Meeting "The Other" David Wilson

By Janis Prince Inniss

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

Martin Luther King

I have heard that portion of the famous “I Have A Dream” speech delivered by Dr. King at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, or portions of it many times, particularly in February (Black History Month). Exactly 45 years after that stirring speech the first African-American made his acceptance speech, becoming the first presidential nominee from a major party, indicating that at least some of Dr. King’s dreams are on the way to being realities. 

But never has that particular sentence been so alive as when I saw a documentary broadcast on MSNBC entitled Meeting David Wilson. The documentary chronicles the meeting between David A. Wilson, great-great-grandson of an enslaved Ghanian, and David B. Wilson, great-great-grandson of the Ghanaian’s slave owner. The film captures the emotional journey taken by 28-year-old David A. to meet David B. in North Carolina. Through genealogy research David A. found David B. and decided to make the trek from his New Jersey/New York home into the world of his ancestors who were enslaved in North Carolina. David B. Wilson was 62 when the documentary was made; he grew up on a farm and graduated from a segregated North Carolina high school in 1961. Their first interaction, however, was by telephone when David A. called David B. and said:

Hello, Mr. David Wilson? Well, my name is David Wilson, and I believe your family once owned mine.

With that memorable beginning, and after spending some time together, the men had the following conversation: 

David B: What about the idea that your family was still in Africa—had you not gone through the difficulties of slavery you might still be entrenched in poverty with no chance for improvement in America?

David A: Had we not been here and not taken to America, there a real possibility that America might too be entrenched in poverty, because we helped structure this country.

Here, the men grapple with an issue that many blacks and whites probably think about, particularly in the heat of racial animosities. Usually such sentiments are left unspoken, but in this case, the feelings were expressed and discussed. David B. wonders—aloud and on camera—about what might be called a major benefit of slavery to enslaved Africans. According to this line of reasoning, being forcibly brought to the U.S. improved the lives of Africans, by giving them a chance at the American Dream. Moving people out of poverty for a shot at the American Dream sounds like a noble cause, and casts slavery in the light of a social welfare program. But can we really put aside the forcible nature of slavery? Perhaps it is the brutality to which David B. refers in speaking of “the difficulties of slavery”.

Examining that perspective further, how many of us have credible information regarding the material life of Africans who were enslaved before being captured? Are we making ethnocentric and/or Eurocentric assumptions when we proclaim life in the U.S. was better? 

Another aspect of that argument is the notion that descendants of enslaved Africans receive a chance at the American dream. With the largest black middle class in American history, today many African Americans are experiencing the bounty of the American dream. Yet, the life chances of far too many African Americans continue to be reduced. And many social scientists attribute the major social ills that plague segments of the African American population to ongoing struggles as a result of slavery. 

David A.’s belief that the U.S. might be “entrenched in poverty” without the aid of enslaved Africans in its building is also worth examining. What reliable information do we have about the role of enslaved Africans in America’s wealth building? How could we determine whether enslaved Africans played a critical role in the wealth building of the U.S.?

In essence, each racial ”side” represented by the two Davids, thinks he has done the other a favor by being in the U.S. How much of the tensions between blacks and whites in America is related to this belief, which ultimately keeps each on an opposing side as if on competing teams? 

And how much of the racial tensions is a result of non-communication? Before they meet, David Wilson of New Jersey, with only stereotypes to draw on for his namesake, says that he believes the North Carolina David will be “a tobacco-chewin’, straw eatin’, rifle totin’, rockin’ chair sittin’, lemonade drinkin’ redneck”. However, after they spent time together, David B. saw David A. less in the role of slave owner, but as “more of a decent and kind-hearted human being”. Clichéd as it is, the role of communication in beginning to see a different point of view is critical.

Meeting David Wilson depicts one of Dr. King’s dreams: The descendants of a former enslaved African and that of a former slave owner sat together, walked together, and talked together. In talking about difficult topics such as slavery and its impact on America today, reparations, segregation, guilt and blame, the men discovered that they were both “decent” men. In fact, David A. took about fifty members of his extended family members with him to North Carolina to meet the other Wilsons on the plantation where both sets of ancestors had lived their separate and unequal lives. The willingness of the two David Wilsons to tackle difficult subjects in a harmonious manner seemed to have a profound impact on their lives and those of many family members. Do you think conversation can create change?

Comments

[beth]

great post.
listening in order to understand where folks are coming from and why they feel they way they do and beginning the conversation is the only way we can start to overcome the divide. it will be a long, hard, and painful process but one in which we all must participate.
I have to see this film.

[Debbie Reefer]

This is a very inspiring post. To think that the action taken by one can open up so many avenues of interest is amazing. I never gave thought to the aspect that America could have turned out so very differently had it not been for slaves. As part of the sociological process in the area I grew up in, slavery was referred to as a circumstance that generated in the south, remained in the south, and only involved the Africal people brought to this country for the express purpose of serving as slaves on great plantations.