Now appear black people with the name Traylor...

I keep a family tree in Ancestry entitled "The White Traylors" in order to trace my relatives who'd been enslaved, sold, mortgaged or willed to other Traylors as they moved south and west. I'd been reading a genealogy post about Traylor history when I came across the phrase "Now appear black people with the name Traylor..."

All but one of my father's grandparents was born into slavery. The one grandparent that was born free was one generation removed from slavery.  We have traced my father's paternal lineage to one Black man enslaved by white Traylors who migrated from Traylorsville, Virginia to the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Texas and Oklahoma. He fathered 5 boys whom we affectionately call "The 5 Brothers." They were skilled carpenters. They, like many freedmen, chose to keep the Traylor surname in order to find one another after Emancipation. My great grandmother, who married the brother I am descended from, was fathered (and enslaved) by one of the founding trustees of Emory College, which went on to become Emory University. It was Emancipation that prevented she and my great great grandmother from being willed to her white sister when her biological father/owner died. 

• The first enslaved Africans arrived in this country in 1619. That was 406 years ago.

• The United States of America was born officially in 1776, 157 years after the first trafficked Africans were brought here and enslaved.

• In 1788, the Constitution was ratified, codifying the value of enslaved people in the United States as three fifths of a person, after 169 years of Africans being enslaved here.

• Slavery was technically ended with the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865 after 246 years in this country.  

• My father was born in 1934, 2 generations after Emancipation.

• Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, intended to end segregation in the public schools was decided in 1954 after 335 years in this country.

• The Voting Rights Act, which intended to end voting rights discrimination was signed in 1965, after 346 years in this country. 

• I was born in 1971. African people had been in this country for 352 years.

Between the bullet points my family experienced enslavement, human trafficking, sharecropping, Jim Crow, lynchings, voter discrimination, wars, redlining (housing discrimination), poverty, protests, union organizing, college, church building, businesses, births, deaths, and living, surviving the American nightmare while watching others experience the American Dream.

People who were not black had a 346-year head start on acquiring wealth, power, civil liberties, education, governmental support and civil institutions. Was it all white people? No. Did that prevent any of the white people in this country from benefiting from the oppression of Black people? No.  Did the government participate in this oppression for 346 years? Yes. From 1619 until 1776, the governments of England, France, & Spain incentivized the enslavement of Africans. From 1776 until 1865 the United States of America did the same. From 1865 to 1965 the government did everything possible to stunt the growth of the black community, legalizing oppression in nearly every aspect of Black American living. To put it another way, if Americans benefited from any government sponsored program or policy after Emancipation, it was at the expense of Black Americans.

By the time I was born, our rights as citizens not subject to government sponsored discrimination had been in place for exactly 6 years. My rights were old enough to start the 1st grade.

So, in 2025, with half the country yelling MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, I really struggle to figure out which part of American history is considered to be great. Do I hold White people responsible? No. We should all hold the United States of America responsible because they allowed this human trafficking and impoverishment of some of its citizens. If the government did not want to be held accountable for its actions, it shouldn't have been ten toes down in making White Supremacy the foundation of this nation's capitalist aspirations. And let's be serious - if America was so interested in meritocracy, it wouldn't have spent the entirety if its existence trying to subjugate anyone who wasn't White.

Much of the history of African Americans in this country is the story of resilience, struggle, and overcoming DESPITE not being white. The degree of cognitive dissonance required to be a descendant of enslaved individuals in this country is substantial. Genetic analysis reveals the sexual assault stories that have been whispered through generations. Watching slavery related media causes PTSD with older relatives as they are suddenly forced to remember those stories the family has tried to forget. We carry the blood of the men who subjugated us.

Using the American government - who theoretically supports its citizens - to try to make all of the history pertaining to certain groups disappear with a magic wand is unethical, unpatriotic, disrespectful and let's face it, racist. I get it. It's very uncomfortable confronting this painful history. Trust me, it has been more uncomfortable living it.  And it becomes almost impossible to heal because while we were willing to invest 346 years into tearing a people down, we are unwilling to invest a fraction of that time into building those people up. It has been 60 years since the Voting Rights Act. Our stories deserve to be told. Our struggles deserve to be remembered. Our victories deserve to be celebrated. Our threads deserve to be woven into the fabric of America - our people picked the cotton to make it.