Massive cookouts, bright matching t-shirts, piles of excited kids darting around as their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and honorary relatives hug and exchange excited greetings. Family reunions may not belong to any single culture, but they hold special importance for many African-American families.
After the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment and the end of the Civil War, formerly enslaved people worked frantically to locate their loved ones who had been sold away or separated by other means. According to the National Museum of African American History & Culture, many had gone years without any news of their family members' whereabouts, but still threw themselves into the search through newspaper advertisements, letters, and word of mouth.
Those first family reunion gatherings after Emancipation brought scattered families together and allowed them to celebrate the bonds that centuries of oppression and violence had failed to break. And while many families grieved loved ones who were never found, the reunions — and the celebration of togetherness and resilience — continued. New generations of children who would never know enslavement were born, and those who had survived it became beloved and honored elders.
Racism and oppression did not end with Emancipation. But even as one ugly old tradition refused to fade, a new one continued, flourishing long after slavery had passed from living memory. The family reunion remains alive and well among African-American families today.
