Sometimes, history can really be closer than we'd think. I remember listening to excerpts form a radio broadcast from 1945 or so that featured an interview with an old man who'd been born before the Civil War and who was old enough to just remember his own slavery in his childhood; he also spoke of his grandfather, who had been a slave to Thomas Jefferson. It stuck in my mind because he was proud of that, and I thought that while I could understand the sentiment, it also seemed strange to me to attach any positive significance to you or a relative of yours having been a slave, even the slave of a famous person - but anyhow, long story short, it's another example of how what we consider distant history wasn't actually that long ago when you think about it.
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Sometimes, history can really be closer than we'd think. I remember listening to excerpts form a radio broadcast from 1945 or so that featured an interview with an old man who'd been born before the Civil War and who was old enough to just remember his own slavery in his childhood; he also spoke of his grandfather, who had been a slave to Thomas Jefferson. It stuck in my mind because he was proud of that, and I thought that while I could understand the sentiment, it also seemed strange to me to attach any positive significance to you or a relative of yours having been a slave, even the slave of a famous person - but anyhow, long story short, it's another example of how what we consider distant history wasn't actually that long ago when you think about it.
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