the doubt.

00:09:24:05 - 00:09:24:18
Charles Neblett
Yeah, this is

00:09:24:18 - 00:09:28:05
Charles Neblett
Slave quarters. Can you imagine 'em staying

00:09:28:06 - 00:09:28:11
Charles Neblett
up here,

00:09:29:00 - 00:09:30:09
Le Datta Grimes
It's hard to imagine it.

00:09:30:09 - 00:09:31:14
Charles Neblett
in the summertime.

00:09:31:14 - 00:09:32:02
Le Datta Grimes
I know.


00:09:32:13 - 00:09:54:23
Marvinia Neblett
I hope you feel that God will reveal to you what you can. What you can do with this history to make it better, to face reality, help others. and then, it's not the word "make up" for what was done, but seek the lord to see what it is you all can do from here.

00:09:55:09 - 00:10:03:10
Marvinia Neblett
More is more to just realize. I mean, we already know we're kin, but there's more to it than just.

00:10:04:01 - 00:10:05:01
Marvinia Neblett
Saying we're kin.

00:10:05:01 - 00:10:08:23
Marvinia Neblett
It's more responsibility that we have

00:10:09:07 - 00:10:17:08
Marvinia Neblett
toward each other and the children. Yeah. To make it a better place or different type of experience. A more positive experience.

00:10:17:15 - 00:10:19:21
Marvinia Neblett
More than just words and emotions.

00:10:20:13 - 00:10:22:00
Le Datta Grimes
What are your thoughts right now, Rachel?

00:10:23:01 - 00:10:37:08
Rachel Knight
You know, part of me feels a deep sadness that that this is our history. At the same time, it's amazing to feel that connection.

00:10:40:11 - 00:10:42:14
Rachel Knight
So I don't know. It's a lot of feelings.

00:10:42:22 - 00:10:44:12
Le Datta Grimes
Yeah.

00:10:45:19 - 00:11:09:09
Jonathan Knight
This space is a physical artifact of slavery that is directly tied to my family. I wish that it never existed. But it did. Experiencing it like this, I realized why I wanted to come here. I wanted to connect with this story and this place. But most importantly, the people past and present.

00:11:12:03 - 00:11:35:22
Michael Morrow
I've always said that the Bibb story is a story of land and people. And the reason I say that is because when I first started researching, I started researching the people, and the records led me to the land. And then when I started researching the land, those records led me to more people that were tied to the Bibb Family.

00:11:37:03 - 00:11:42:17
Jonathan Knight
These are original documents, right? Mm hmm. These were all, they're going on 180 years old now.

00:11:43:06 - 00:11:58:05
Michael Morrow
Yes. When Major Bibb died in 1839, he left in his will. That is 5000 to the slaves. And they were to divide, the stock and everything.

00:12:02:07 - 00:12:21:00
Michael Morrow
And he left his sons, Richard and John as executors to carry out his will. Richard eventually died, too, that same year, so John was left to carry out the will.

00:12:22:08 - 00:13:00:17
Kurt X.Metzmeier
Apparently, George Bibb received information that his father had died and apparently a request for some sort of legal assistance on interpreting the will. George Bibb was living in Louisville, Kentucky. He was serving as chancellor of the Equity courts in Louisville. His advice took the form of an, a kind of an extraordinary letter that was dated in late February of 1839, a quick turnaround in which he interprets the will after a little bit of pleasantries about the family. At this particular time,

00:13:01:06 - 00:13:32:02
Kurt X.Metzmeier
Under the law of the time, a freeing of a slave had to be done by writing. The reason there was a writing requirement is slaves could not testify in courts, nor would they be a person to even sue to enforce an oral agreement. Secondly, the person freeing the slave had to post bond so that that slave would not become a charge on the county in which the slave was freed.

00:13:32:12 - 00:14:04:20
Kurt X.Metzmeier
That means that if they became infirm or ill, the county poor fund would not have to take care of those slaves. The documents freeing the slaves had to be presented by the county court and papers had to be issued. These would be freedom papers and freed slaves would have to have these papers with them at all times in order to present them to the slave patrol.

00:14:04:21 - 00:14:12:20
Kurt X.Metzmeier
I mean, you don't have your freedom papers. A free black man or woman is presumed to be enslaved.

00:14:14:08 - 00:14:44:00
Michael Morrow
The first thing John probably had to do was determine how many slaves it was, and he ended up determining that there were 65 slaves and they were divided into five different families. One family was Ben Winn and his wife, and in that family it was 16 people. Then it was old Lucy and her children, and in her family it was about eight or ten.

00:14:45:01 - 00:15:18:01
Michael Morrow
Then there was Matt, old man Matt. He had three sons. Old woman Mary. She had most of all them. She had 20 kids and grandkids. And then there was Kesiah, Kesia had about 11 descendants of her kids and grandkids. And that's how it was divided up. Each one of those 65 people got a percent or had a portion of the $5,000.

00:15:18:12 - 00:15:33:12
Michael Morrow
And all the farm implements are farm animals. And that's kind of the way John Bigger Bibb carried it all out. And on the document it says an inventory of the Negroes emancipated by the will of Richard Bibb Sr.

00:15:33:20 - 00:15:41:15
Jonathan Knight
It doesn't matter what age you were, you were born a slave. And so you had to be listed and you had to get your emancipation individually. Mm hmm.

00:15:41:23 - 00:16:03:16
Michael Morrow
What is so important, because where do you find this at? How many times do you find a place that has the actual place where the slaves to got freed? The actual documents showing their freedom, showing their ages, showing what happened to the stuff, showing how the will was actually carried out. Then the research showing who these people were.

00:16:05:08 - 00:16:46:08
Michael Morrow
To give you an example on this one. Okay. On this one here, we know that Nancy right here is the old Mary. And she had three children, Margaret, Margaritte, Wesley and Martha. Well, when you go into the order book, it says right here. Okay, Ellen, Nancy, Nancy, a woman of color, one of the slaves emancipated by the last will and testament of Richard Bibb, deceased, which will is recorded in Logan County court, clerk's office this day, appears in open court.

00:16:46:19 - 00:17:12:01
Michael Morrow
She is about 45 years of age, is straight. And well made, about five feet, nine inches high and good appearance. The order books match up to the will inventory you see and so all matches up so these primary documents are telling the story of these slaves the major Bibb.

00:17:12:11 - 00:17:17:22
Jonathan Knight
Yeah. And the descriptions are amazing. But that, I guess works as ID when you don't have ID.

00:17:18:08 - 00:17:28:21
Michael Morrow
Which is very important for a slave, a freed slave. It's very important that you ID 'em. Because what happens if somebody comes and kidnaps and re-enslaves 'em? You got a description.

00:17:30:02 - 00:17:59:13
Jonathan Knight
And that's one of the things that's really amazing about this particular story, because like you said, there's all these survival techniques. But when you become free as a group 26 years before the rest of the state and the rest of the country becomes free, that's a whole other set of complications. That's a whole other set of challenges. You know, you have to negotiate that, right, because you're surrounded by people who not only don't want to see you as free, they also don't want you to be there.

00:17:59:18 - 00:18:13:08
Le Datta Grimes
We have to dismiss this idea that's, you know, slaves or ignorant and subservient. And we have to look at the intelligence it took to survive. You know, this social death, this enslavement.

00:18:14:17 - 00:18:33:18
Jonathan Knight
Reading all the names, ages and descriptions in the emancipation papers gave me an amazing glimpse of these individuals. But just a glimpse. I wanted to know more about who they were. Michael invited us to his research center to look deeper at the lives of three of the people emancipated in that will.

00:18:35:14 - 00:19:05:20
Michael Morrow
Nancy Bibb. She was the daughter of Mary. Mary had probably the most kids that were free on there and grandkids. It was 20 in her family and they were free. And her daughter, Nancy, had three children. Margaritte who was 16, Wesley, 13, and Martha, who was five. Nancy family first played an important part down here because she was one of the first blacks to get land down here. Her and another one of Major Bibb's slaves., called Randell. Nancy traded

00:19:05:20 - 00:19:26:14
Michael Morrow
She had 34 acres. She traded her 34 acres. And asked John Bigger Bibb to buy her a lot in town, he bought her a lot. I think he paid $200 for it. And he took some of the money he had got from the land he sold and made a down payment and then, you know, they got land in Grayson County, Kentucky, and all of them got a share of that land.

