Happy Black History Month! Lately, I have been thinking a lot about how our ancestors survived and persevered through centuries of inhumane, ungodly mindsets, some of which we still face. The operative verb here is “survived.”

Like my mother’s paternal grandfather, William “Bill” Reed of Tate County, Mississippi, only three generations away from me. In 1857, he and his siblings were “appraised” in the estate of his first enslaver, Samuel Reid of Abbeville County, South Carolina, because they were considered property. Then, forty-two years later, the following 1899 land deed documents him purchasing additional land for his thriving farm. He amassed over 300 acres in Tate County.

He survived and progressed, regardless of the odds that were stacked against him in an environment that considered him less than human. In 1857, when he was inhumanely appraised, he was a young boy about 10 years old. His mother had died, and an older sister took care of him, per oral history. Little did he know, his father Pleasant Barr, who was enslaved nearby on the farm of Samuel Reid’s sister, Rebecca Reid Barr, would be sold and taken to Ripley, Mississippi about 1859, permanently separating him from his family. He shared memories of his long-lost father with his children and grandchildren and named one of his sons after him.

After slavery, Grandpa Bill Reed worked hard and never gave up hope, even while he had to endure the many injustices that Jim Crow and racism brought forth. His desire to progress and make a living for himself propelled his decision to leave Abbeville, South Carolina in 1866. He joined a group of freedmen headed to Panola County, Mississippi for the promise of a better life, leaving family back in South Carolina whom he would never see again. He was only about 19 years old.

Grandpa Bill had strength and survival in his soul. Even at the age of around 91, chopping wood in cold, rainy weather caused him to get pneumonia, which ended his strong life on 30 November 1937. His story and the story of many others give me the strength and the reminder that resiliency and survival are in our DNA. Let’s draw strength from the stories of our ancestors, even as Black History Month is trying to be suppressed.