GATES: I'm Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Welcome to "Finding Your Roots".
In this episode, we'll meet singer Dionne Warwick and
actor Danielle Brooks.
Two African Americans in search of their enslaved ancestors.
WARWICK: I know I'm a strong woman.
I've been strong literally from birth.
So I want to know where it all came from.
BROOKS: It's so cool,
because first I didn't have a name...
And now I have a name.
And then I didn't have a story.
And now I have a story.
GATES: To uncover their roots, we've used every tool available.
Genealogists combed through paper trails
stretching back hundreds of years.
WARWICK: Amazing. Absolutely amazing.
GATES: While DNA experts utilized the latest advances
in genetic analysis to reveal secrets that have
lain hidden for generations.
♪ BROOKS: That blew my mind! ♪♪
GATES: And we've compiled it all into a Book of Life.
A record of all of our discoveries.
WARWICK: Oh wow!
GATES: And a window into the hidden past.
So you know what that means?
BROOKS: He fought.
GATES: Dolphin joined the Union Army to fight for
the freedom of our people.
BROOKS: That is cool!
WARWICK: This has been one of the most enlightening,
fulfilling moments I felt in a long, long time.
BROOKS: It changes the game for my family.
GATES: Danielle and Dionne came to me facing one of
the greatest of all genealogical challenges:
reconnecting roots that have been severed by slavery.
In this episode, we'll overcome that challenge,
recovering names that were erased willfully,
and revealing stories that are profoundly uplifting.
(theme music plays).
♪ ♪
(book closes)
♪ ♪
GATES: Dionne Warwick is a national treasure.
For more than six decades,
she's captivated the world with her gorgeous voice...
Selling over 100 million records.
♪ WARWICK: If you see me walking down the street ♪
♪ and I start to cry each time we meet. ♪
♪ Walk on by ♪ ♪
GATES: But in person,
the woman who's thrilled so many is modest,
and credits her success to God.
After all, Dionne got her start as child in church when
her grandfather, a minister, decided she had an obligation
to serve with her voice.
WARWICK: My grandpa called me up out of the congregation.
And he whispered to me,
"I want you to sing a song for me."
I said, "You don't want me to sing a song.
You can't do this to me."
He said, "Yes, you're going to sing a song."
GATES: Mm-hmm.
WARWICK: And I closed my eyes as tight as I could get them,
and I started singing,
"Jesus Loves Me."
GATES: Mm-hmm.
WARWICK: And all of a sudden,
I kept hearing little things out of the congregation.
"Oh, how sweet."
Oh, she sings really good.
That's lovely. Yes.
Sing it baby. Sing it."
And all of a sudden I said, "Oh, they like me."
So, I opened my eyes up and I just kind of gave it to them.
GATES: Oh, that's great.
WARWICK: It's my first standing ovation.
GATES: While this first ovation came easily,
challenges lay ahead.
The music industry at the time offered few opportunities
to African Americans.
Indeed, Dionne was a 21-year-old background singer
when she met an up-and-coming composer
named Burt Bacharach.
Then, suddenly: everything changed.
Together with lyricist Hal David,
the three formed an incredible team,
crafting a series pop masterpieces,
starting in 1962,
with "Don't Make Me Over".
♪ WARWICK: Don't make me over. ♪
♪ Now that I'd do anything for you. ♪
♪ Don't make me over. ♪
♪ Now that you know how I adore you. ♪ ♪
GATES: The song was a breakout hit which took everyone,
including Dionne, by surprise...
WARWICK: I heard my record being played on the radio
for the first time.
I was on my way back from Newark Airport.
GATES: Mmm.
WARWICK: I dropped some friends off and I'm
driving back home.
And the renowned Frankie Crocker was,
"And here she is. Miss Dionne Warwick with
"Don't Make Me Over." I heard the radio.
I said, "No, they didn't say that."
I turned my radio up as loud as I could.
I put all the windows down in the car.
I pulled over to the side.
And as cars were going by,
I know they couldn't hear me anyway, but I said,
"That's me. That's me."
It was unbelievable.
GATES: Since that day,
Dionne has been on the radio almost constantly,
with an ever-expanding fan base.
In fact, she's widely credited as the artist who
"bridged the gap" between Black and White audiences:
the first African American soloist consistently to crack
the Billboard Hot 100.
But for all her triumphs,
Dionne takes the greatest pleasure in what she
first experienced in her grandfather's church,
the simple joy of singing for others.
WARWICK: I don't do it for recognition or fame or
any of that craziness.
I do it because I believe what I'm doing
is going to be of service.
Like my grandpa said.
GATES: Do you think your music brought people together?
WARWICK: Absolutely.
GATES: Being that "Artist who bridged the gap"?
WARWICK: Absolutely. GATES: As you were called.
WARWICK: Music is the medicine that cures everything.
I truly believe that. I've seen it work.
GATES: Mm-hmm.
WARWICK: I've seen it work with elderly people.
I've seen it work with babies.