00:19:26:14 - 00:19:47:23
Michael Morrow
And when they sold the Grayson County land, he took some more money and paid on the house. And that's how she ended up down here. I always wondered why she wanted to live in town, you know, just two of 'em asked to do that where as two or three more settled in town. But she specifically asked, sell my land, I want to be here in town. In John Bigger Bibb's settlement,

00:19:47:23 - 00:19:53:22
Michael Morrow
He's talking about how he has got a license for Nancy to sell cakes.

00:19:54:06 - 00:20:22:00
Le Datta Grimes
She's freed in 1839, 1840. She goes before the court, she gets emancipated. And by 1841, she is a businesswoman and she's getting her license to sell cakes. That's amazing. It is. And it's amazing to be able to to see it here in the documents. So she's now a part of the of the marketplace, the economy. And you know what she once did for free?

00:20:22:22 - 00:20:28:00
Le Datta Grimes
She now, you know, does for her own benefit.

00:20:31:09 - 00:21:06:14
Kurt X.Metzmeier
This is the Louisville cemetery. It is a cemetery that was organized in the late 1880s by African-Americans that were concerned that they were going to be frozen out of their cemeteries in the area. One of the founders of the cemetery was A.J. Bibb, who is buried here in this grave in a little copse of trees of various different kinds that would probably have dated back to the opening of the cemetery.

00:21:07:01 - 00:21:11:22
Jonathan Knight
So he he might have even picked this spot to be particularly in this grove of trees.

00:21:11:23 - 00:21:12:11
Kurt X.Metzmeier
Yes.

00:21:13:18 - 00:21:42:13
Michael Morrow
Andrew Jackson Bibb, he was born about 1825 here in Logan County, Kentucky. He was a son of Anderson and Angillia Bibb, and both Anderson's mother and Angillia's mother, both were slaves of Major Bibb, too. He was five years old or six years old when Major Bibb freed the slaves. And he's the one that gave the story in the newspaper in the 1890s about how they freed the slaves and how it went on.

00:21:43:13 - 00:22:02:16
Michael Morrow
Andrew was trained as a carpenter and the training started fairly early. Andrew, he got land and stuff from the Major Bibb estate, but he sold his land. He left Logan County and went to Louisville and later he went on to become a carpenter in Louisville and became very prosperous.up there.

00:22:03:06 - 00:22:20:01
Kurt X.Metzmeier
He almost immediately became part of a small group of prominent African-American leaders, always playing a role as as somebody that knew how to get things done. And as treasurer and in this case, vice president.

00:22:20:09 - 00:22:42:14
Michael Morrow
He probably done what Major Bibb hoped would happen. He got ahead. He was able to take the education as a carpenter and turn it into wealth and use it. And at his death, he end up giving stuff back to the community. And I think what's really unique about it is that we can tell a story from cradle to grave.

00:22:44:01 - 00:22:49:03
Jonathan Knight
I wanted to ask more about Granny Kate and and her life. What do we know about her?

00:22:49:05 - 00:23:08:22
Michael Morrow
What we found on her is that she, for some reason, got one of the largest parts of the estate. She got a big part. She was just a small girl when she got it. She was the daughter of Nancy. And so far, haven't found her have found any brothers and sisters for Kate, so it seems she's an only child. Granny Kate.

00:23:10:09 - 00:23:29:16
Michael Morrow
She had all this land. She got 230 acres, from Major Bibb. Why do you think you gave her 200 acres? She got more land than anybody.

00:23:33:04 - 00:24:08:05
Marilyn Gill
I have been told all my life that Major Bibb was Granny Kate's father. And that he gave his children land. Now, I was told by my cousin who was alive during the time when Kate was alive, she said that Granny Kate was what you call a house child, that she lived in the house in his home and that he was very fond of that particular child.

00:24:08:14 - 00:24:11:23
Jonathan Knight
Now, where was Granny Kate's land? Where did where was her house?

00:24:12:07 - 00:24:24:04
Michael Morrow
It was at Upper Bibbtown, and it was down by the church. And she lived there from the time she was a little girl until her death in early 1900s.

00:24:24:05 - 00:24:25:17
Jonathan Knight
And how many children did she have? Kate.

00:24:26:03 - 00:24:30:23
Michael Morrow
Granny Kate, I think she had about ten or 12 of 'em.

00:24:31:06 - 00:24:35:17
Le Datta Grimes
Now, Granny Kate is one of the women who donated the land for the church. Am I remembering that correctly?

00:24:36:04 - 00:24:39:17
Michael Morrow
Her and her aunt Rachel.

00:24:39:17 - 00:25:02:13
Jonathan Knight
Granny Kate is fascinating to me. She was favored in the will and she received her land when she was three years old. She grew up and raised a large family and instilled in them a deep connection to the property. She built a school and a church and Upper Bibbtown grew up around them. When you look at her photo, you see a toughness in her eyes.

00:25:03:07 - 00:25:16:15
Jonathan Knight
She was powerful and confident and she left an amazing legacy.

00:25:18:16 - 00:25:20:06
Jonathan Knight
This is a list of Richard

00:25:20:07 - 00:25:52:21
Jonathan Knight
Bibb's slaves in 1821. It's always when I see these lists and valuations, it just makes it so businesslike. Like, it's very hard to understand just the concept of putting a value on a person as property. And this other one that has one column, it has the, it says, slaves over 16 years, slaves under 16 years, and then it has over here horses.

00:25:54:19 - 00:26:10:15
Jonathan Knight
Oh, my God. This is amazing right here. So this is, I guess, the contract where he said in his will, anyone who was hired out at the time of his death should receive the wages for the year of his death.

00:26:11:04 - 00:26:11:11
Le Datta Grimes
Yes.

00:26:11:17 - 00:26:31:13
Jonathan Knight
And this is the contract in which it states who was hired out and to who. And then it has their marks signing that they received the wages. Look at these these exes, I mean, that's just kind of takes your breath away.

00:26:31:22 - 00:26:52:00
Le Datta Grimes
John Bigger Bibb was the executor of Richard Bibb's estate, correct? Exactly. And so when they were emancipated in 1840, they did not necessarily get this money right? No, it did not go to them. The land did not go to them at that point. And so he is serving as.

00:26:53:04 - 00:27:16:05
Michael Morrow
Executor and administrator. He's actually doling the money out to 'em giving it to 'em. Now, if you recall, one of the letters, his brother George Mortimer had written him. It describes to him how he can do this and the best way to do this. And I think he's following what George Mortimer told him to do. So he's keeping up with it, but he's giving them money on account.

00:27:16:12 - 00:27:29:06
Michael Morrow
And if you go back to the actual book, you'll find that a lot of them took money out of what they were given and bought stuff from Major Bibb's estate. Most of the people who recieved ownership of the land was the second generation.

00:27:29:09 - 00:27:32:13
Le Datta Grimes
The descendants of those initial freed.

00:27:32:23 - 00:27:34:09
Jonathan Knight
Before it was legally.

00:27:34:22 - 00:27:55:23
Michael Morrow
They're the ones that got legal title. When Major Bibb died in 1839, he had 'em on the land by 1840. And if you read one of those documents down there, he says he's telling it. So and so put out a crop and they'd done well. So and so put out a crop and they didn't fair so well. You know, he's keeping up with what's going on and he's watching over.

00:27:56:06 - 00:28:06:07
Michael Morrow
One of the most interesting letters to me is the one where one of the slaves said, writes and say, Hey, my master John, I heard you sold my Grayson County land.

00:28:06:17 - 00:28:07:13
Le Datta Grimes
Mm hmm.

00:28:07:16 - 00:28:09:22
Le Datta Grimes
Mm mm.

00:28:09:22 - 00:28:11:06
Michael Morrow
Will you be sending me my money?

00:28:11:12 - 00:28:14:16
Marvinia Neblett
Where's my money? You know, like, bring me my money.

00:28:15:01 - 00:28:41:03
Le Datta Grimes
Is there any sense that he is sort of quote unquote, a broker, perhaps for them and he's getting some money, you know, on the back end by hiring these freedman out? Or is there a sense of maybe there's some paternalism where he's trying to look out for them and he's, you know, trying to protect them from perhaps being robbed of the money or, you know, taken advantage of in some way.

