Actor LeVar Burton was shocked to find out that he’s descended from a Confederate soldier.
The shocking discovery was made on Tuesday’s (January 16) episode of the PBS show Finding Your Roots, which is hosted by Henry Louis Gates, per TODAY.
Burton found out that Mary Sills, the actor’s great-great-grandmother on his mother’s side, was raised by a man who she thought was her biological father, but wasn’t. Sills’ biological father was actually a White farmer named James Henry Dixon.
“Were you expecting that? Did you have any idea you had a White ancestor?” Gates asked Burton.
“No, no. I had no idea. So Granny was half White. Wow,” Burton responded.
Gates also revealed that Dixon served in the Confederate army as a teenager.
“Are you kidding me? Oh my God, oh my God. I did not see this coming,” Burton said.
Gates noted that Dixon served in the junior reserves, which was mostly used for guard duty, and later had a child with a woman who was born into slavery.
“I often wonder about White men of the period and how they justify to themselves their relations with Black women, especially those in an unbalanced power dynamic. There has to be a powerful disconnect created emotionally and mentally,” Burton said.
“So it’s possible in my mind that he could’ve contemplated it and was conflicted at worst, maybe repentant at best. And then there’s the possibility that he didn’t think about it at all,” he continued.
“Right and we’ll never know. They could’ve been in love, it could’ve been something terrible. We don’t know,” Gates responded.
Burton was shocked by the news that his ancestor was White.
“Now I’d have fought you five minutes ago if you’d told me that I had a White great-great-grandfather,” he said.
“You can fight me, but it’s the truth and ain’t nothing you can do about it,” Gates quipped.
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