Tracing your history, Emmitt Smith (Who do you think you are, TV show)

I was taken by this episode. You read about this in history books, but without real life examples, it is really hard to truly grasp the reality for many whites. During one piece of the show, an historian made an example on how low slaves really were considered.
Slave traders that "bred" horses and slaves kepts records of the horses so that you could trace them well back to Europe but none were really kept of the slaves.
Emmitt were able to trace back 200 years where ot stopped due to no records. He found out his heritage is from Benin.
He is 7% Native American and roughtly 12% European and about 81% African who the historian said was one of the highest % African she has seen so far.
He traveled back to Benin only to find that svalev trading is still alive in that region. My cousin was working in Cameroon (for the world bank) for 8 years and he spoke of these things and this is one of the reasons he left.

http://www.nbcdfw.com/blogs/blue-star/Emmitt-Smith-Traces-His-Past-On-WDYTYA-87494602.html

When you talk history, Emmitt Smith has carved out an amazing path in sports as one of the greatest running backs in NFL history and one of the greatest players to ever wear a Dallas Cowboys jersey. Six years removed from the last time Emmitt Smith took to the football field, the history and roots of Emmitt Smith are being explored on Friday, March 12 at 8pm on the new NBC series, Who Do You Think You Are?. Interestingly, after a record breaking NFL career and a win on the third season of Dancing with the Stars, Emmitt Smith may be a product of destiny that traces back to the days of slavery, the relatives of Emmitt Smith in Alabama and Virginia, and his ancestors from Africa who made the long and arduous journey to America against their free will.

In the March 12 episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, Emmitt Smith embarks along a similar long, arduous and emotional journey to find out where he came from and to learn more about who he is as Emmitt Smith, the person.

Ahead of the Emmitt Smith episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, we caught up with Emmitt for an early morning chat about how Smith feels about destiny, how Emmitt Smith perceived himself prior to his journey, and how the history behind Emmitt Smith may have impacted his football career.

THE DEADBOLT: In terms of destiny, how do you think the past and present were meant to connect through you and your journey?

EMMITT SMITH: I think I was chosen to do this. When I think about my life, I don’t believe in things happening coincidentally. I think that I was chosen to do this because of obviously the things that I was able to do on the football field and even on the dance floor.

But I was handpicked out of my family members to be the one to break that barrier past Victoria and Bill Watson. Therefore, that’s why I think our destinies connected. Then when I go back and I find my great, great, great, great grandmother, Mariah, in Deed-Book 22, and the coincidence of me wearing 22 for about 18 years of my whole football career, when you can connect all that together, it’s like it was meant to be.

THE DEADBOLT: Can you talk about how you perceived yourself prior to taking this journey? Is it kind of like a glass half empty to a full glass?

SMITH: Well, you know what? You can probably say a glass half empty to a full glass. I had a sense, you know? I believed that I was African. I believed that I was descended from Africa but never really chased it that far, or even had an opportunity to go back that far. The farthest we could go back was Victoria Watson.

What this has done, it has given us an understanding past Victoria Watson into the darkest hours of slavery and to understand who the slave owners were and what they did, how they did their work, and how they made their living.

Then it took me back to the west coast of Africa where slave trading and trafficking was at and where our folks came from. So it was very interesting to journey through that and try to parallel that to the history books of American history.

THE DEADBOLT: In terms of the glass half empty and full glass, do you think what you discovered about who you are could have made you a better player at all? Is there a connection there?

SMITH: Well, no. What it did, it showed that obviously my heart and my drive and my determination, my passion, stems forth from way back. I can’t say why me, but it’s in me. I think survival is in me. Mariah did it. My great ancestors did it. The ones who made the long journey from Africa survived the brutal transporting of them from the west coast of Africa to America.

I was preserved. My blood, and who I am, was preserved somewhere through the histories and years of abandonment and misuse. So who I am today, I think all of that is part of me, too, that fiber, that makeup, that makeup of that strong will and that will to survive, and that will to be determined.

I think all of those things are what I brought onto the football field. That’s one reason why I say I probably was the one who was chosen to go back through time and reconcile with my lost past.

 

I wondered if anyone else on the board watched the show. I was moved by it too. I really don't even know what to say. I knew about the horrors of slavery, but there were so many things that I had never thought about...the inability to be able to go to cemetaries for family members because they were for whites only, not being able to trace your history back because there were no records kept, how slaves were listed in wills with a monetary value by their name, etc. There are no limits on the injustices of slavery and to think that it still goes on in our modern world is horrific. The show opened my eyes to so many things; things that I can't even find the words to describe.

 

http://www.nbc.com/who-do-you-think-you-are/video/

The full episodes of what they've shown thus far are on there.

I like this show. I hope they do more as a series in the future. I've done a lot of my tree on paper, but I've always wanted to do a DNA test.

 

Gotta watch.. got it downloaded....

 

You didn't have to DL it, it's streamed.

I want to see Spike Lees one.

 

Yeah!
I was sorta luke warm towards the show when they had Sara Jessica Parker one episode and then her frekking husband the next episode, wtf???
Spread the love!

 

The funny thing is most of us in the industrialized world know of these injustices but won't do anything. That's what I find sad. The past sucked but the present ain't much better kind of makes me worried about the future.

 

I dont if anyone has watched African American Lives 1 or 2 on PBS. That was deep. I believe its a similar concept.Tracing one's roots but with african americans specifically.

 

Yawn! Most of these rich bastards spending hundreds of thousand dollars just to find their genetic make up. It would be much better if they give their money to worthy cause, like open a school to under privilage children, set up a clinic for diabteic single moms... oh no...but they spend millions if not thousands just to get an answer to some arbitrary bullshit. And their audictiy to expect me to watch their fucken journey. Fuck that!

 

Tell us what you really think!