When I began to study WT theology and became baptized in the early 70's, I turned away from my heritage.
I'm working to overcome that faux pas by immersing myself in all things related to the Black Belt counties of Alabama.
For instance, I didn't know that a slave from Gee's Bend swam out into the Alabama River and saved many a passenger from drowning during the Orline St. John disaster in March of 1850. Gee's Bend is right across the Alabama River from the plantation on which my family lived during the days of sharecropping.
I didn't know that Booker T. Washington visited our county as a guest of William J. Edwards who founded Snow Hill Institute, nor was I aware that I had a cousin that was so beautiful that her folks had to send her up North to keep White men from violating her.
I wasn't aware that the White family who owned the plantation on which I was born were descendants of Stephen Decatur Miller and Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut fame. Also, one planter's wife was Viola Goode Liddell who wrote "With a Southern Accent" and "Grass Widow."
I'm reading "Fallen Prince" by Donald P. Stone, a descendant of William J. Edwards. I'm also reading "The First and Last Bell" by Jeanette Steele McCall. Both books are about the heroic efforts made by Whites and Blacks to secure an education for the children of Wilcox County Alabama.
As I stated, now that I've pushed aside the demands of the JW lifestyle, I'm catching up on life and having a gay old time while doing so.
Sylvia