I've seen it work with people who are
thought to be mentally ill.
It's a healing force.
GATES: Mm-hmm. It is.
WARWICK: And I'm very, very privileged to be a part of that,
you know, to know that my music can make you smile.
GATES: My second guest is actor Danielle Brooks,
who came to fame as "Taystee" Jefferson,
a foul-mouthed scene-stealing convict
on the hit series "Orange Is The New Black".
BROOKS: Let's get some mother-(bleep) fried chicken
up in here!
(cheering)
Yeah, I said it! I'm Black
WILEY: She's Black! BROOKS: She Black!
WILEY: I'm Black!
BROOKS: And we like fried chicken.
That (bleep) is delicious.
Everybody likes it. Chicken for the people!
GATES: "Taystee" is an unforgettable character,
but she has little in common with the woman
who brought her to life.
Growing up in Simpsonville, South Carolina,
Danielle's father was a deacon, and her mother a minister,
faith was the fabric of their lives.
BROOKS: We went to church every day.
Every day.
There was not a day we weren't there,
whether I was usher, choir rehearsals,
praise team, step team, even Girl Scouts was at church.
I mean my first play was from church.
I did, um, a nativity play when I was six years old.
GATES: Were you Mary?
BROOKS: No, I was "Baby Girl." GATES: Oh, you were?
BROOKS: Because this was like,
you know, we wrote it, my people wrote it, So.
GATES: Oh, that's great. BROOKS: So, it was baby girl.
And, I guess I did a great job, everybody told my mom and dad,
and, and just was like,
"Your daughter, she's good."
So I, from, from then on, like, I caught it.
GATES: You were hooked. BROOKS: Oh, I was hooked.
GATES: Danielle's talents would reach a much wider audience,
but not before she made another crucial discovery.
In high school,
she was one of the few African American students in a
drama program that had no Black teachers.
She struggled to fit in until one day,
while searching for a monologue to perform in a class,
she chanced upon August Wilson's,
"The Piano Lesson."
BROOKS: That changed my world. GATES: Hmm.
BROOKS: Because these people in this story spoke like my mom...
GATES: Mm-hmm.
BROOKS: And aunties, and uncles did.
GATES: Mm-hmm. BROOKS: It was so relatable.
GATES: Mm-hmm.
BROOKS: And so, when I read one of the monologues from it, it...
I was, I, my heart, everything was so open.
GATES: Mm-hmm.
BROOKS: So when I delivered it, it just was,
it was an experience I hadn't had in any other monologue
that I had done from Tennessee Williams' plays
or doing Shakespeare.
I had never felt that before.
GATES: You occupied the role. BROOKS: Oh, yes sir.
GATES: "The Piano Lesson" took Danielle on a journey
she could never have imagined.
She used the monologue she'd found to audition for the
prestigious Juilliard School in New York City.
Two years after graduating from Juilliard,
she'd landed her part in "Orange is the New Black".
Starring roles on Broadway and in Hollywood soon followed.
Yet through it all, Danielle remained very much tied to
her deeply religious parents,
so much so that when she was first offered the part
of "Taystee" Jefferson, she hesitated...
I heard that you almost didn't take the role.
BROOKS: Yes. GATES: Is that right?
BROOKS: I almost did not take this role because
my mother was not feelin' it.
And when you are, you know, that young,
um, your parents' opinions really do matter.
GATES: What did your mother object to?
BROOKS: Well, she kinda had every right to
because in the first scene, I was supposed to be topless...
GATES: Mm-hmm. BROOKS: Going into the shower.
GATES: Right. BROOKS: And I was very...
You know, I come from a Baptist household.
GATES: Mm-hmm.
BROOKS: Uh, so I was very leery of that...
GATES: Mm-hmm.
BROOKS: In like, how do, will that shape my career?
GATES: Right.
BROOKS: And will people look at me a certain way?
Will this mess me up?
GATES: Right.
BROOKS: Um, but I was wise enough to ask
a lot of questions.
And, I also was wise enough, in that scene, to say,
"Do you have to see my top?"
And they were like, "No, we don't."
GATES: Hmm.
BROOKS: I found a way around it,
and thank God that I did and did not say no
to this part because it changed,
I don't know if I'd be sitting here with you know?
It changed my life.
GATES: My two guests both come from tightly knit families,
but like so many African Americans,
they know next to nothing about their deeper roots.
The reason? Slavery.
Enslaved people were almost never listed by name
in federal records,
and this has created what genealogists call
a "brick wall",
a barrier beyond which ancestors simply
cannot be traced using the paper trail.
But for Dionne and Danielle, the wall is going to fall.
They're about to learn the names, and the stories,
they've only dreamed of knowing.
I started with Dionne Warwick,
and a story about her own name.
She was born Dionne "Warrick" with two r's.
But a spelling error on the cover of her first record
changed that forever, much to Dionne's chagrin.
WARWICK: It was a mistake at the printing plant.