00:28:41:09 - 00:29:01:03
Michael Morrow
I think it's a little of both. Just reading all these documents down through the years, I think he figured out a way to sustain himself a little bit for having to watch out for all these people. Mm hmm. Some people say that would be wrong, and you can look at it in the way you want to. I think he had a burden on him that I don't think I'd ever want.

00:29:01:03 - 00:29:24:00
Michael Morrow
Who in the name of God would want to be responsible for 64 people? And these letters they tell, you know, the relationship they're having when they needed something, they would write John Bigger Bibb. And the amazing thing about these letters is even though they were free the first thing they would start off with, Dear Master and the last thing they woould say, your fine and loving servant.

00:29:24:00 - 00:29:36:23
Michael Morrow
My guess is some of these people had been with the Bibbs for generations, so they probably had some type of wierd relationship, I don't want to say it's a family relationship, but they had a relationship.

00:29:38:23 - 00:29:51:12
Le Datta Grimes
What must it be like to have to always prove you are free, that you own yourself, and that your freedom can always be challenged? It can always be questioned.

00:29:51:17 - 00:29:53:07
Jonathan Knight
And the assumption is always the opposite.

00:29:53:08 - 00:29:54:18
Le Datta Grimes
Exactly. Exactly.

00:29:55:06 - 00:30:06:22
Michael Morrow
Even if you have those papers on you, it still doesn't guarantee that you'll stay free. Because a person could take the papers from, you know. So it's no guarantee that the paper keeps you free.

00:30:07:10 - 00:30:09:10
Jonathan Knight
Well, it seems to me there's parallels today.

00:30:09:12 - 00:30:16:22
Le Datta Grimes
Yeah, I was thinking that. To think about that right now in our country, we're asking people to prove you belong here.

00:30:17:01 - 00:30:24:13
Jonathan Knight
Yeah. Prove you belong, prove that you have the right to be in the neighborhood you might be in or in the car that you're driving.

00:30:24:13 - 00:30:29:11
Le Datta Grimes
Prove that you are free. Prove your citizen. Prove yourself.

00:30:30:00 - 00:30:31:01
Police Voice
He might have a weapon.... STAY THERE!!!

00:30:31:19 - 00:31:03:10
Le Datta Grimes
In 1840? Well, prior to the Civil War, you have this body of people down in western Kentucky who are free black landowners. With this wealth, they created three black communities down in Logan County, Kentucky, Upper Bibbtown, Lower Bibbtown, and what was called Russellville's Black Bottom.

00:31:03:20 - 00:31:43:08
Michael Morrow
Research indicates that the ones in Upper Bibbtown were his descendants and the ones in Lower Bibbtown were his slaves. But the ones in Upper and Lower Bibbtown all married into each other. So it's not unusual to find Bibbs that are related to Major Bibb up all across the state of Kentucky and all across the United States got in my mind, I said it would be nice to be able to bring all these descendants of these slaves back and find people of Major Bibb family, and bring them back and get them all together and see how they react to each other.

00:31:51:21 - 00:32:21:10
Blondean Davis
Going across the land. Because the house on the road belonged to my Uncle James and my mother would start blowing the horn going across. There would be my grandmother standing on the original house. Very small, very plain, no running water. And you may ask me why? Because to run water, you would have to come from the road. But you would have to disturb that cemetery.

00:32:21:10 - 00:32:51:05
Blondean Davis
And she wouldn't allow it. My grandmother wore house dresses with aprons. My memories of her were never sitting. She was always busy with something, usually cooking for her family because everything had to be just so. Sitting with my grandmother, she told me about our legacy. And our legacy was the land. And she said, It's as far as you can see, sweetheart.

00:32:51:15 - 00:33:26:23
Blondean Davis
It's as far as you can see. What she really concentrated on was not slavery because she wasn't a person that saw differences in terms of race. What she saw was that a man, his last name was Bibbs, left sufficient land to his heirs. She said, We were so proud because we own the land that we lived on.

00:33:26:23 - 00:33:28:19
Rachel Knight
What's the road that we came out on?

00:33:29:02 - 00:33:57:10
Michael Morrow
Mamie Gill Road. It was named after Miss Mamie. Who's buried over here. Mm. Mamie, is related two ways to two separate Bibb families. The first one she's related to is her father's side, which would be James Bowles. James' father was Daniel. And Daniel married Matilda Bibb, who was Ben Winn's daughter. And then her mother, Leona, was Granny Kate's daughter.

00:33:58:09 - 00:33:59:11
Michael Morrow
So she's a double.

00:33:59:21 - 00:34:00:07
Jonathan Knight
Okay.

00:34:01:01 - 00:34:03:02
Le Datta Grimes
So a Bibb on her mom and her dad's side?

00:34:04:16 - 00:34:07:16
Jonathan Knight
And so, Marilyn? Where does she come in?

00:34:08:07 - 00:34:11:20
Le Datta Grimes
She was one of the very last descendants to live out here on the land, right?

00:34:12:11 - 00:34:25:07
Michael Morrow
When her died and then her nephew died, two weeks later, that was, they were the last people who descended from slaves freed by Major Bibb.

00:34:25:19 - 00:34:52:07
Marilyn Gill
I was born in Upper Bibbtown not far from here, about, I believe they say something like a mile towards the woods that you can see back there. In a home that was built by my grandmother's husband, somewhere close to and I'm not going to give you the exact date. This was somewhere close to the late twenties. Okay.

00:34:52:21 - 00:35:15:10
Marilyn Gill
I grew up down here as a child. I went to school down here for a while. And then every year my mother stayed here. She'd never live here, and neither did my grandmother. But I guess I grew up as a farm girl. I just grew up loving the woods. I have been all.. used to walk all through the woods, fishing and everything.

00:35:15:10 - 00:35:49:14
Marilyn Gill
And I, even though I was away, the majority of my my adult life and my, uh, teenage life. But I always came back here, I don't think, until I was in the army and I was overseas. I never missed a day. I never missed a homecoming. I have always been here every homecoming.

00:35:49:14 - 00:35:52:12
Le Datta Grimes
So a lot of the black history was lost in these fires.

00:35:52:13 - 00:36:07:06
Michael Morrow
A lot of the Bibbtown history. Yeah, the Bibbtown history. If Miss Alberta's house had not burned and Miss Marilyn's house had not burned, my guess they had everything that had passed down for generations. Wow.

00:36:07:18 - 00:36:40:11
Debbie Browder
My cousin Alberta's house was right down the street from the church. Hers was just a little, little bitty house. Had the coal stove. She lived there without running water, electricity until probably about the last ten years she lived and her house had burned. And then the neighbors there got together and had water hooked up to her trailer. She got and electricity, so she was still there and not using no electricity or running water.

00:36:40:20 - 00:36:51:05
Debbie Browder
Lots of snakes, down there, rattlesnakes. So when we go to her home, I'd always sit on the couch with my feet up because I was scared there'd be a snake or something.

00:36:51:11 - 00:36:51:19
Jonathan Knight
In the house?

00:36:51:19 - 00:36:58:05
Debbie Browder
In the house. And she always had a pistol cause she would she would shoot the snakes, really. If she saw them out in the yard.

00:36:58:05 - 00:37:27:14
Jeff Barker
The first time I remember going to Bibbtown and we was in this brown Chevrolet car. They had this back seat in the back of it, all of us were back there. We didn't really know where we were going. We always went down there fishing and seein' our cousins. Cousin Alberta, cousin Lenore, and cousin Maimie. and you know, sometimes we go down to visit and just play around and have fun. On that one road to the church.

00:37:27:22 - 00:37:32:08
Jeff Barker
It was just three, two houses, then the church.

00:37:33:17 - 00:37:55:07
Michael Morrow
Back in here and up through there you can find 20 acres. And then you had like houses back up in there somewhere and you had a school that was over there somewhere and you had houses at one time there was houses all through this on this side. Down through the years, like some of them burned down. Some of them got...

00:37:55:11 - 00:37:56:06
Jonathan Knight
Along this road here?

00:37:56:18 - 00:38:00:23
Michael Morrow
And the Mamie Gill Road. You know, the Mamie Gill Road was part of it.

