[VD: Video by TikTok user @/suffragechurch. The video is in response to a comment that says, “poc wanna erase history so bad so why do they need their ancestors documents? nah they can keep the same energy”
Response Transcription:
Okay so here’s the deal, white people. The past couple days, I been asking Southern white people that have had slave documents that have been passed down through their family to donate those documents either to a museum or archive. And many of you just straight up said ‘No’. Some of you said I’m trying to be a white savior, and some of you, like this person, says that black people just wanna destroy these documents once they get ‘em. And some of you said that if you release those documents, you’re scared that if you release those documents, they’ll come after you for reparations, or that you’ll be viewed as a racist today. This is simply about the ability to trace back your family tree. Now, I didn’t know this until recently, but for Black Americans that wanna trace their family tree, there’s a thing called the 1870 Brick Wall, because Black Americans were not listed on the census until 1870, Before that, they were just listed as property. And those property documents are sitting in a lot of y’alls people’s houses. Documents that could help black people find their families. These documents are wildly important.
/end VD]
