The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White

Summary (from the publisher):  The Hairstons is the extraordinary story of the largest family in America, the Hairston clan. With several thousand black and white members, the Hairstons share a complex and compelling history: divided in the time of slavery, they have come to embrace their past as one family.

The black family's story is most exceptional. It is the account of the rise of a remarkable people—the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of slaves—who took their rightful place in mainstream America.

In contrast, it has been the fate of the white family—once one of the wealthiest in America—to endure the decline and fall of the Old South, and to become an apparent metaphor for that demise. But the family's fall from grace is only part of the tale. Beneath the surface lay a hidden history—the history of slavery's curse and how that curse plagued slaveholders for generations.

For the past seven years, journalist Wiencek has listened raptly to the tales of hundreds of Hairston relatives, including the aging scions of both the white and black clans. He has crisscrossed the old plantation country in Virginia, North Carolina, and Mississippi to seek out the descendants of slaves. Visiting family reunions, interviewing family members, and exploring old plantations, Wiencek combs the far-reaching branches of the Hairston family tree to gather anecdotes from members about their ancestors and piece together a family history that involves the experiences of both plantation owners and their slaves. He expertly weaves the Hairstons' stories from all sides of historical events like slave emancipation, Reconstruction, school segregation, and lynching.

Paradoxically, Wiencek demonstrates that these families found that the way to come to terms with the past was to embrace it, and this lyrical work, a parable of redemption, may in the end serve as a vital contribution to our nation's attempt to undo the twisted historical legacy of the past.

Review:  This book is about the history of a white slaveholding family in the American South, and their slaves. The white family, pronounced (Harston), share their history and their name with many of the descendents of their black slaves, who pronounce the name as written. The Hairstons owned plantations from Virginia to South Carolina and held as many as ten thousand slaves. Samuel Hairston of Oak Hill plantation, was probably the richest man in Virginia and possibly the United States in his lifetime, and possessed land and slaves worth $5 million. He was also reputedly the largest slaveholder in the South. 

Yet despite this expansive and wealthy history, the white family has faded away. Few of the plantation homes still exist and even fewer are still owned and operated by Hairstons. Just like the American South that they symbolize, their wealth and possessions withered and disappeared. 

Despite my general interest in history of the American South, my interest in this book was largely personal. I was raised and now still live and work in Martinsville, Virginia, which is surrounded by Henry County. Henry County and Martinsville were once almost exclusively Hairston land; indeed the historic Martinsville Court House was built on land donated by the Hairstons. Each day on my way to work, I drive past the imposing Berry Hill Plantation home. I run almost daily on Sam Lion's Trail, named for Sam Lion, a runaway slave belonging to the Hairston family. As a child, I swam in Chatmoss Country Club's pool, named for the remains of Chatmoss plantation, upon which it stands. On my way out of town, I pass over Marrowbone creek and I know many who graduated from Magna Vista High School, both Hairston plantation names. And I know many Hairstons locally - the phone book is crowded with the name - descendants of Hairston slaves who adopted the name when they gained their freedom. It amazes me that, while some of this history is still known at a minimum level locally, the main thing that survives the white Hairstons are names.

I loved the first half of this book, which details the Hairstons in their hey day before the Civil War. Wiencek details the family history much in the order in which he researched it, moving geographically from plantation to plantation. I was somewhat relieved that there isn't a lot of pressure on the reader to remember the tangled web of the family tree, which is complicated by cousins marrying cousins, not unlike that of European royal families, as the white Hairstons fought to keep land and riches within the family name. While Wiencek's organization is not chronological or clearly defined by anything other than his physical journey, I don't think any better way could be devised to organize the complicated story he tells. 

My favorite aspects of this tale, aside from my avid interest in learning more about my community's history, were on the stories of individual Hairstons - from that of the Hairston who left his fortune and land to his half-black daughter who then disappeared, smuggled away by the white Hairston clan, to the descendent of a Hairston slave who became an actor and was on film with John Wayne and others. It seems that almost all of the Hairstons Wiencek interviewed were candid about their history, including that of black and white relationships and any remaining resentment over past grievances. 

My interest waned somewhat in the second half of the book. There is a lengthy chapter following the exploits and hardships of a black Hairston during the Civil War, the details of which dragged for me. Also, as the family became scattered, and the fortune disappeared, the story is less grounded and less about the "Hairstons" and more about disparate individuals who are scattered across the country. I think this more modern account is necessary to see where the intertwined families are now, but it held my interest less. 

Overall, a great work of non-fiction about the complicated race relations in the American South, the rise and fall of a virtual empire built on the labor of slaves, and the aftermath of slavery and the transition into a new relationships between two branches of a very intertwined family.

Stars: 4.5