00:38:01:04 - 00:38:01:13
Jonathan Knight
Okay.

00:38:01:19 - 00:38:23:00
Michael Morrow
And they had houses back there and then on down where by miss Foulks, was part of it. Like I said, it's 3500 acres. Yeah. And another thing I like to say, though, when they got here, these fields were not cleared {exactly]. But this is Bibbtown, like I said, when I was a kid. I came out all the time. I used to hate being out here.

00:38:23:00 - 00:38:27:22
Michael Morrow
You know, kids don't warm up to church all the time.

00:38:28:02 - 00:38:29:01
Jonathan Knight
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:38:29:13 - 00:38:30:02
Le Datta Grimes
Mm.

00:38:31:04 - 00:38:32:21
Jonathan Knight
How many people would be there on a Sunday?

00:38:33:10 - 00:38:48:03
Clennie Barker, Jr.
When I was going they were full. They had a pretty good crowd then. When I was going, they was crowded. A lot of people and it just wasn't black people, white people too.

00:38:48:12 - 00:38:50:12
Jonathan Knight
Oh, really? Okay. I didn't know that.

00:38:50:19 - 00:39:03:08
Clennie Barker, Jr.
But I still go down here and drive through and just see. looks, still look the same.

00:39:03:08 - 00:39:28:04
Debbie Browder
My dad always talked about the church because they wanted to have that church to remain. And before he died, he did say he wanted us to try and continue services out there because I was told if the church ever stopped having services out there that the land would revert back to whoever had used and had built the church.

00:39:28:04 - 00:39:31:04
Debbie Browder
There. So that would be one of the cousins.

00:39:31:11 - 00:40:00:15
Donald E. Smith
My cousins owned this land. The sad part about it is this land right here in this area was a part of a parcel of 189 acres. He deeded it and he gave the family names and the members of the family the parcels of land and even on the papers itself, he stated the emancipated slaves, sad to say that a lot of them didn't have the original deeds and everything and what they did it was passed down mostly by sole survivorship.

00:40:00:15 - 00:40:34:06
Jonathan Knight
We haven't found any records of Richard Bibb's thoughts on emancipation. We can only look at his actions. Before he wrote his will, he joined the Colonization Society, a group of white abolitionists determined to send black Americans to Africa. And in fact, he forced a large number of enslaved people to board the ship Ajax to Liberia. He committed a lot of money and effort to the success of this project.

00:40:34:20 - 00:40:47:14
Jonathan Knight
He wanted them to be free, but only on another continent. He clearly didn't think they should live free in America, in the country where they were born, and that they literally built with their own hands.

00:40:48:04 - 00:41:20:21
Lucretia Slaughter
I had heard about the American Colonization Society. I guess that was something that I did learn in school. And I gather that Major Bibb was a member of the Kentucky Colonization Society, but I did not know that this was a method of population control. I thought that this was some sort of lovely people who thought naively that, you know, gee, some of these people could go back.

00:41:21:05 - 00:41:42:20
Kurt X.Metzmeier
He was an early supporter of a movement that was a national movement that had a lot of adherents in Kentucky. They thought slavery was immoral. They wanted to free their slaves, but they didn't want Kentucky to be a place that had free black people as part of that society.

00:41:42:20 - 00:41:43:22
Lucretia Slaughter
To learn that,

00:41:44:02 - 00:42:05:23
Lucretia Slaughter
he sent mainly women and children and that he was out in the yard there reading the Bible to them, and there was singing and he was shaking everyone's hand and off they go. And the lot and the the wagons. And almost none of them survived the trip.

00:42:05:23 - 00:42:31:03
Kurt X.Metzmeier
I mean, as a moral person, he realized it did not go well when he freed his slaves on his will. He still kind of said, hey, if you want to go to Africa, you'll get extra money or whatever, or that'll be kind of preferred in the trust. But you know, you can stay here and that's why I'm setting up the trust for here.

00:42:31:15 - 00:42:35:00
Kurt X.Metzmeier
And no slaves took up on that.

00:42:35:00 - 00:42:54:12
Jonathan Knight
I don't know why he changed his mind about colonization. Maybe the people he kept enslaved convinced him that it was cruel. I do know that after the of the colonization effort, he created a plan that would make it possible for them to stay in Kentucky as free people, but only after his death.

00:42:54:12 - 00:43:07:08
Selena Sanderfer Doss
Characters like Major Bibb and figuring out the motives, a Christian and white supremacist, a slave owner, why would he do these things? And being

00:43:07:08 - 00:43:09:18
Selena Sanderfer Doss
honest about that, a conversation, not

00:43:09:18 - 00:43:12:20
Selena Sanderfer Doss
trying to sugarcoat it or whitewash it. And so,

00:43:13:02 - 00:43:14:15
Selena Sanderfer Doss
the one letter for Bibb.

00:43:15:13 - 00:43:17:07
Selena Sanderfer Doss
The truth about,

00:43:17:14 - 00:43:19:23
Selena Sanderfer Doss
he's giving up

00:43:20:09 - 00:43:24:22
Selena Sanderfer Doss
people who are worth money, you know, to him. That says

00:43:24:22 - 00:43:25:14
Selena Sanderfer Doss
Something.

00:43:25:22 - 00:43:30:14
Markus Hartmann
What's fascinating about Major Bibb is. That's, right,

00:43:30:15 - 00:43:40:07
Markus Hartmann
that's the cutting edge of the moral argument. He benefited from the system. He was wealthy. And I'd say what was $11,600 worth of

00:43:40:07 - 00:43:42:10
Markus Hartmann
Slaves in 18

00:43:43:06 - 00:43:43:23
Markus Hartmann
37. Was that that?

00:43:44:03 - 00:43:47:15
Michael Morrow
And one time he owned 200,000 acres of land.

00:43:47:15 - 00:43:50:01
Markus Hartmann
That whole system made

00:43:50:01 - 00:43:54:23
Markus Hartmann
him wealthy. So with all that wealth, he basically, you know,

00:43:55:00 - 00:44:00:10
Markus Hartmann
told his children that upon my death, that portion of the wealth was going to go away. And that was

00:44:00:10 - 00:44:02:15
Markus Hartmann
before 1865.

00:44:02:15 - 00:44:10:04
Markus Hartmann
So, you know, do I think that Major Bibb would have sat down, you know, had a bourbon with me and,

00:44:10:04 - 00:44:11:02
Markus Hartmann
You know, consider me an

00:44:11:02 - 00:44:15:05
Markus Hartmann
Equal? No. But are there other slave owners that

00:44:15:05 - 00:44:17:03
Markus Hartmann
treated their slaves a lot worse? Yes.

00:44:18:00 - 00:44:34:15
Charlton Hillis
To me, there's only one answer to that, and that is that he he was a religious man. A lot of religious people nonetheless defended slavery. A lot of religious people today are racists and we know all that.

00:44:34:16 - 00:44:37:10
Charlton Hillis
But a lot of religious people are very sincere.

00:44:37:10 - 00:44:43:09
Charlton Hillis
And apparently he was a very sincere man. who tried to do what he believes is right,

00:44:43:09 - 00:45:03:23
Toynia Walker
Even though those slaves or some slaves were freed, some slaves were also passed to the children, and grandchildren. Whether they had free papers or not? We don't know this, but within the will it does identify this Negro boy went to this one of his I think it was Lucy's children.

00:45:04:19 - 00:45:16:15
Toynia Walker
So I mean, it's like a catch 22. It's a great deed for what he done. But how much of that did his children respect?

00:45:16:23 - 00:45:50:03
Debbie Browder
I think because of what he did for his slaves, showed that he had - I don't say - had a different kind of respect for them. He cared about 'em, because if he didn't, he wouldn't have done it, because a lot of people just freed 'em and didn't give them anything. He was showing them in his way that he cared about them and he wanted them to achieve things.

00:45:50:20 - 00:46:33:17
LaVaughn Duncan
Because Richard Bibb freed some slaves. I don't find that commendable cause they should have been free - we should have been free in the first place. As far as it affecting me and my life, him personally has not. What has affected me is slavery and how my people were treated and how we're being treated today.

