Pharrell Reacts to Family History in Finding Your Roots | Ancestry

i'm buzzing like my arms my body is buzzing like whoa we took musician pharrell williams on an extraordinary journey all thanks to one single document the story begins with his great great grandfather a man named federer williams fenner died in 1927 but his sister jane arrington lived into the late 1930s and near the end of jane's life she was interviewed about her experiences under slavery allowing pharrell the opportunity to read the actual words of one of his own relatives who had endured bondage something very few americans are ever able to do i was born on the 18th of december 1852 i was born on the plantation near tar river my mother was named luisa may and my father was named louis may my mother had six children four boys and two girls the boys were richard pharaoh caesar and fenner the girls rose and jane jane that's me wow that is your great-great-grandfather's sister and she is your great-great-great-aunt crazy jane arrington was interviewed as part of what's known as the slave narrative project a collective oral history comprised of roughly 2 300 interviews with formerly enslaved people the project was sponsored by the federal government in the 1930s jane's words gave pharrell an intimate glimpse of his ancestors experience under slavery those words also forced him to confront the cruel reality of what those ancestors actually experienced and the realizations concerning his great-great-grandfather fenner which strike pharrell particularly hard so we estimate that fener was born between 1855 and 1857. okay we're pretty sure about that so you know what that means that means that he was most likely born into slavery and not freed until the end of the civil war wow at 10 years old the first 10 years of his life would have been spent in slavery wow you know we tend to think as adults but think about a little boy i don't want to cry and i'm trying not to be angry you're not a machine this is horrendous what else can you feel it's horrible it's intenser it's intense pharrell's ancestors likely suffered more than he can even imagine in our interview jane recalled minute details about their daily lives on a cotton plantation revealing the degradation they endured every day we lived in log houses with stick and dirt chimneys they called them the slave houses i worked on the farm cutting corn stalks and tending to cattle and slavery time sometimes i swept the yards after working all day there was a task of cotton to be picked and spun by them what kind of people what kind of people it puts a very vivid intense context behind what it means to be african-american and i thank god that i got to hear it but i'm so sorry they went through this oh nobody should have gone through this it's a lot man no i have to say i'm forever changed retrieving lost stories can be an act of restoration not only of our ancestors resilience but of the resilience of the entire human community [Music] to see more incredible stories click here and watch the next video

Channel: Ancestry

Views: 2,371,552

Rating: 4.8932567 out of 5

Keywords: ancestrydna, ancestry, finding your roots, family tree now, surname, family tree, ancestors, family search, dna discovery, ancestry com, family connections, ancestry.com, family history, heritage, ethnic heritage, history, family, relatives, family members, pharrell, black history, black history month, black heritage, african american heritage, african american ancestors, african american family history, pharrell williams, pharrell reacts

Id: lwSC0ffg5iY

Length: 5min 1sec (301 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 19 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/IIIEYEVIEW]

This was really powerful!