58: Slavery Ties That Bind Freedom

Betty Ann Kilby  and her family were terrorized when they defied their local school board and the governor of Virginia to desegregate the only high school in their county in 1959. And yet, nearly 50 years later, in 2007, she was willing to talk to a descendant of a family who had once enslaved her ancestors. It was a defining move reminiscent of a well-known quote in Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech of 1963. The passage read in part: “I have a dream that one day… the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.” Join us as two courageous women take a seat at the I SEE U table of sisterhood and chat unguarded with Host Eddie Robinson about the power of forgiveness, acceptance and reconciliation. “Wit, Wills and Walls” author, Dr. Betty Kilby Fisher Baldwin, reveals to I SEE U surprising details never-before-told of her personal life; and Phoebe Kilby, co-author of the book, “Cousins,” candidly shares her own insight into attitudes toward reparations and how White Americans whose families owned slaves grapple with stories and narratives of descendants who are now starting to trace their hidden histories linked to some form of enslavement.