‘We embraced each other’: Descendants of slaves and slave owners come together
The type of love once deemed impossible is now possible.
CRAWFORDVILLE, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Two unlikely groups came together for the first time on the plantation of their ancestor in Crawfordville.
Descendants of John Lindsay Stephens, the half-brother of Alexander Hamilton Stephens (the vice president of the Confederacy), and descendants of Eliza Stephens, who was purchased by Stephens as a young girl, all gathered at Liberty Hall, the home of A.H. Stephens.
The gathering started with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
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The quote stated, “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”
Nearly 60 years later, that dream became reality.
Through the quietness of downtown Crawfordville, sounds of music echoed. The sound was followed by a prayer embracing unity.
“We have chosen to be a family and we’ve chosen to spread that hope that we have for all people to come together and love,” said Elizabeth Coleman, descendant of Eliza Stephens.
The type of love once deemed impossible is now possible.
“We embraced each other,” Coleman said. “They were very welcoming to us. We were very welcoming to them. It was just a real time of fellowship.”
The fellowship took place on the lawn where history lives, deep within the Georgia red clay.
“The stories that their family tells that we know are true stories about what happened under the system of slavery and we wanted to be here to acknowledge that and recognize that,” said Alexander Stephens, a descendant of John Lindsay Stephens.
The family acknowledges the past by naming and forgiving the sins of their ancestors.
“I really would just hope that we could continue to have more honest conversations about what the system actually was for the people that participated in it on both sides of it,” said John Stephens, a descendant of John Lindsay Stephens.
The idea of the family reunion is to have open conversations and talk about the past to look forward to a better future.
“And in a lot of senses in of a reconciliation and an acknowledgment to hurtful things that were done in the past,” John Stephens said.
Both branches of the Stephens descendants feel their gathering gives hope for future families to do the same.
“It’s promising to think about what that could lead to, if it happened more often. And on a larger scale,” Alexander Stephens said.
It starts when one hand s another.
“It’s always good to love and to extend the hand,” Coleman said. “It may be slapped the first time, but leave it out there and one day it will be embraced.”
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