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Black Man Tracks Roots to White Namesake Linked by Slavery
Meeting David Wilson
Film
Review by Kam Williams
 If you
were descended from slaves, would you want to trace your ancestral roots
back to the very soil where your forefathers had toiled for generations?
And if you did, how do you think you’d feel if you not only found the
plantation but the kin of the white slave owners still living there?
This
was precisely the project undertaken by David Wilson, a 28 year-old
journalist from Newark, NJ when he ventured to Caswell County, North
Carolina, which was where his great-grandfather was born in 1883.
Concerned about what sort of reception he might get, given the subject
of his daring research, he took along a white cinematographer, Daniel
Woolsey, who recorded his every encounter on videotape.
The
upshot of their efforts is Meeting David Wilson, a fascinating
documentary which starkly contrasts the divergent fortunes of the
descendants of slaves with that of the heirs of those same slaves’
masters. Upon his arrival in the South, Wilson paid a visit to the local
genealogist, and discovered, lo and behold, that the Wilson Estate was
in the hands of a white man also named David Wilson.
With a
combination of determination and trepidation, the black David Wilson
approached his white namesake for an interview and a tour of the
property. What ensues is an emotional-draining experience during which
tough questions are posed and honest answers given about reparations,
history and America’s legacy while some personal skeletons are pulled
out of a centuries-old closet.
After
the Davids awkwardly erase the color line between them, they actually
bond and opt to throw a family reunion. This is easier said than done,
for we see one of black David’s sisters say, “I’m already angry enough,
I don’t need to go down there and see somebody who owned my family.”
Whites prove to be equally reluctant, such as the guy who concedes, “If
I done you wrong, I wouldn’t want to meet you.”
Yet,
in the end, over fifty African-American Wilsons do travel to Carolina
and undergo a purification process, commiserating with their Caucasian
counterparts on the plantation where interacting as equals was once
unthinkable. The film also features DNA tests to determine whether the
Davids are blood related, plus a trip to Ghana in search of African
relations.
A
heartwrenching bio-pic likely to inspire countless similar
sojourns.
 Unrated
Running time: 82 minutes
Studio: Official Pictures
MSNBC TO AIR WORLD PREMIERE OF “MEETING DAVID WILSON,” FRIDAY, APRIL 11
AT 9:00 P.M. ET
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Lloyd
Kam Williams