Finding Your Roots host Henry Louis Gates Jr. walked Grammy-winning musician Pharrell Williams through a tough moment on the latest episode of the series where celebrities learn about their ancestors.
Williams had the rare luck of being one of the few Black people whose ancestors participated in the "Slave Narratives: Federal Writers’ Project" of 1936-1938, where government officials interviewed Black Americans about their experiences with slavery.
Jane Arrington is Williams' great-great-great aunt, and Gates shared a letter directly from her at the age of 84 where she spoke about her family and their life on a plantation in Virginia.
Researchers with the "Slave Narratives: Federal Writers’ Project" spoke with about 2,300 people who had been enslaved to learn more about their experience and capture some of the last firsthand accounts of life on brutal plantations.
Through research, Gates said his team discovered that Williams' great-great-great-grandfather Fenner was born about 10 years before the end of slavery, and the Virginia native stops for a moment to consider what his relative's life was like.
"I don't want to cry, and I'm trying not to be angry. It's intense," Williams said after reading about his relatives.
Gates noted that Arrington's account includes very specific details about her time as an enslaved person and the violence the family faced from owners of enslaved people.
According to what Arrington told the "Slave Narratives: Federal Writers’ Project," the family picked cotton and lived in log houses with dirt floors. She cut corn stalks, swept and also picked cotton after long days of work.
"What kind of people? It puts a very vivid intense context behind what it means to be African American and I thank God that I got to hear it. I'm so sorry they went through this. I have to say that I am forever changed," Williams said.
Black people who appear on the show often have to confront the brutality their families faced during slavery. When rapper Nas appeared on the show, he was told about a bill of sale for his third great-grandmother, who was bought and sold for $830.
"I got more than that in my pocket right now. See, this is painful now, to see that, that is like, that hurts,” Nas said in 2014.
On the flip side, the show has courted controversy with some white guests because of their displeasure with finding out they are related to owners of enslaved people. Ben Affleck caused outrage in 2015 when he and his team forced Gates to leave out a section of the episode showing his connections to relatives who owned slaves.
Leaked emails show that Gates fought the removal of the sections but ultimately lost, and when the show eventually aired, all sections referencing Affleck's family having owned enslaved people were taken out, The New York Times reported.
But it isn't always bad news that Gates shares. As Blavity previously reported, one recent episode of the show made waves after he revealed to entertainer RuPaul that he is related to U.S. Sen. Cory Booker.
“Both he and I were subjects of this show, ‘Finding Your Roots.’ Henry Louis Gates has a show where he traces your roots and ancestry. Since [Gates] keeps the data of past people, he saw RuPaul and I have a very strong common DNA chain which demonstrates that we’re very close cousins,” Booker told Wendy Williams in an interview after the show aired.
“I love RuPaul. I haven’t had a chance to talk to him since the news was revealed, but I was very happy about that news and hope he and I can have a family reunion soon,” he added.
