Dr. Betty Kilby Baldwin and Pheobe Kilby.
White woman and Black woman are related through slavery; Starts conversation and a book
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Scott LaMar
Dr. Betty Kilby Baldwin and Pheobe Kilby.
Aired April 29, 2024
There has been a great debate in some places and schools about how and what history is taught and remembered – especially Black history.
At the same time, genealogy and learning about family histories have increased in popularity. Sometimes, that research – often with the help of DNA – turns up surprises or confirms stories or rumors of the past. A great example is confirmation that Thomas Jefferson fathered several children with the enslaved woman Sally Hemmings.
These type stories are becoming commonplace.
Two guests on The Spark Monday know that first hand. A White woman Pheobe Kilby contacted Betty Kilby Baldwin – a Black woman – saying she suspected they are connected through slavery. That started a conversation and led to a book called Cousins.
Dr. Betty Kilby Baldwin and Pheobe Kilby with The Spark’s Scott LaMar.
Pheobe Kilby said she had done a lot of genealogical research some 20 years ago before Ancestry.com and DNA had become popular. She indicated most of it involved looking through old documents — sometimes at county courthouses. But she said a national organization called Coming to the Table started her on her journey,” It’s inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech where he says, “I have a dream that the sons of former slaves and former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.” And so these people are coming to the table. And as a matter of fact, some of those first people who got together to come up with this idea were descendants of Thomas Jefferson and Martha Jefferson and Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings. So they were coming to the table. And this group inspired me to not just figure out whether my family had enslaved people, but also to try to figure out who was living today that might be descended from those enslaved persons. The big clue was I just, googled my name, Kilby, which I’d never done in 2006. And up came a website and it was Betty’s, and she’d written a book and I could see from the cover she was African-American. And I could tell from the book that her father and my father had grown up on farms less than a mile apart. So there was an awful lot of circumstantial evidence. But really, to figure out whether she was actually descended from persons, my family and, well, the name to Betty Kilby, she’s Betty Kilby Fisher at the time. To figure out that real connection just required a lot of research in courthouses. And, the big clue for me was I had a ancestor who sued his mother for ownership of the slaves in 1865, and it named the slaves in that suit. And then I could find them later in the 1870 census and then later census’s I could find Betty.”
Betty had made history. After a court fight, she was the first African-American student to be enrolled at Warren County High School in Virginia. She also met Dr. King and attended the 1963 March on Washington where King made his famous I Have A Dream speech.
Pheobe reached out to Betty Kilby Baldwin on MLK Day via email. What was Betty’s reaction?,”I had written my book, Wit, Will and Walls, and I was out promoting my book. And when I read her email. I’d always known that we were descended of slaves. I have aunts, that were the product of the old slave master, and I dealt with it when I wrote my book. So I was pretty comfortable in knowing, that she was out there somewhere. But at the same time, having written a book, I was looking for the next mountain to climb. And this seemed to be the appropriate mountain. And so when, when I wrote back, hello, cousin, I was merely stating what I already knew.”
Pheobe was asked about her thoughts after she found out her ancestors had owned slaves,”Growing up in a family where this wasn’t talked about, it was kind of a shock. I mean, really, it was shocking to see this and see it written and recorded. And then I would have to say, it’s hard to find a word that covers this. It’s not really shame, but certainly, there’s some regret that my family participated in this. And but I also realized, and I did research in this, that it wasn’t just slavery, it was up to and everything since then. Because I do know that in the county where, my father grew up, Rappahannock County, which is over the mountain from Warren County, that Rappahannock County continued, to keep desegregated schools. And my uncle was on the school board and, oversaw all that. And then through to my father, who was a doctor in Baltimore. And I remember he had separate waiting rooms. He had a colored waiting room and a White waiting room in Baltimore in the 50s and early 60s. So I remember that. But it’s not just that. It’s me too. I mean, I grew up in a racist household, and I absorbed all that. And I think even today, I can’t necessarily get rid of it all. So I felt like, there was some regret for my family participating on this and then realizing some recognition that I, too, am a part of the system, that I have absorbed racism, and that I need to do something to expunge this from myself as best I can.”
Betty told the story of meeting Pheobe in person for the first time. She had invited Pheobe to meet for dinner at a restaurant, “I forgot to tell my family that the descendants of the family that once owned ours was coming to dinner. So I called them all one by one rather than to, just let them fall into this. And one by one, I talked to them. The ones that wanted to come came. And so my two daughters there, they were supposed to run interception with the family just in case somebody came and was going to be ugly. And so they (her daughters) were there, and they had been raised in a very neutral environment, had as many White friends (as Black friends). And, they were even kind of new to my story, because I didn’t tell them about desegregating the schools. And so Phoebe and her sister showed up at the restaurant. Everybody had been seated, and so Phoebe had to sit next to my brother and so we began the conversation. Well, the first thing. “Well, how long are you going to stick around? What are you here for? You know, people come to the come, but they don’t stick around. They just come and leave.” And then one of them said as well, “Where is my 40 acres and a mule?” They just couldn’t resist.
Pheobe Kilby and Betty Kilby Baldwin will be telling their story at Carlisle United Methodist Church tomorrow night at 7 sponsored by the social change organization Moving Circles.
