“ABC News Live” anchor Lindsey Davis is used to seeking and reporting the truth.
That instinct for fact-seeking recently extended to Davis’ personal family history, with genealogists from the 10 Million Names Project helping the Emmy Award-winning journalist trace his ancestors born in the early 1800s.
Lindsey Davis travels to Georgia to learn more about her family’s history.Terry Lynn Martin/ABC News
ABC News has partnered with the 10 Million Names Project. This project aims to break down the genealogy “brick wall” that makes it difficult for a Black American to search for documents and history of his ancestors that include his pre-1870 name. This project aims to identify all individuals. People in what is now the United States were enslaved before 1865.
Ten Million Names genealogist Kenyatta Berry says his paternal great-grandfather was the first in his family to register to vote, and may have been one of the first black Americans to vote. He revealed to Mr. Davis that it was expensive.
“Like many African Americans, I have no information about my family’s ancestry going back more than a few generations,” Davis said. “This is one of the many tragic legacies of slavery: we never know the details of our roots.”
Davis headed to Georgia, where her great-grandfather, Toby Murray, was born. She started by visiting the Georgia Archives in Morrow County, which houses a vast collection of the state’s most important historical documents.
Davis’ great-great-grandfather Murray was born in 1829 and may have been a slave at one time. Several historical registration records in the archives showed Mr. Davis’ evidence that Mr. Murray had registered to vote under dangerously difficult circumstances.
Lindsey Davis travels to Georgia to learn more about her family’s history.Terry Lynn Martin/ABC News
Davis was able to pick up the same book that Murray touched in June 1867, and since he was likely illiterate, we see where he wrote the “X” as his voter registration signature. I was able to.
Experts at the Georgia State Archives said Murray marked his name with an “X” after the clerk wrote it in cursive.
Historians say that after emancipation in 1863, most free black Americans lived in hostile white communities. They lacked education and fair wages, lived primarily in rural poverty, and were under constant threat of violence.
However, it was not uncommon for Murray to be registered to vote in 1867, as Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which allowed black men in southern states to vote and hold public office for the first time. There wasn’t.
Digging deeper, Davis and Professor Susan O’Donovan found that Murray was a farmer and was likely still registered to vote in 1898, more than 30 years after he first registered. did.
“At the time, I didn’t really think that black men, especially men who were supposedly enslaved, had the wherewithal to say, ‘Look, I’m going to come forward and get my rights.’ “Acting on this, doing it during the brainwashing that was going on at the time, and now being a second-class citizen or worse,” Davis said.
Lindsey Davis travels to Georgia to learn more about her family’s history.Terry Lynn Martin/ABC News
Union victory in the Civil War freed approximately 4 million slaves. However, challenges continued during the post-Civil War Reconstruction period, and freed blacks in the South faced uncertainty.
Southern whites regained control and implemented laws known as Negro Laws to limit the activities of freed blacks and ensure their availability as a labor force.
The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, adopted in 1870, prohibited denying the right to vote on the basis of race, color, or previous servitude. During Reconstruction, black Americans were elected to southern state governments and the U.S. Congress.
Newspaper articles from the 1870s exhibited the language and tone that primarily white editors of the time used when writing about elections and political campaigns.
An early Morgan County newspaper wrote, “The negroes voted firmly, blindly, and with all their might in support of independent candidates.” “They were better organized and voted more unanimously and with more determination than ever since they were given the ballot papers.”
According to historians, persistent and overtly racist voter suppression tactics continued in Georgia and throughout the South for decades afterward.
La Nice Littleton, a historian at the Atlanta History Center, said the black community has fought for generations for the sacred right to vote despite oppression.
“Times change, but attitudes don’t,” Littleton said. “Therefore, we see a consistent struggle for black citizens to organize, mobilize, strategize, and exercise their right to vote and participate in democracy.”
Times have certainly changed since 1867. In fact, Georgia registration files show there are approximately 1.7 million new voters heading into the 2020 election.
During her trip, Davis met with young activists from the New Georgia Project in Georgia. Voting rights activists remain a powerful force there, working to encourage voting in the November election.
New Georgia Project CEO Kendra Cotton and her young, inspired team went door to door, reminding their fellow citizens that voting is a right, a privilege, and a duty. It’s a chance to be counted as an equal American.
“We want our voters to come out and make their voices heard. The best way to get good progressive policy in our state is to woo it from people who don’t share our values.” Because we fundamentally believe that it’s not about doing, it’s about voting.” People are already doing that,” Cotton said.
Davis said the visit to Georgia meant a lot to her. She learned about the missing parts of her own history, saw firsthand the hardships her great-grandfather had to go through, and realized that even though things are better now, her job is still I realized it wasn’t finished.
“I actually didn’t think I would get emotional about this,” Davis said. “But I can’t help but feel a sense of pride when I’m with a living document of this kind that I can only imagine what Tobe had to go through.”