00:46:34:06 - 00:46:51:23
Lynn Slaughter
I guess I feel our entire history as a people, you know, I think that we bear a lot of responsibility and we have a very dark and very depressing history as a country. I don't know that I am personally

00:46:52:20 - 00:46:56:08
Lynn Slaughter
responsible for what my, you know,

00:46:57:00 - 00:47:00:14
Lynn Slaughter
ancestors have done, but it does give me the

00:47:00:14 - 00:47:01:06
Lynn Slaughter
creeps

00:47:02:13 - 00:47:15:00
Lynn Slaughter
to think about, ugh, you did that? You know, and somehow I never really imagined that. Le Datta, how did you feel going to Russellville?

00:47:16:13 - 00:47:47:22
Le Datta Grimes
I think I started looking at the story with the sense of wonder and astonishment, and then I, like everyone you know, begin to peel back the layers of the stories. Yes. And you get these reveals all along the way that don't allow it to be this white savior, fairy tale or trope. You know, that you you know, it initially appears to be and, you know, was initially presented that way.

00:47:47:22 - 00:48:09:22
Le Datta Grimes
Right. And so when you begin to peel back those layers and see that yeah, he did this great thing where he, he emancipated these people, right? He bequeathed to them, you know, this land and this money and those things which they had earned and worked for. But he's also a rapist.

00:48:10:21 - 00:48:35:15
Jonathan Knight
Richard Bibbs actions are still confusing to me. There's so much we just don't know. I think he believed slavery was immoral. I think he had affection for many of the people he enslaved at least in his later years. He was searching for a way to do right by them. But why didn't he just emancipate the people he enslaved himself and give them the land while he was alive?

00:48:36:12 - 00:49:01:03
Jonathan Knight
If it was his conviction to do it, then just do it. Why wait? And then, even at the end of his life, he raped at least one woman he enslaved. It seems so contradictory. Maybe he thought it was love. I can't even imagine what he thought. But I do know any relationship was based on human ownership and the threat of punishment or death.

00:49:01:15 - 00:49:11:10
Jonathan Knight
By definition, it is rape. If he, even for a moment, saw her as fully human, he would have understood that there's no excuse.

00:49:12:08 - 00:49:18:22
Charles Taylor
Being honest, it aint a whole lot changed. Not a whole lot.

00:49:19:15 - 00:49:35:08
Kevin Temple
As a black person. Sometimes we don't get the same opportunities as the white people do. Like I could try to get a job somewhere and they might not give me the job just because I'm black. It is true. It's real. It is. We had to work extra hard.

00:49:36:04 - 00:49:42:22
Michael Morrow
Most people don't realize what you have to go through and they don't even care. Get up every day just to work in the neighborhood.

00:49:44:21 - 00:49:55:07
Jonathan Knight
Michael brings in young people every year to work on the museums in the black bottom. They get a chance to work and earn money, and in the process they're building the neighborhood and community.

00:49:56:03 - 00:50:17:11
Joe Gran Clark
Wasn't until we really got to know Michael that we realized that there was so much history out there that hasn't ever been told. Michael early on presented an idea that we should have some involvement for youth, especially during the summer months when they were out of school, for them to learn about their heritage.

00:50:17:11 - 00:50:37:01
Michael Morrow
I found out that a lot of them had low self esteem. A lot of them had been taught that their people were nobody, that they were nobody, that they hadn't done anything. And I knew a lot of their history. I know a lot of them had descended from African-American teachers who started some of their early schools and African-American doctors and different things.

00:50:37:01 - 00:50:43:18
Michael Morrow
But they didn't know about the history. They built everything they were. They built it all. The people who built all the museums down here, they were.

00:50:44:02 - 00:50:45:05
Jonathan Knight
How did the kids come to you?

00:50:45:13 - 00:51:11:02
Michael Morrow
I've got some from court. Some of them parents grab em by the ear and bring em to me. Little Pharell, his momma called me and told me he's going to be working for me. Some of em just walk up and say, Can I work? And unless something happens, I usually let em work. I didn't think you could put a museum in a neighborhood like this and not use the people in the neighborhood.

00:51:11:02 - 00:51:24:23
Eddie Allen
I mean, we learned a lot. I learned a lot. You know, I've been workin for him for about 17 years. I've done the blues festival about eight years. But I've learned more than ever since I've been working with Mike. It's been a wonderful experience.

00:51:24:23 - 00:51:43:00
Michael Morrow
I've got to use the museums to try to make them better and by making them better it helps the museum. You let them buy into it, you make it a part of them. And that's kind of what we've done with them. They're part of them. Eddie, he can run them. If he just gets everything straight, Eddie could run everything.

00:51:43:04 - 00:51:44:17
Michael Morrow
He knows how to do it, he knows where everything is.

00:51:44:17 - 00:52:01:14
Eddie Allen
I've been working in the Bibb House, I know for at least eight years it's work. I love doing the work because it's like you get I mean, I experienced stuff like seeing stuff like when we was shifting dirt, like finding all the old shoes and all the old bones and all the old glasses and stuff that we found as digging the dirt.

00:52:02:01 - 00:52:08:19
Eddie Allen
You would never imagine stuff being up under the house like that, inside the dirt like that. Like, it's amazing. Like, it's really amazing to see.

00:52:08:20 - 00:52:10:22
Jonathan Knight
Like, the ghosts of the people who used to live there.

00:52:11:10 - 00:52:15:01
Eddie Allen
Almost scary because I don't like touching other peoples stuff that's been under there for a while.

00:52:15:01 - 00:52:35:02
Joe Gran Clark
He has always felt like what we could do is show the achievements and the valor and the morals of the people that were in this community who have descendants here now, and in particular teach that to the youth of the community, that you have a family heritage to be proud of.

00:52:35:15 - 00:52:44:14
Michael Morrow
Okay now, take some more dirt..

00:52:45:00 - 00:52:54:10
Kevin Temple
Mike's a history person. You know, he loves history. You, he been studying this for 30 years, that's a long time. He's a master at the story.

00:52:54:12 - 00:52:55:14
Jonathan Knight
He's passionate about it.

00:52:55:14 - 00:52:56:05
Kevin Temple
Yeah.

00:52:56:11 - 00:53:09:20
Kevin Temple
His involvement in my life is just him. Him being, him, and trying to help me. You know what I'm saying? When I. When I needed something like, I ain't got no job, he be like, hey, come down here and make you some of the money.

00:53:10:16 - 00:53:30:03
Michael Morrow
I started the tutoring program. I started the youth program, to work with kids. Because what I learned, there's a lot of times kids are going through a lot of shit and nobody cares, you know, nobody tries to. Hey, what's up? A lot of times all it takes is somebody stepping in and just showing a little attention.

00:53:30:22 - 00:53:58:00
Dorris Vick
He does a lot of work in the community. I mean, you know, he has a passion for young people, you know, and Oh, he's got a heart of gold. I mean, he would do anything for anybody, anything.

00:53:58:00 - 00:54:13:15
Michael Morrow
And then we named it the Black Bottom district. And the reason we done that was because when you when in all the old newspapers from the end of the Civil War all up until the 1940s when they referred to this area, they called it the Black Bottom. So we just called it what it was called.

00:54:14:21 - 00:54:40:11
Jonathan Knight
Michael built the museums in the Black Bottom neighborhood to honor the richness of the history found right in his own community. He and his youth group restored four historic houses on the block and filled them with exhibits highlighting prominent former residents, black civil war veterans settled here buying land with their pensions. Famed blues musician Mary Ann Fisher grew up here.

00:54:41:15 - 00:55:16:03
Jonathan Knight
There's an exhibit on the segregated schools and the many dedicated black educators that came out of this community. Alice Allison Dunnigan was the first African-American woman in the White House press corps and she called this neighborhood home. In the Cooksey house, there's an exhibit I'll never forget. It's a difficult exhibit to take in. Michael is memorialized one of the bloodiest days in Russellville history when four black men were lynched in 1908.

00:55:17:07 - 00:55:24:15
Jonathan Knight
I felt the weight of it in my chest as I stepped in and saw nooses hanging from the tree right there in the middle of the room.

00:55:25:22 - 00:55:50:06
Michael Morrow
I tell people, when we go in this it's not a happy subject, but it's a necessary subject and it deals with the lynching and its aftermath and how it affected Logan County in the state of Kentucky. This exhibit is called Mob Violence The Rufus Brouder Story, Mob Violence in Kentucky. And we put it up in 208 the 100 year anniversary of the lynching.