They made me a "Wick" instead of a "Rick".
And I didn't like it at all.
I hated it as a matter of fact.
GATES: No, it wasn't your name.
WARWICK: Exactly. By that time, of course,
all the recordings had gone out and labels had been printed.
And I said, "Well, when it comes back to being printed again,
you going to put my name on there and not
somebody else's name."
And I really was very upset about that because you know,
they took something that's mine.
GATES: Yeah.
WARWICK: Again, my grandfather, he said,
"My baby, listen. Look at it this way.
You know your name is Warrick.
GATES: Mmm-hmm.
WARWICK: Use Warwick as your stage name."
GATES: Wow. WARWICK: Your professional name.
I said I didn't want to do it. I didn't.
But I said, "Okay, Grandpa, I can look at it that way."
GATES: Unfortunately, the Warrick surname would
prove elusive to our researchers.
We were able to trace Dionne's beloved grandfather
back just one generation before we hit
the brick wall of slavery.
We had better luck with Dionne's grandmother,
we traced her ancestry back to a couple named
Guy and Mary Ann Russ.
They're Dionne's great-grandparents and
they're listed in the 1870 census,
living in Jackson County, Florida
with their five children.
Have you ever been to this area of the country?
WARWICK: Yes. GATES: Jackson County?
Did you know you had such deep roots there?
WARWICK: No, not at all.
GATES: I mean, some serious roots.
WARWICK: Yeah. I see.
GATES: Now, Dionne. Think about this.
This census was recorded five years after Emancipation.
And both Guy and Mary Ann were adults.
So, you know what that means.
That your great-great-grandparents
most likely were born into slavery.
WARWICK: Yeah.
GATES: But have you ever thought much about how slavery
impacted your own ancestry?
WARWICK: You know I felt there had to be some sort of
relationship to slavery within my family.
GATES: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
WARWICK: There's no way that it could have been gotten around.
GATES: That's right.
We all descend from enslaved people.
WARWICK: Exactly.
GATES: Nobody Black was on the Mayflower.
WARWICK: You're right about that.
GATES: We now set out to see if we could find any evidence
of Dionne's ancestors before emancipation.
Since some formerly enslaved people took the surnames of
their former owners,
we searched for any White farmers in Jackson County
with same surname as Guy and Mary Ann...
Russ.
It was a painstaking process, but in the 1860 census,
we found a slave schedule for a White farmer named
Joseph Russ...
It lists 31 enslaved people, not by name, only by age,
gender and color...
Now, what's it like to see that?
To think that one of your ancestors might be represented
by one of those hash marks?
WARWICK: Yeah, well, it irks me, to even think that
people were owned.
GATES: Yeah.
WARWICK: How can you dare own me?
No, that's something you'll never do.
GATES: Mm-hmm. WARWICK: But there it was.
You know...
GATES: Now, your great-great-grandfather,
Guy, was born between 1814 and 1816.
So, in 1860, the year that census was taken,
Guy would've been between 44 and 46.
Do you see anyone listed there around that age
on that record?
WARWICK: "One Black male, 46 years old."
GATES: We believe that you're looking at your
great-great-grandfather, Guy.
WARWICK: Wow.
GATES: Dionne, what's it like to see that?
To see your ancestor, listed, namelessly?
WARWICK: It's ugly.
And the only way that those that were purported to own a
human being could exist, was by transferring their name.
And I think it's only because they couldn't pronounce ours.
GATES: Yeah. WARWICK: Okay.
GATES: That's true.
WARWICK: That we had certain regality to our own.
GATES: The names we brought on the ships.
WARWICK: The names we brought with us.
Language that we brought with us.
They could not understand.
"How could you dare have something that we don't have?"
GATES: And they took it all away.
WARWICK: They tried to.
Because fortunately, there were those of us that
were able to, kinda, escape it.
GATES: Yeah. Some. WARWICK: Yeah. Not enough.
GATES: Not enough. No. WARWICK: Exactly.
GATES: When this census was recorded,
the Civil War was still a year away,
meaning that Dionne's ancestor had roughly five more years of
bondage to endure on Joseph Russ' plantation.
Searching the records of that plantation,
we were able to show Dionne a map of Russ's land,
where Guy likely picked cotton during these years.
And we were able to show her something else as well.
That's Joseph Russ.
WARWICK: Yuck. Wow.
GATES: It puts a face on slavery, doesn't it?
WARWICK: Yeah, it does. It's not a pretty face either.
GATES: No, it's not.
WARWICK: It's a very ugly face.
GATES: Yeah. WARWICK: You're an ugly man.
GATES: Emancipation was proclaimed in
Tallahassee, Florida, on May 20th, 1865.
And on December 6th, 1865,
the 13th Amendment was ratified.
Which officially abolished slavery in the United States.
What do you think that moment was like for your
great-great-grandfather, finally to taste freedom?
WARWICK: Oh, I think it was a jubilant day.
You know, I feel that he finds that finally I can be me.
GATES: Yeah.
