Featuring: Larry Kenneth Alexander
Transcript:
Slavery is universal in its reach, connecting generations through a shared legacy of suffering and survival. For me, this connection is deeply personal. My grandmother, the matriarch who raised me, carried the stories of our family like treasures. Her father was born into American slavery in Tipton County, Tennessee, in 1862. His father’s father, in turn, was born into British slavery in colonial Virginia. The weight of these chains, designed to crush their spirits, did not succeed. Instead, my ancestors endured, defied, and shared vivid memories.
Their oral history lessons, combined with an insatiable curiosity about slavery’s origins in my roots, set me on a pathway of rediscovery. This journey of enlightenment rewrote my understanding of my family’s story and the classic story of America. However, the story of slavery in America didn’t begin in 1776, nor in 1619, when the first 19 Africans arrived in colonial Virginia. These Africans were indentured servants, not slaves, and later became free Englishmen. Under English law, their children born in the colony were free Englishmen.
Slavery was criminal—a product of racial tyranny rooted in greed and colonial government corruption that transformed Black indentured servitude into hereditary slavery. Colonial governments, operating with little oversight from England, violated the law to create a system of racial exploitation that enriched a few and enslaved many. This corrupt colonial system did not go unnoticed. In 1766, the British imperial government enacted the American Colonies Act, also known as the Declaratory Act. This legislation was more than a statement of parliamentary sovereignty; it was a direct blow to colonial slave codes and Negro laws.
The act abolished these repugnant laws for all purposes whatsoever, declaring them null and void because they denied and questioned Parliament’s supreme legislative power and the English Bill of Rights of 1689. My journey led me to history books, where I rediscovered a stunning truth in the Declaration of Independence’s grievance section. Among its lofty proclamations of liberty, the founders accused King George III of being a tyrant for abolishing “our most valuable laws.” These so-called valuable laws were none other than the colonial slave codes and Negro laws that falsely pretended to legalize the enslavement of Black Englishmen.
Imagine that our annual recognition of the 4th of July, celebrated as a quest for freedom, was partly driven by the desire to preserve extralegal laws that robbed Black Englishmen of their liberty and the American dream. Colonial America’s slave codes and Negro laws were abolished in 1766, 10 years before independence and three years before the American Revolution. England’s highest court declared slavery unconstitutional in the kingdom in 1772. Moreover, the fight for independence, long heralded as a noble struggle for liberty, was also a fight to maintain the privileges of racial tyranny.
The founders, in their grievances against the Crown, conceded that a system my ancestors endured—colonial slave codes and Negro laws—was abolished by July 1776. These rediscovered truths reshaped my understanding of American slavery. This journey has taught me that history is not just a record of the past but a mirror that reflects who we are and where we are going. It demands honesty and courage to confront its contradictions.
My ancestors’ survival is a testament to the strength that flows through us all. Their story—a story of endurance and defiance—is America’s story. It is a truth that will resonate, just as St. Augustine once observed, “Truth is a lion. Let it loose. It will defend itself.”
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