00:55:50:06 - 00:56:12:22
Michael Morrow
I went to one of the guys who's grandfather was lynched and I told him if he'd put up $1,000, I would put up $1,000. And we put on a not so good exhibit, but we put it together and got it going. One night we had a concert over there and there were a lot of people down and one of the white board members, she came over and looked at the exhibit.

00:56:13:17 - 00:56:31:16
Michael Morrow
So I was walking down, I was walking toward this way and she said, Michael! just come here, I need to holler at you. I said, Mam, she said, we were wrong. I said, you were wrong. She said, Damn it, we were wrong. She said, You know, when you first come up with the suggestion to put that exhibit up, I was all against it.

00:56:31:16 - 00:56:46:16
Michael Morrow
I thought it was going to turn people against each other. I thought it was just gonna cause a bunch problem. I was wrong. This story has to be told. It needs to be told. And by God, they're going to get your money back and they reimbursed our money.

00:56:46:16 - 00:56:54:00
Le Datta Grimes
It's a difficult conversation, but I think we got to get over the fear that if we talk about that and it will

00:56:54:21 - 00:56:57:07
Le Datta Grimes
create more racial division.

00:56:58:12 - 00:57:26:06
Joe Gran Clark
I've been working in Russellville for 39 years and we are a southern area, a lot of rural inhabitants. You travel 20 miles and there's a statue to Jefferson Davis. Russellville has a Confederate monument. I've had a lot of people over the years come into my office and in the course of a normal conversation will say something racist. Took me a while to really accept that and to admit it.

00:57:26:15 - 00:57:37:20
Joe Gran Clark
A lot of these were older people. But then over the years I've heard it out of the mouths of younger people that I feel like they've heard it at home. They've been raised to believe that way.

00:57:37:21 - 00:57:47:16
Marsha Bernett
Russellville has not grown to me. To me. If anything, it's kind of went backwards.

00:57:51:23 - 00:58:23:04
Jonathan Knight
Michael, explain the 8th of August emancipation celebration. It's been celebrated by black Kentuckians for over 150 years. It's said to be the day that news of the abolition of slavery reached Western Kentucky. In Russellville, there are three days of festivities and family gatherings every year. The Bibb freedmen were among the first to celebrate it and their descendants have been coming together here ever since.

00:58:23:04 - 00:58:52:00
Charles Neblett
We got to tell our children what this 8th of August means. Right. Really what it means. And what we had to do to get it. We fought for our freedom, there's no doubt, we fought for our freedonm. The soldiers that fought in this war. Black soldiers, after they got a chance to get in they volunteered, they knew that if they got captured, they were going to be killed, they would die.

00:58:52:19 - 00:59:04:19
Charles Neblett
They killed they killed them. And while they was wounded, they buried them alive. These soldiers knew that. They volunteered. They came down. They came down.

00:59:04:19 - 00:59:15:14
Charles Neblett
They volunteered.

00:59:18:14 - 00:59:53:19
Joe Gran Clark
8th of August, of course, has been going on, what, 150 plus years? I will admit that until I got involved with Michael and Historic Russellville, I never went to the Bottom, never attended the facilities. And it wasn't from a position of fear or not wanting to be there. It's just I felt like I was intruding.

00:59:53:19 - 01:00:28:00
Joe Gran Clark
It felt like it was a celebration of people of African-American descent and that I would feel out of place. One of the things that we talked about in trying to expand the engagement of the museums early on was having music agreed upon developing a summer concert series that was in honor of Mary Ann Fisher, Ray Charles' first female singer. And when we were deciding whether to do that, where to do it, when to do it, Michael Morrow was involved in our discussions.

01:00:28:00 - 01:00:49:19
Joe Gran Clark
He said, Well, I think if you're going to do this, you really need to have one of the concerts on the 8th of August weekend. So that's the weekend of celebration. That's the weekend when people come back. If you're going to come in this community and try to get other people to come in, you need to respect the people that are coming back.

01:00:49:19 - 01:01:34:05
Joe Gran Clark
For August eight, it was well-attended. It was it brought people from different areas of town. It was very successful. One more example of of how Michael knew the feelings and knew what was right and what was wrong. It's not like a group of people are putting on a show for them. It is their event.

01:01:34:05 - 01:01:45:00
Michael Morrow
What do you think about a Bibb descendant reunion, bringing people home to celebrate freedom?

01:01:45:00 - 01:02:13:12
Marilyn Gill
I think I think that would be oh, just a wonderful idea. And I would like to see some people perhaps that we are related, that's related to my family and related to the Bibbs and related to Catherine, perhaps. And I would love to see that happen. And I think it would be a tremendous Idea, because he was, in my opinion, a wonderful man.

01:02:13:21 - 01:03:03:23
Jonathan Knight
On the morning of the reunion, I was worried about how it would play out as people started arrive. I don't think anyone knew what to expect. This was something new for all of us. A few drops of rain suddenly turned into a heavy downpour, and I thought the event might be ruined before it began. But the rain forced everyone inside the house.

01:03:04:19 - 01:03:18:18
Jonathan Knight
It actually broke the ice and we all started talking to each other. Luckily the rain didn't last long. The tables and chairs were wiped dry, and I think we were in a much better place to start the conversation.

01:03:19:15 - 01:03:42:00
Joe Gran Clark
I'd like to welcome all of the descendants of the enslaved people that were enslaved by Major Richard Bibb here at this house, I'd like to welcome all of the descendants of Major Bibb, and there are some of you that clearly fall in both of those groups. I think that's something that we've learned in our research and probably amplified today.

01:03:42:07 - 01:04:03:20
Joe Gran Clark
The historical marker says it was built by Major Bibb. That's true in some respects, but a more complete truth is that it was built by the people who were enslaved by him. The bricks were made and laid with hand, mixed lime, mortar by the enslaved people. The wood was cut and planed and trimmed and nailed and installed by those enslaved people.

01:04:04:11 - 01:04:37:10
Joe Gran Clark
The paints were mixed and applied to the walls and these same human beings had also built a debtor's prison in Virginia for Major Bibb that's still in existence and on the National Register. And I'm sure he had his homes, his former homes in Virginia and in the Fayette County area of Kentucky, built by enslaved people. Before he came to Logan County on the plantation, those same people or their relatives planted, and tended, and harvested the tobacco and the corn and the wheat.

01:04:38:01 - 01:05:00:21
Joe Gran Clark
They took care of the cattle and the hogs and the horses and the poultry. They had worked in salt mines and coal mines and iron ore mining. They cooked and cleaned and woven cloth and washed and iron clothes emptied and cleaned the chamber pots. And this enslavement of people is an important part of the history of this place.

01:05:01:16 - 01:05:36:17
Joe Gran Clark
What makes this place even more special is that exactly 180 years ago, in 1839, 65 people were freed here, 65 human beings that were freed by Major Bibb, according to the terms of his will. And as far as we can determine, this is the only place in America that is open to the public where you had not only mass enslavement, there are plenty of plantation houses where you can go find that, you might not get much of a story about it, but you'll at least see it.

01:05:37:11 - 01:06:06:22
Joe Gran Clark
But also mass emancipations. And by having that combination of those two polar opposites take place, right here involving the same person really gives us an unbelievable opportunity to try to talk about the issues related to that, we chose the name of SEEK, SEEK is an acronym for Struggles, Emancipation and Equality in Kentucky. It's also a verb.

01:06:07:09 - 01:06:34:11
Joe Gran Clark
It's a verb of the mind. First of all, to seek knowledge, seek truth, seek understanding, maybe seek peace. It's also a verb where you seek something more tangible in a way, seek freedom. And I can't think of a more fitting way to sort of open the doors partially than to the descendants. And it's so great to have every one of you all here, and I hope a lot of good can come of this.

01:06:38:14 - 01:07:17:04
Michael Morrow
Bibbtown story is a funny story. It's a story about race. It's a story about family. It's a story about slavery. It's a story about wealth. It's a story about abuse. It's a story about neglect. It's a funny story. What I always hope and what I hope now is that these descendants can come together and put it completely together, not to make the white people feel bad about what they done, not to be smart with black people, but to bring people together.