WARWICK: And all mine can be who they are.
Finally.
And Mr. Joseph Russ.
I don't want to say what I want to, but bye, bye.
GATES: Dionne's great-great-grandfather
was roughly 50 years old when freedom came.
The world around him must have seemed like a dream,
as African Americans began to exercise their new civil rights.
In his own county,
Black men were even elected constable
and tax assessor,
and gained two seats in the state house.
But a backlash was coming.
Former slave-owners,
and members of the nascent Ku Klux Klan,
were not about to give up their power.
And newspapers quickly filled with accounts of
horrifying racial violence.
WARWICK: "Some half a dozen cold-blooded murders
have been committed.
And assassinations are the order of the day.
Mobs scoured the country on foot and on horseback,
armed to the teeth,
and do not hesitate to shoot down any
who will incur their displeasure."
GATES: From 1869 to 1871,
White people terrorized Black people
living in Jackson County.
WARWICK: Yeah.
GATES: What's it like to see this?
Your great-great grandparents were living right there.
WARWICK: Yeah, It's crazy. It's crazy.
GATES: Crazy, and guess what?
In 1871, ministers at an AME church convention in
Tallahassee, Florida suggested that all black people vacate
that county because it was so racist.
WARWICK: Yeah.
GATES: So, we wanted to see what your family did?
And I want you to guess, did they stay or did they go?
WARWICK: Knowing my family, they probably stayed.
GATES: Let's see if you're right.
Please turn the page.
This is the 1880 census for Jackson County.
Would you please read the transcribed section?
WARWICK: "Guy Russ, aged 66. Farm Labor.
M. A. 39. Wife, farm laborer."
GATES: So, you guessed right.
Your great-great grandparents remained in Jackson County.
WARWICK: I know my family.
GATES: What is it about your family that made you
guess correctly that they stayed to fight it out.
WARWICK: From the immediate family that I know grew up
around and with,
we were never afraid of anything.
You know, we had our own standards and lived by them.
And nobody's going to run me out of town.
GATES: Sure.
WARWICK: But, you know, not that we are that brave,
but we believe in the right.
GATES: Guy Russ passed away sometime before 1900.
He survived slavery
only to witness the brutal rise of Jim Crow,
but he and his wife Mary Ann left a legacy behind
just the same,
they stayed together, stayed on their land,
and secured a future for their children.
They paid their dues.
WARWICK: They sure did.
GATES: What's it been like for you to learn these details
about your father's family?
WARWICK: That all of what I am
comes directly from this.
You know, I know I'm a strong woman.
I have been strong literally from birth.
GATES: Mm-hmm.
WARWICK: I've never accepted certain things in my lifetime.
The word no doesn't exist for me.
The word can't does not exist for me.
And I'm sure that that strength and the being that I
am has an awful lot to do with these people
who gave that to me.
GATES: Much like Dionne, Danielle Brooks was about to
discover a story of profound strength hidden within
her father's roots.
It begins with her great-grandfather:
Willie Lee Brooks, who died the year Danielle was born.
We found Willie in the 1910 census for
Shelby County, Tennessee, living with his mother,
a woman named Ella Duke...
And finding Ella led us back another generation to
her parents: Kate White
and Adolphus, or "Dolphin", Duke.
BROOKS: "1845 Germantown Shelby, Tennessee" is where
"Dolphin", his nickname, Duke is from.
GATES: Mm-hmm.
BROOKS: Kate White, which is crazy, these names,
Duke and White, which is, that's, I'm guessing,
slave names, right, is born December, 25th, Christmas...
GATES: Mm-hmm.
BROOKS: 1842 in DeSoto County, Mississippi.
GATES: So you just met your third great-grandparents who
were born before the outbreak of the Civil War.
BROOKS: Wow.
GATES: And when you walked in here did you think
we'd get back this far so quickly?
BROOKS: I would believe you. Yeah, you could do it.
If anybody could do it, you could do it.
GATES: But you never heard these names before?
BROOKS: Never, never, I've never heard past
Willy Lee Brooks...
GATES: Gotcha. BROOKS: My great-grandfather.
GATES: How do you like that name, Dolphin?
BROOKS: I love it. I think it's amazing.
I love nicknames. I love it.
GATES: Dolphin's unusual name would soon lead us to
a painful discovery:
the estate records of a Tennessee slave-owner
named Britton Duke.
These records detail how Britton's human property was
to be divided up among his heirs,
assigning a cash value to each enslaved man,
woman, and child,
including a boy named "Dolphin"
who was worth $700.
How do you feel seeing that?
BROOKS: Yeah, it's a big deal. It's a big deal.
GATES: You just found out the name of the White man
who owned your enslaved ancestor and
what he had been valued at in the man's,
effectively in his will.
BROOKS: Yeah. Isn't that crazy?
GATES: Isn't that crazy?
$700 in 1856 is worth roughly $24,500 today,
and he is 11-years-old.
BROOKS: Wow.
