You are leisurely walking up a path and everything is quiet and serene as usual. As you approach the railroad-shipping yard in Selma, North Carolina … nothing seems out of place. There is no rail traffic, so you take that first step across the track at the railroad crossing. By the time you take that second step - your life is snuffed out. Hit by a freight car… …Her husband, William Grays and two children, Robert and Lizzie expected her to return home as usual. … …Robert Gray, and his tremendous struggles as a young man. Not much more than a boy, being thrust out into the world to make it on his own. After being raised by his mother, with her being the central force of his life, to suddenly have her taken away... …However tragedy once again entered into Robert’s life. His young wife Mary at the age of twenty-eight succumbed to the Spanish Flue as a result of the great worldwide influenza pandemic of 1920. She was pregnant at the time of her death. … …left with four young children to raise. The youngest of which was Mary at four years old. … …Even after the death of a parent the knowledge passed on by that parent will exist forever in some form or another. It is the same as information placed out in cyberspace, … …We go from a 1980 family reunion in Roosevelt, New York, at the courtesy of the Sherl Johnson family, all the way back to slavery in Wilder, North Carolina and back again to the Washington, D.C. area in 2008. Here in Washington, D.C. a family reunion is being held at the courtesy of the Terri Wilder Trimmer and Kecia Campbell families. …Laughter filled the air along with the great smell of food. A series of smells that make you want to eat until your stomach hurts and then eat some more, floated through the air. …Now at the table there was the beautiful Wilder matriarch Fannie Wilder (Fannie), 1947 high school state champion basketball star, the wise one who always gave plenty of thought to what ever she did, and her striking beautiful sister Brenda Gray… …Beside Sherl sits Doris Taylor, a tall beautiful lady who is as independent as they come and as determined as her grandfather, Poppa. She is a loveable parent, however, like Fanny she doesn’t take any stuff from anybody. With her violence is a tool that will be utilized given that it becomes necessary. We have all learned, don’t push or you will regret it. … …. Wow, this is getting interesting! Even Sam is puzzled, however Len raises a question. Is this something we can sell? … …The mist moves us along to 1880 in Johnston County. … …back to the 1860s in Johnston County…we find that there are a lot of freedmen here. There is much talk about the number of Blacksmiths in the area that are black So far we have met three and one of the most prominent ones is Thos Morgan,… …we constantly have to hide in the woods and sometimes follow the Neuse River to avoid detection and capture by slave hunters and traders. This is a very dangerous time for freed men and slaves. … …Mitchners’ Store and railroad depot. This is a major hub of commercial activity in the county. We have been informed that this is also a slave auction house. The Mitchners are major plantation owners… …Reportedly some of our ancestors are slaves on that plantation where we are currently hiding out under the Neuse River bridge. … …As we sat around early in the morning, having watched the sun rise over the Neuse River, we decided to do a little fishing for breakfast. The catfish were plentiful and large. …As we moved further into one section of his huge plantation there was this huge piece of clear land that appeared completely white. As far as we could see the land was completely white. That was a beautiful sight with the sun beaming down on it reflecting this sea of whiteness. The time apparently was early fall maybe around October and the warmth of the mid-morning sun had all of us in a very good mood. This was soon to change, for as we got closer and closer to that vast sea of whiteness we realized what it was, cotton. …The rows went on and on over the horizon. Man, this was nothing but potentially back breaking work, literally. To have this massive cotton field so clean and white, or ancestors and others spent days on end from sun up to sun down chopping cotton (removing the grass and weeds by hand). We know the skin on their hands had to be cracked, bleeding and full of calluses. The men, women and children all were involved in chopping this cotton field. We were amazed at the complete absence of weeds. … with the assistance of large financial institutions such as JP Morgan and Wachovia through the acquisition of tremendous loans using slaves as collateral, now shared by Thomas Mitchner, Agrippi’s children and his siblings at the expense of the backs of slaves. Slavery provided all of them the building blocks for their future financial successes. …There were a lot of rumors going around amongst the slaves. The biggest one was that all slaves were going to be free real soon. Of course there were also rumors that slavery would never end and anyone caught saying otherwise would be killed. Up around the Mitchner train depot there was a lot of activity, much more than usual. Confederate troops were everywhere, … Antietam, Maryland - October 3, 1862 President Abraham Lincoln with General George B. McClellan and Group of Officers …We got word that Sherman and 60,000 troops were coming up from Savannah, Georgia through South Carolina and North Carolina … Ruins Seen from the Capitol, Columbia South Carolina 1865

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