A FEW WORDS ABOUT WORDS
BOOKSMART
LONNAE O’ NEAL:“ Bibb Country, Unearthing My Family Secrets of Land, Legacy – and Lettuce”
By DIANE HARRIS
In 2019, Lonnae O’ Neal set off on an ambitious journey to discover her roots.
A seasoned writer, she had been a reporter and columnist for The Washington Post for more than two decades. But this daunting assignment was self-imposed.
O’ Neal decided to take it on after receiving an invitation to attend a gathering at the“ plantation-houseturned-museum” of Revolutionary War veteran Major Richard Bibb. It would be a reunion of his Black and White descendants. While O’ Neal was emotionally uncomfortable with this journey, she leaned on her years of journalism training to see it through.
And it is from this experience that O’ Neal has produced this book, which traces her family tree back six generations through good times and bad. O’ Neal learned that her fourth great – grandmother, Keziah Bibb, was born around 1786, and had been enslaved by Richard Bibb. Bibb later moved his family from Central Virginia to Western Kentucky, where he became a wealthy land and slave owner.
Through her research, O’ Neal discovered that her family – and the lettuce its enslavers grew – derived its name from the family of Richard Bibb.
The book is divided into three sections.
In part one,“ Origins,” O’ Neal walks us through the history of the White branch of her family tree: the Bibbs of Logan County, Kentucky. She
tells us how its lettuce empire was built and maintained – namely by this country’ s well-documented dependence on slave labor.
The White Bibb’ s reliance on the enslavement of people of African descent begat the Black wing of the Bibb family, and the“ mulatto” offspring who were first acknowledged by U. S. Census takers in 1850.
In part two,“ Migration,” we learn about Lonnae O’ Neal’ s more immediate family, her parents, and her childhood growing up in Illinois. She delves into the struggles of her father and uncle, who were among the first Blacks employed as officers in the Chicago Police Department. This section reads like a memoir. O’ Neal draws on these memories of her youth to tell stories of magical summers visiting with relatives. Also tragic tales that have left her with unanswered questions about her father’ s life and death.
In part three,“ Inheritance,” O’ Neal talks about the ripple effects of the enslavement that her distant relatives, and those of other Blacks, experienced in Logan County, Kentucky – an account of rape and sexual exploitation that was central to the continued restocking of the ranks of slaves. Evidence of this is found in the hard statistical data that O’ Neal uncovered in the county’ s census reports.
“ Between 1850 and 1860 … the total‘ colored’ population( Black and mulatto) grew from 5,747 to 6,734. The number of enslaved Blacks saw a modest six percent increase – from 4,591 to 4,863 – while the number of enslaved‘ mulattoes’ in Logan County nearly doubled, going from 791 to 1,501 in ten years,” O’ Neal offers as proof of the sexual exploitation of the enslaved Black women.
Her book reflects what generations of Black people in this country experienced, as told through the exploration of one Black family tree. It is a familiar story for the descendants of many of the people this nation enslaved for 246 years.
There is a growing desire among some people in this country to forget, or rewrite, these stories. But the proper telling of our history demands the courage that Lonnae O’ Neal offers readers in“ Bibb Country, Unearthing My Family Secrets of Land, Legacy – and Lettuce.” ■
Diane Harris is an avid reader and former marketing manager for USA TODAY
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