GATES: He's listed as property just like the
cows and the chickens.
BROOKS: I know.
GATES: What do you think that was like?
BROOKS: A lot. I, I mean,
how could you feel like a human when you're
treated like that?
GATES: The slave system
may have tried to strip Dolphin of his humanity,
but it failed.
On April 12th, 1861 Confederate troops fired on
Fort Sumter, sparking the Civil War.
By June of 1863,
Union forces had taken control of most of
western Tennessee, including Shelby County,
where Dolphin had been enslaved.
Dolphin was now free,
and he quickly showed that he was very much
his own man.
BROOKS: "Dolson Duke Company, 59 Regiment,
U.S. Colored Infantry. Age 18.
Enlistment, June 1st 1863 at Germantown, Tennessee.
Term, three years."
GATES: So you know what that means?
BROOKS: He fought.
GATES: Dolphin listed here as "Dolson" joined the Union Army
to fight for the freedom of our people.
BROOKS: That is pretty cool!
GATES: Did it ever occur to you when you were watching,
uh, "Glory" that you might have an ancestor who fought
with the U.S. Colored Troops?
BROOKS: Never! That's empowering.
GATES: That's a big deal. BROOKS: Yeah.
GATES: Dolphin's military records indicate that he was
only five feet one inches tall, but that didn't hold him back.
He was assigned to the 59th regiment of the
United States Colored Troops,
one of roughly 200,000 Black men who served
in the Civil War.
What's it like to see that?
To think that your ancestor could have been
one of those men?
You know, we don't know what he actually looked like.
BROOKS: Well, I'm big on pictures 'cause they tell
100 stories, you know?
GATES: Oh yeah.
BROOKS: So even this and knowing his height,
I might, could choose which one?
GATES: That little dude right there.
BROOKS: Yeah. It's pretty amazing.
The white gloves and the guns,
and just the amount of power they must have felt for the,
like, first time in their life.
GATES: Can you imagine being given the chance to go to war
to fight against the people who had enslaved you and
your parents and your grandparents?
BROOKS: Now that's a dream.
GATES: That is a dream.
BROOKS: That, that's a dream for you.
GATES: Dolphin's dreams would soon collide with the
harsh reality of war...
In June of 1864, his regiment marched south from Memphis
into Mississippi and encountered the
Confederate Army at a place known as
Brice's Cross Roads...
A brutal battle ensued.
Union forces were soundly defeated,
suffering thousands of casualties.
Dolphin likely saw many of his fellow soldiers
fall around him.
BROOKS: It's just mind-blowing to imagine
seeing that much death.
GATES: 750,000 men died during the American Civil War.
In contrast, 50,000 Americans died in the Vietnam War.
BROOKS: Whoo.
GATES: The bloodiest war in the history of the United States.
BROOKS: Wow.
GATES: And this wasn't the only time your
third great-grandfather, Dolphin,
found himself in danger.
One month later,
in July of 1864,
the Union forces pushed in the Mississippi again,
and Dolphin was soon in another battle.
Please turn the page.
This is a letter written by a soldier who fought
at what was called the Battle of Tupelo, Mississippi
in July of 1864.
We believe your ancestor was there too.
Would you please read the transcribed section?
BROOKS: "The tide of battle ebbs and flows beneath the
hot rays of a July sun.
Once more, the rebel leaders urged their men to the charge...
But their men knew by bitter experience the men
with whom they were fighting.
Soon they break and escape to the woods.
Infantry, Calvary and Negroes have all served
their country faithfully,
have fought like veterans as they are and
are entitled to the, their country's gratitude."
GATES: They performed heroically.
What's it like to know that?
BROOKS: You know.
(laughter)
GATES: Dolphin's regiment had played a key role in a
Union victory that helped secure supply lines for
General William T. Sherman's famed Atlanta campaign...
And this was not the end of his military career.
Dolphin served honorably for the rest of the war,
then returned home to Memphis in January of 1866.
By that time, he was roughly 21 years old,
and he'd spent almost three years in the army.
So he's back home.
BROOKS: What's he doing?
GATES: What's he doing now? Please turn the page.
BROOKS: Making babies.
GATES: Would you please read the transcribed section?
BROOKS: "Dolphin Duke has this day, prayed and obtained
a license to marry Kate White.
Date of marriage, June 15th, 1867." Yes.
GATES: What's it like to see that?
BROOKS: That is cool because,
you know, with Black people,
we didn't have marriage licenses and
we were just jumping brooms.
GATES: Danielle, of course, is correct.
Southern legislators denied enslaved people
the right to marry.
So African Americans resorted to symbolic ceremonies,
sometimes involving jumping over a broom,
to honor their relationships.
For Dolphin and Kate, a legal marriage was a
fundamental part of their new freedom.
It was also a springboard to a better life.
After his marriage, Dolphin became a farmer
in Shelby County, growing corn and cotton.
He fathered at least seven children.
And by the time he passed away in 1898 he had
more than 20 grandchildren.
