Living close to his Lord

I'm really not into geneology, so I was surprised at how much I liked this documentary. Especially Vol. 2, which you can stream instantly on netflix.

I especially loved the all-t00-brief windows into the all-t00-brief reconstruction period.

After the civil war, white folks would say "all these black people are wandering around aimlessly."

They weren't. Newly free people were desperately looking for their parents, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, and friends.

Their families had been separated from through slave sales.

Children could be separated from their mothers as babies. Because slaves were property, their families and marriages were not recognized. They had no claim to their own children.

Very few were ever reunited. But they would write letters (presumably they had to pay someone to do that for them since it had been illegal for slaves to be literate). They placed ads. They read out long lists of lost loved ones in black churches. They petitioned the Free Men's Bureau.

The filmmakers found one letter from a young boy to his older sister. The boy had been separated from his sister and mother at a very young age. He wrote that as soon as he found out where they were, he would come immediately.

He wrote that he had always remembered what his sister had told him, that they would see each other in heaven.

He said he had been trying to "live close to his Lord." So that his God would permit him to be with his sister and mother when they all got to the other side.