‘My great-great-great-great grandfather Hewlett Sands ... was a soldier who served in a United States Colored Troops regiment that fought for the Union – and the freedom we still celebrate today,’ Darren Sands says
The Associated Press religion reporter Darren Sands poses by the gravestone of his great-great-great-great-grandfather and Civil War soldier Hewlett Sands in Westbury, N.Y., on June 17.It was the middle of the night in the summer of 2021 when I finally found the missing piece of my family history.
This Juneteenth I returned to the memorial to honor him and all who served our country, one that spent its first two centuries seeing most of its Black people as someone else’s property. In a special ceremony Wednesday, I was helping carry on the more than 150-year-old commemoration of enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, finding out on June 19, 1865, that they’d been freed. It’s been a longtime sacred celebration for many Black Americans, but only recently was recognized as a federal holiday.
“Congratulations on finding your ancestor,” Smith had told me again last week, as he had after he first told me in 2021 after I found my connection to Hewlett Sands. I think it is what he says to everyone who finds their ancestor on the wall, a thank you for all those men who sacrificed. According to the records I found, Hewlett Sands was born on Nov. 29, 1820, in the home of the Townsend family, a wealthy and powerful family on Long Island who held many enslaved people before New York abolished slavery in 1827.
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The Juneteenth Books That Historians, Activists And Others Want You To ReadTessa Flores is a Staff Writer for HuffPost covering a number of shopping topics and lifestyle trends. She is based in Los Angeles and is an Oregon Native.
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