Looking back on his life,
he fought for his and his country's freedom
from slavery and he was able to live to see it in action.
What do you make of him?
What do you make of this ancestor of yours?
BROOKS: First, he's a human being.
GATES: Mm-hmm.
BROOKS: A full, full person. That's like a big deal.
GATES: Not just an anonymous, enslaved ancestor.
BROOKS: Not just an anonymous enslaved ancestor,
but also not just this generic ancestor.
GATES: You're right. BROOKS: He's a person.
GATES: He's a person. BROOKS: You know?
GATES: With a name on your family tree.
BROOKS: Yes. It changes the game for my family.
GATES: Turning back to Dionne Warwick,
we focused on her maternal grandfather,
a man named "Nitch", or "Nicholas", Drinkard,
Nitch was a fixture of Dionne's childhood,
and she vividly recalls his beautiful tenor voice.
But Dionne knew almost nothing about her grandfather's roots.
We set out to change that
and traced Nitch back two generations to his grandfather,
John Drinkard, Sr.
John is Dionne's great-great-grandfather.
And we noticed something unusual about him...
He and his wife owned a farm in Georgia in the early 1900s,
a time when most African Americans in the
south were landless sharecroppers.
WARWICK: "This indenture made and entered into the
11th day of August for the consideration of sum of $60.
All that tracked or parcel of land.
Situate, lying and being in the county of Early."
GATES: You know what you're looking at?
WARWICK: Is that a deed?
GATES: The deed of them buying their land.
WARWICK: Yeah. GATES: Isn't that cool?
That's your great-great grandparents
purchasing their land.
WARWICK: Mm-hmm.
GATES: And you could see a map of your family's
property on the left.
That's the Drinkard family land.
What's it like to see that?
WARWICK: It's amazing.
Especially during that period of time.
GATES: Yeah, absolutely. WARWICK: That's fabulous.
GATES: The Drinkard's owned a substantial farm near the
border of Georgia and Alabama, where they likely grew cotton,
the staple crop of the region,
but they didn't stay on the farm for long.
By the late 1920s,
they'd resettled in Newark, New Jersey,
just miles from where Dionne would be born and raised.
GATES: Did you ever hear any stories about why the family
came north and what happened to that land?
WARWICK: No. Never. Ever.
I didn't even know there was land!
GATES: Okay. Please turn the page.
WARWICK: Sure.
GATES: This is a newspaper article from September, 1919.
Could you please read that transcribed section?
WARWICK: "Weevils, caterpillars, spiders, and
rain have combined to make almost a complete failure of
Early County's cotton crop this season.
The price is low,
and only those who need the money are selling."
GATES: Well, you know what a boll weevil is.
WARWICK: Yeah.
GATES: Boll weevils are beetles that eat cotton buds
and flowers and a boll weevil infestation made its way to
Georgia in August, 1915.
By the end of 1919,
the state had experienced 40 million in losses.
That's worth 690 million today.
WARWICK: Wow.
GATES: Two years later in 1921,
the University of Georgia published a report
stating that the boll weevil quote
"Has disturbed our economic situation more than any other
single factor since the conclusion of the Civil War."
So this was affecting your ancestors cause that's
how they were making...
WARWICK: Farmers, yeah. GATES: Yeah.
WARWICK: It's crazy.
GATES: We can't be certain how this catastrophe
impacted the Drinkard farm.
There are no records to tell us.
All we know is that in 1923,
Dionne's grandfather Nitch defaulted on a bank loan,
and his family's property was sold at auction.
How do you think your grandfather felt?
It must have been devastating.
WARWICK: Oh, it had to be. You know...
GATES: Your mom was just three years old.
WARWICK: Yeah. Grandfather was a proud man.
GATES: Did he ever talk about this?
WARWICK: No. I don't know why,
but historical things of this nature that
we're discussing today.
It was never ever mentioned or talked about.
GATES: Why do you think? Too painful?
WARWICK: Could possibly have been that, you know...
GATES: People think, "Well if I don't tell them why"
WARWICK: Why make them suffer like I did?
GATES: Yeah. Well, let's see what your family did next.
Could you please turn the page?
This is the 1930 census for Newark.
Would you please read the first transcribed section
on the top left?
WARWICK: "Nitcholas Drinkard, head, 34,
molder at Essex Foundry.
Dealyea May, wife, 27, housewife.
Willie D., son, 11. Author Lee, daughter, nine.
Marie, daughter, seven. Handsome, son, five.
Annie M., daughter, three." All these people I knew.
GATES: Yeah.
What do you think it was like for them to start a
new life in a completely different place after all that
history that they had in Georgia?
WARWICK: Yeah. GATES: You know?
WARWICK: It must have been quite interesting
to go from...
GATES: A farm.
WARWICK: Yeah.
Into factories and doing things that they knew nothing about.
GATES: After moving north,
Nitch took a job in a metal foundry,
but that wasn't all he did in his new home.