01:07:17:04 - 01:07:25:09
Michael Morrow
Because in essence, a lot of y'all are probably family.

01:07:25:09 - 01:07:25:20
Michael Morrow
A lot of

01:07:25:20 - 01:07:57:21
Michael Morrow
y'all are probably family and family always need to stick together. A lot of y'all. I hope that the white Bibbs, and the black Bibbs can somehow come together and keep this story alive is very important as people need to come together. And if y'all come together as a group, maybe more things like this happen across the nation and we'll come together as a nation. Thank you.

01:07:58:16 - 01:08:38:02
Betty Ann Bibb Parish
I don't know. I said that we probably are from the unpopular bunch, because I think it was George Mortimer that just tried to talk his father out of freeing in the slaves. But I'm very much on the side of the black people now. I really, really get upset watching some of the injustices in the justice system that I see on TV.

01:08:38:15 - 01:08:50:09
Betty Ann Bibb Parish
I really am. I can understand why they form the black people matter business. You know that it's just too much for this day and time. You'd think things would be different.

01:08:50:22 - 01:08:53:13
Carol Barnett
We were invited to the reunion by Michael Morrow.

01:08:54:00 - 01:08:58:14
Jonathan Knight
Did you just immediately feel like you needed to come or was that a decision that you had to make?

01:08:58:19 - 01:09:18:04
Hazel Barnett
It was something that I wanted to do. I thought it would be wonderful if we actually met some of these people I'd heard about. It's an outstanding experience. I mean, this was history to me and I didn't know anything about. So it was awakening from from an experience. Oh, this is wonderful.

01:09:18:11 - 01:09:19:23
Carol Barnett
I have a little different feeling.

01:09:20:04 - 01:09:21:18
Jonathan Knight
Okay?

01:09:21:18 - 01:09:25:18
Carol Barnett
I'm not a person who wants to come visit these plantation homes.

01:09:25:19 - 01:09:31:06
Jonathan Knight
I'm interested in your feelings in terms of what you think should be done with these old properties.

01:09:31:06 - 01:09:32:08
Hazel Barnett
Oh, my goodness.

01:09:32:12 - 01:09:43:20
Carol Barnett
Well, I mean, I support the idea of them becoming museums. I support the idea of being places where people can come together like this. I Just don't like the idea of them being celebrated as plantations.

01:09:44:04 - 01:09:48:11
Hazel Barnett
Right. I am 86 and I'm just meeting these people.

01:09:48:18 - 01:09:59:08
Carol Barnett
When someone signs in and they're from Chicago and they say, we have lots of Bibb relatives from Indianapolis, and we went to Indianapolis every summer as kids, but we never knew them.

01:09:59:18 - 01:10:01:09
Jonathan Knight
Oh, wow. But I'm so glad that you.

01:10:01:16 - 01:10:03:21
Hazel Barnett
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's wonderful.

01:10:03:21 - 01:10:12:18
Carol Barnett
It's it's just it's a strange feeling, really. It's. It's like the collapsing of a 150 years in an instant.

01:10:12:22 - 01:10:14:23
Jonathan Knight
Yes. Yeah, exactly right.

01:10:15:04 - 01:10:19:02
Carol Barnett
Because we are all connected to each other for more than 150 years.

01:10:19:12 - 01:10:38:02
Jonathan Knight
And now it's a closing of the circle. Yeah.

01:10:38:02 - 01:10:41:01
Lonnae O'Neal
Why did you come? Why did you want to come?

01:10:41:01 - 01:10:49:23
Sharon Bibb Vaughn
I don't know. Because I was interested in finding out my white side. Really? Who? When he showed me Richard.

01:10:49:23 - 01:10:52:12
Lonnae O'Neal
Did you know we had a white side?

01:10:52:12 - 01:10:58:18
Sharon Bibb Vaughn
Yeah, to an extent, but this is all new to me. So, yes, I'm interested in seeing what.

01:10:58:18 - 01:11:03:14
Lonnae O'Neal
What did you think when you heard that there was a plantation house?

01:11:03:14 - 01:11:25:22
Sharon Bibb Vaughn
Interesting. Did everybody grow up in this plantation house or. You know, it's like actually my relatives were slaves. That's where, you know, to me, I like knowing where the beginning and this is all the beginning and it's it's interesting. It really is interesting.

01:11:25:22 - 01:11:36:09
Traci O'Neal Ellis
And as I spend time in that in this building and on these grounds, I hear voices and I was really okay.

01:11:36:14 - 01:12:17:14
Traci O'Neal Ellis
I was okay. I felt a lot of things, you know, and as the millennials say, feel all the feels. So I was feeling all the feels. And one of the strong feelings I had was rage. But I was keeping it intact. I was keeping it down. I was holding it in. I was putting on the mask that I wear every day so that I could go out into this world until I went to that third floor.

01:12:17:14 - 01:12:48:10
Traci O'Neal Ellis
And I got a chance to spend about 5 minutes alone up there. And I sat on the floor. I walked around, I sat on one of those chairs. I held a quilt that was sitting up there and I heard voices and I got more angry. I felt reluctance about coming here I was that my sister immediately was like, I'm going.

01:12:48:10 - 01:13:13:03
Traci O'Neal Ellis
And I said, Yeah, I don't know. And I had to think about it because I didn't know what to expect. So then I decided, you know what? I yeah, I think I'm going to come. I am going to come. And then I was asked to speak and I had the kind of the anxiety and reluctance all over again because I felt like I'm already going to be in feeling some kind of way.

01:13:13:03 - 01:13:38:01
Traci O'Neal Ellis
I don't know how I'm going to be feel. I don't have anything by which to measure this or calibrate the experience or what kind of state I'm going to be in. And I just didn't know. And so when I got on the phone with Gran, I said to him, I cannot do a speech that centers my voice in a place where so many voices need to be heard.

01:13:38:01 - 01:13:44:15
Traci O'Neal Ellis
If the white descendants are coming to celebrate, Richard, I'm not going to be able to sit well with that. Right.

01:13:44:23 - 01:13:48:05
Jonathan Knight
And that's how that's how the history has been taught in the past.

01:13:48:05 - 01:14:18:03
Traci O'Neal Ellis
Exactly. It's been centered on the oppressor as opposed to centering it on the oppressed. Because I was was going to say something. Yeah. You know, like this. I'm not here to celebrate, Richard. I'm here to celebrate those people that lived on that third floor. And all of us have come here today, I suspect, in part to bravely face the shared history.

01:14:19:00 - 01:14:29:21
Traci O'Neal Ellis
James Baldwin once said, Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until is faced. So let's face some things today.

01:14:30:05 - 01:14:41:10
Jonathan Knight
You have that divide. You have white people coming to this and you have black people coming to this, but they are connected the same story, but coming at it from two different directions. Yes.

01:14:41:10 - 01:14:54:23
Jon Anderson
So one of the questions that we that you asked that we didn't get to was about whether us as white people are having those conversations around race.

01:14:55:04 - 01:15:09:02
Jon Anderson
No, I don't think those conversations really happen. I think they happen in small circles, but in the general they are missing. And I think a lot of people wish it would all go away. Each of us as the white cousins here,

01:15:09:09 - 01:15:10:08
Jon Anderson
as I'll refer to them,

01:15:10:21 - 01:15:28:09
Jon Anderson
are only where we are In life, because of our black cousins. And we need to face those privileges that we have lived with for 200 years as the result of this house, and the house across the street.

01:15:28:17 - 01:15:48:20
Lynn Slaughter
If we witness something that is clearly racist, clearly unfair, we have to speak up and we have to change things. And those of us who are in a position to change things, have a responsibility to act.

01:15:48:20 - 01:16:27:20
Lonnae O'Neal
The cousin to the right said, she's advising her fellow white family members, see something unfair, say something. And I would just go a step further and say it's unfair all around you, right? So you have to actually educate yourself to see it. Gentrification is unfair. Mass incarceration is unfair. Voter suppression is unfair. Police officers shooting people instead of de-escalating, coming in so hot that you don't even get a chance to be human before you're dead is unfair.

01:16:28:04 - 01:16:54:18
Lonnae O'Neal
So I would ask my white relatives because you do not get the privilege of family without the responsibility and you will never get me again if you are unable to come to me and tell me what you've done, because we're on the front lines. We're at one point, we're putting our bodies way out here, and I need you to catch up with us, put together a reading list, right?

