I'm watching the third episode of Civil War 360 and Dennis Haysbert is hosting and he is talking about his great-grandfather being born in North Carolina while his grandfather was born in Louisiana, meaning his great-grandfather was sold in the internal slave trade of the South.
It struck me, there is absolutely no way for me to understand the idea of knowing my ancestors were brought here to be sold as property. To know that they were in shackles, able to be sold at any time the slave owner wanted. Their family split up however was decided. I truly can't fathom what that's like.
I often hear white people say "my family wasn't even in America during slavery, why should I care". This is why, our nation allowed other human beings to be shackled, put on ships in conditions that weren't used for livestock and transported to be sold. Our nation treated a group of people as property based solely on the color of their skin. We have a large portion of our population that looks at their genealogy and has it end at a shipping manifest or bill of sale. There is no way we can understand this, that's why we should care. This is why we need to remember.
