"I grew up in the South but I couldn’t wait to get as far away from that Southern lifestyle as I could get. So, I moved to California, lived there twenty years, flew to Honolulu for ten years. Got as far away as I could get. Then Bob’s business…

"We descend from one of the largest intact plantations in Georgia: The William Harris Homestead on Highway 11 in Monroe, Georgia. In 1825, my mother’s great grandpa William Harris started the homestead on 500 acres acquired in a treaty with the…

“If you were not in the mines, you would take and unload coal off the ships onto railroad cars. We would work every morning about 4:00 am and you did not know where you were going to be, whether in the mine or on the ship or where. Then the next day…

"My slave ancestors, despite the horrors they were subjected to, had value and were listed among the assets of a slaveholder. Had the Nazi position prevailed in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War (my slave great-grandfather and namesake, William…