Sometime in the early 1940s, he formed a family gospel group,
and named them "The Drinkard Jubilairs".
Tell me about this.
How was the group first created?
WARWICK: My grandfather. He loved to sing.
He had a voice that was angelic and he knew
his children could sing.
And these are his children.
It's my Uncle Nickie, my Aunt Annie, my Aunt Rebie,
Uncle Larry, Aunt Cissy.
GATES: So, what do you think that music meant to him,
especially after losing the land,
his family's inheritance being forced to come north
and then starting all over?
WARWICK: Starting all over again, yeah.
GATES: Yeah.
WARWICK: I'm certain that it was a jubilation for him, you know,
which I think is probably why he called them Jubilairs.
GATES: Yeah.
WARWICK: But knowing that his children had that kind of
talent and being able to sustain it and give it
foundation had to be a wonderful feeling.
GATES: Dionne's grandfather passed away in 1952,
but the Jubilairs kept going,
and become a force in the music world.
in 1958, renamed "The Drinkard Singers",
they recorded one of the first gospel albums
released on a major label.
In the 1970s, members of the group sang background vocals
for the likes of Aretha Franklin and Elvis Presley.
What would your grandfather say if he could see how many
people the Drinkard singing ministry reached?
WARWICK: There's my babies.
I know he'd be proud as punch.
Yeah.
GATES: What's it like to see the legacy he created
throughout his life?
WARWICK: Amazing. You know, um...
I come from a singing family.
GATES: So you're a walking embodiment of family tradition.
WARWICK: The whole tree.
GATES: Do you think that all these stories help you to
understand who you are?
WARWICK: No doubt.
I know, I know why I feel my strength, most times,
and sometimes show it, when I have to.
GATES: Right.
WARWICK: Also, my beliefs in what I know
I'm capable of doing.
I don't fool myself into thinking I can do everything,
as it's shown here.
They didn't feel they could do everything but what
they could do, they did.
GATES: Right, they did. That's right.
WARWICK: They did it with fervor.
GATES: We'd already traced Danielle Brooks' father's
roots back into the slave era in Tennessee.
Now, turning to the maternal side of her family tree,
we found ourselves in Lowndes County, Mississippi
in the 1850s,
looking for traces of Danielle's 5th great-grandparents,
a couple named Frazier and Susan Sharp.
Their surname led us to a slave schedule
for a White farmer named Elijah Sharp.
At the time this schedule was created Frazier was
roughly 35 years old, and Susan roughly 25...
Do you see any people who match those ages?
BROOKS: I do. I do.
"Three Black males, 37.
One Black male, 36 years old,
one mulatto male, 35, one mulatto male, 37,
and one Black female 25 years old."
GATES: Danielle, we believe that two of these people are
your fifth great-grandparents, Frazier and Susan,
but we wanted to be sure so we kept on digging and
let me show you what we found.
BROOKS: Oh, boy.
GATES: Please turn the page. BROOKS: Okay.
GATES: This is a page from Elijah Sharp's probate record.
It's dated May 11th 1858, and it was filed in the
state of Mississippi after Elisha's death.
Would you please read what we transcribed for you?
BROOKS: "A true and perfect inventory and
appraisement of the goods,
chattels and personal estate of Elijah H. Sharp deceased.
A Negro man named Frazier,
age 35 years old, valued at 1,350.
A Negro woman named Susan,
and three youngest children aged 25,
valued at 2,000.
A Negro boy named Nelson, age nine,
valued at 800."
That gets me every time.
GATES: So, you can see your fifth great-grandparents,
Frazier and Susan, and their son Nelson,
listed on that page and valued.
BROOKS: Wow.
GATES: You now know who owned your ancestors
on your dad's side and now your mom's side too.
BROOKS: Yeah. It's sad.
It's heartbreaking to think about that, you know.
Yeah. I think it's crazy, too.
I think about like $2,000,
you know, you can win that on a game show
in 10 minutes.
GATES: Yeah.
BROOKS: You know? Is so crazy to me.
GATES: So crazy.
Frazier and Susan somehow managed to survive
slavery and keep their family together.
We found them in the 1870 census for
Lowndes County,
living with four of their children.
But freedom brought a new ordeal,
one we'd already seen with Dionne's ancestors
in Florida, White terror.
In the years after emancipation,
Lowndes County exploded with violence against
African Americans who tried to exercise their civil rights.
The situation was described in harrowing detail by a man
named Robert Gleed,
a Black politician who testified before congress in 1875.
BROOKS: "The election in our city and county was wound up
on the 2nd of November and on the night before we
had a very unfortunate occurrence in our city.
Three buildings were set on fire, and four men
on that night were killed.
Most of the colored people were run out of their houses
during the night and all the men laid out pretty well."
Ooh, "And a good many women.
It was the worst time,
I believe, we have ever had in that county
as far as an election was concerned."
It makes me feel sick.
GATES: The night before the November 1875 election,
a mob of White men scoured Lowndes County,
murdering four Black men and
forcing Black families from their homes."