01:16:55:17 - 01:17:10:17
Lonnae O'Neal
If you want some suggestions, we can make some suggestions. I won't do it for you. I swear to God, I won't. But I can at least point you in a direction because we're family.

01:17:10:17 - 01:17:24:14
Traci O'Neal Ellis
It has been transformational. I do feel like I have been changed. I had a little bit I'll confess to kind of talking to Richard and John Bibb, saying, well, screw you because I'm walking all through this house.

01:17:24:20 - 01:17:37:19
Traci O'Neal Ellis
Right. And I am everything that you didn't think we could be.

01:17:37:19 - 01:17:59:13
Jonathan Knight
I woke up the morning after the reunion to the news of two mass shootings. One of them was clearly a racist act of terrorism. It was a heavy reminder of where we are in America. I was excited to tour Upper Bibbtown with other descendants, but that violence really weighed on me.

01:17:59:13 - 01:18:28:14
Michael Morrow
Very important that you all start figuring this thing out. Some of y'all may own this land, I don't know, but it's important that you figure it out and try to figure it out quick before they take it, because some of them are planting on it. For the last couple of years. And like I say, ten years it's thiers. To me you're failing your ancestors if you don't. Any more questions? I'm like the school teacher. Don't make me pick somebody.

01:18:28:14 - 01:18:36:14
Traci O'Neal Ellis
So where would you suggest, because I'm like, if I own any of this, I want it.

01:18:36:14 - 01:19:28:23
Michael Morrow
I'm assuming y'all came from Kesiah. You need to figure that out. And once we can figure that out, then we can figure out is the land here that hadn't been claimed that comes from there. Another thing that you may be looking at and trying to find on some of these people, if they fought in the civil war, the civil war pension files, because a lot of times they're very detailed because to get your pension, you had to prove who you were and you almost had to tell what plantation you came off of. If you on the plantation, who your brothers and sisters were, who your mother was, where did you live after the war? So that may be a key, but like I said, if I was y'all, I would be trying to find. And then even if you're looking and find that you don't got any land, you may find something to help somebody else.

01:19:29:00 - 01:19:29:04
Michael Morrow
Yeah.

01:19:30:06 - 01:20:03:12
Amber O'Neal Johnston
Yeah. I've never felt that way. There's never been a piece of land in America. Other than my house. You know, where my house is that I've felt some ancestral or deeper or spiritual connection to. So when I got out of the car and my kids were like, What are we doing here? Whatever. And I'm just like, we're celebrating and I'm looking and I'm like the trees and the woods and the nature and, you know, paths that where they walked and the land and the places where they lived.

01:20:03:21 - 01:20:34:15
Amber O'Neal Johnston
I just feel a connection. I feel sadness. I feel sadness. But I'm also very thankful. I don't take this story for granted because I know that there are so many families that wish that they could draw back to some connection. Like what we're getting right now is an amazing gift. And the sadness is not bad. It's it's a gift to be able to feel that to be able to to mourn and celebrate and go through all those different stages.

01:20:34:15 - 01:20:52:00
Amber O'Neal Johnston
I consider it all to be a gift. And then when I hear the stories of the shootings and I'm like, well, maybe not quite as far. Yeah, maybe it hasn't been, maybe it looks different, but it's still there. And there's so much work to be done.

01:20:52:00 - 01:21:17:17
Jonathan Knight
It becomes concrete, it becomes something that's real, it becomes a specific story, right? So I feel like I've been aware of white privilege. I've been aware that I've inherited that privilege by being white. And I inherited a lot of economic benefits and my family has. And all of that was always true and that but it was abstract.

01:21:17:17 - 01:21:45:01
Jonathan Knight
And now looking at this, I can see this direct line and I can see that because of the rules set down that Michael mentioned in Virginia that said that the status of a human being goes through the mother and if the mother was a slave, then the child would be a slave. And it doesn't matter who the father was and it was that specific thing that divided our two family lines.

01:21:45:22 - 01:22:03:02
Jonathan Knight
And I know that I'm descended from Richard's daughter, Lucy, who lived here across the street. And I know that her daughter married somebody of a high status family straight down the line. That's exactly where all of my privilege came from. And that was denied to your side of the family.

01:22:03:12 - 01:22:42:22
Traci O'Neal Ellis
In in a small way, but it's healing a piece of my soul just to hear you acknowledge that, is. To hear you say that and recognize that although we are related, we came down very different paths. And there's a corner of my soul that feels, you know, healed by that, because, again, a lot of the pain comes in the denial of the stories and denial of our lived experiences.

01:22:43:11 - 01:22:50:06
Traci O'Neal Ellis
It could start with just acknowledging the accurate history.

01:22:50:11 - 01:23:26:19
Rachel Knight
I think this weekend the most that we could do was sort of acknowledge like on that level of reparations of like what does it mean to acknowledge this past, to recognize the privileges that we've inherited throughout the generations because of this past. But I think my real takeaway is that going forward, having met family members and now having these cousins, there is a real need to take it farther and to understand it and to continue that work.

01:23:27:19 - 01:23:53:10
Jonathan Knight
When we first came here to Russellville the very first time, something that struck me when I saw the gravestone of my ancestor is this concept that we've talked about of being invented before you were born, carrying with you all these things that came before you, whether that's privilege, whether that's oppression, that that defines a lot of who you are.

01:23:53:21 - 01:24:08:20
Jonathan Knight
But I feel like what we've learned all along in this process is somewhat of the ability to break that cycle, an ability to make a choice to do something very different than the way that you were placed in this world.

01:24:08:20 - 01:24:16:08
Le Datta Grimes
This work has to cost you something, but so many of us don't want to pay anything. We want it to happen magically.

01:24:16:11 - 01:24:16:21
Jonathan Knight
Right.

01:24:17:04 - 01:24:41:02
Le Datta Grimes
And there is no magic. You know, faith without works is dead. There has to be some legs on the work. If nothing comes of Saturday, it will have reduced the truth that was spoken. All of this was invented before we were born but is still sitting in our lap in 2019. And really we have to decide what are we going to do with it?

01:24:41:12 - 01:25:17:01
Traci O'Neal Ellis
And finally, to the ancestors who provided uncompensated, back breaking labor on these grounds to build this town, this county, this state and this country. I say to you, you did not suffer in vain. We, your descendants, have gathered here today to pay homage to you, to name you, to learn about you. And in learning about you, we are learning about ourselves.

01:25:17:01 - 01:25:57:17
Traci O'Neal Ellis
We are putting flesh on your bones this weekend and by extension, putting flesh on our own bones that have longed to be nourished by you. We want you to rest easy, to rest in power, and to know that we, your descendants have triumphed against all odds, and that we are your wildest dreams. And if you'll allow me a little liberty with Maya Angelou's words, a portion of them. Out of the huts of history's shame, we rise. Up from a past that's rooted in pain.

01:25:58:03 - 01:27:46:08
Marvinia Neblett
We rise. We're a black ocean leaping and wide, welling and swelling, we bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, we rise into a daybreak that's wondrously clear. We rise bringing the gifts that our ancestors gave. We are the dream and the hope of the slave. We rise, we rise, we rise.

01:27:46:08 - 01:27:50:17
Jonathan Knight
What is the next step for you? What is going to happen over the next year with the SEEK Museum?

01:27:51:13 - 01:28:11:17
Michael Morrow
Hmm, it's going to get into a battle. I'm gonna bring the monument home from Montgomery, Alabama. Lynching Museum has a thing where they'll give each community a monument with all the names of the people who were lynched in those towns. Yes, well after all this is over, we're going to sit down with people and we're going to figure out how to get it here.

01:28:11:17 - 01:28:32:14
Michael Morrow
And we're going to put it in the community and start hoping to make this community to face up to certain realities and things. I hope it'll go smooth, but I'm ready for a fight, hoping to go smooth. I hope where we can get good dialog with whites in the community. I hope they accept the fact that it ought to be here.

01:28:33:07 - 01:29:01:09
Michael Morrow
Hope that we can come together and get it here. Change is not going to come about by people being quiet and passive. Change has to come by people standing up for what's right. And that's what we're going to do next,