One Saturday in 1965 I happened to be walking past the
National Archives buil~ling in Washington. Across the interim years I had thought of Grandma's old stories-otherwise I can't think what diverted me up the Archives' steps. And when a main reading room desk attendant asked if he could help me. I wouldn't have dreamed of admitting to him some curiosity hanging on from boyhood about my slave forebears. I kind of bumbled that I was interested in census records of Alamance County, North Carolina, just after the Civil War.
The microfilm rolls were delivered, and I turned them through the machine with a building sense of intrigue, viev.:ing in different census takers' penmanship an endless parade of names. After about a dozen microfilmed rolls, I was
…show more content…
It w::~sn't that I hadn't believed Grandma. You just didn't not believe my Grandma. It was simply so uncanny actually seeing those names in print and in official U.S. Government records.
During the next several months I was back in Washington whenever possible, in the Archives, the Library of Congress, the
Daughters of the American Revolution Library. (Whenever black attendants understood the idea of my search, documents I requested reached me with miraculous speed.) In one source or another during
1966 I was able to document at least the highlights of the cherished family story. I would have given anything to have told Grandma, but, sadly, in 1949 she had gone. So I went and told tl'le only survivor of those Henning front-porch storytellers: Cousin Georgia Anderson, now in her 80's in Kansas City. Kan. Wrinkled, bent, not well herself, she was so ove.rjoyed, repeating to me the old stories and sounds; they were like Henning echoes: ·Yeah, boy, that African say his name was 'Kin-tay'; he say the banjo was 'leo.' an' the river 'Kamby Bolong,' an' he was off choppin' some wood to make his drum when they grabbed 'im!" Cousin Georgia grew so excited we had to stop