Your ancestor were living in that county at that time.
BROOKS: Mmm-hmm.
And this is only one story, one night, that's the thing.
GATES: Yep. BROOKS: Aye-yi-yi.
GATES: Let's see what happened. Please turn the page.
BROOKS: Okay.
GATES: This is another section of Robert Gleed's testimony.
Would you please read that transcribed section?
BROOKS: "We had a meeting.
Dr. Lipscomb and Judge Sims,
the candidate on the Democratic side were invited
to speak, to see if they could suggest some plan
by which we could avoid any collision on the
day of the election.
He said the way we could have peace was by
abstaining from voting altogether."
GATES: Can you believe that?
BROOKS: I can believe it.
GATES: Is that intimidation, or what?
Now we don't know whether or not your fifth
great-grandfather Frazier attended this meeting,
but what do you think he would've felt?
He just gained the right to vote in 1867.
And these people are saying,
"If you vote, we gonna lynch you."
BROOKS: Mmm, yeah, he might have stayed out of that one,
which is why we might have survived, you know.
GATES: It certainly would have made you think twice.
BROOKS: Mm-hmm.
Especially when you have a family to protect.
GATES: Danielle's ancestor may well have thought seriously
about staying away from the polls,
or leaving Mississippi altogether,
but in the end, he chose a different path.
BROOKS: Oh, snap. Okay.
GATES: This is a record taken in Lowndes County, in 1876,
one year after those threats made in the 1875 elections.
Would you please read the transcribed section?
BROOKS: "Registered voters in Crawfordville Election
District Names: Frazier Sharp."
GATES: Frazier Sharp. He refused to be intimidated.
BROOKS: I love it. I love his bravery.
That, yes, that is a man right there.
GATES: What do you think that meant to him,
signing up to register to vote?
BROOKS: Oh, my gosh.
I'm sure it was a, like he felt, like...
It's like, "I'm not gonna back down.
Um, you know, change does need to come."
GATES: Yeah.
BROOKS: "And to do it for the next generation,
and the next generation, and the..."
So, I'm very thankful to one of my grandfathers
back in the day, 'cause I don't know which one it is.
GATES: The fifth. Your fifth great-grandfather.
BROOKS: It's the fifth one. GATES: Yeah.
BROOKS: I'm very thankful to my fifth grandfather.
GATES: Great-great-great- great-great- grandfather.
The paper trail had run out for Danielle and Dionne.
It was time to show them their full family trees.
WARWICK: That's quite a group.
GATES: That is quite a group.
WARWICK: Wow. GATES: Isn't that amazing?
WARWICK: Oh, that's getting framed immediately.
GATES: This is your family tree, darling.
BROOKS: Oh, my gosh.
This is life, this is, you know.
I am because of these people.
GATES: For each, it was a moment of awe...
WARWICK: It's amazing.
GATES: Offering the chance to see how their own lives
were part of a larger family story.
BROOKS: This is so cool.
There are names, like a lot of them.
I'm crying on this. This isn't good.
GATES: Oh, that's all right. It's yours, it'll dry.
BROOKS: Oh, my God.
WARWICK: This has been one of the most enlightening,
fulfilling moments I felt in a long, long time.
It's wonderful. That's what it is.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
GATES: My time with my guests was drawing to a close,
but there was a surprise still to come.
When we compared their DNA to that of others who have
been in the series, we found a match for Danielle,
evidence within her own chromosomes of a relative that
she never knew she had.
Please turn the page and meet your DNA cousin.
BROOKS: This is gonna be hilarious,
I already can feel it.
(screams)
(claps)
Oh, yes!
Sterling K. Brown.
GATES: Danielle's mother shares a long stretch of DNA
on her 12th chromosome
with renowned actor Sterling K. Brown.
So, if your mother's related to Sterling,
then so are you.
What's it like to learn that?
BROOKS: You wanna hear a funny story?
GATES: Sure.
BROOKS: So I ran into him in LA.
And I was like, you know,
he's doing his thing and I was like,
"I just wanna say hey."
So, I was like, "What up, bro?"
And I guess,
I accidentally scared him, and he said, "Jiminy Christmas."
And I was like, "What?"
GATES: Jiminy Christmas. BROOKS: Jiminy Christmas.
I was like, you, if you're not the, like, pure...
Most pure-hearted person I've ever met,
to like, truly not cuss...
GATES: Yeah, right.
BROOKS: But just to say, "Jiminy Christmas."
GATES: And say, "Jiminy Christmas."
BROOKS: Uh, I love that guy.
GATES: Well, Jiminy Christmas is your cousin.
BROOKS: That is cool.
I have so much respect for this guy.
So, it's really cool to know that somewhere down the line,
we are cousins.
GATES: That's the end of our journey with Danielle Brooks
and Dionne Warwick.
Join me next time when we unlock the secrets of the past
for new guests, on another episode of
"Finding Your Roots".