More than 80 people gathered in Williamsburg City Council chambers on June 22 for the third annual Journey to Racial Healing Ceremony presented by the Virginia Racial Healing Institute. The event, co-sponsored by the Let Freedom Ring Foundation, Williamsburg Christian Church and St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, brought the community together to listen to stories of people who are uncovering their family ties to slavery.

This year’s event featured Tonia Merideth and the Rev. Robert W. Lee IV, descendants of the family of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Merideth shared an engaging PowerPoint presentation that chronicled her family history from the 1600s to the present. It was her first time publicly sharing the two-year journey that revealed her ties to Judith Armistead, Lee’s great-great-grandmother.

After her first visit to Williamsburg in 2013, Merideth knew she was destined to return. “I saw the name Armistead Avenue and recognized it as a family name,” she said. Years later she applied for a position as an oral historian for the Williamsburg Bray School Lab. The Bray School operated from 1760 to 1774 to educate free and enslaved Black children. Merideth creates oral histories of Bray School descendants. As fate would have it, she eventually discovered that some of her ancestors were enslaved students who had attended the school.

“I was angry at first,” Merideth said. But, after hearing a quote by William & Mary anthropology professor Michael Blakey, who said “Our ancestors did not toil for eight generations for us to forget about them,” she chose to transform her anger and pain to action by digging deeper. Learning her family history has been very therapeutic, Merideth said. “I am my ancestors’ wildest dreams.”

Unlike Merideth, Lee knew his family ancestry for most of his life. His name informed people of his famous ancestor wherever he went.

He knew his great-grandmother was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and has childhood memories of her conversations being littered with racial slurs. He admitted to keeping a poster of General Lee in his bedroom as a teenager. He understood that he had a name and family legacy that millions of people recognized and honored.

After the 2017 Unite the Right rally — which protested plans to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee that stood in Charlottesville — claimed the life of Heather Heyer, Lee’s choices became clear. He could remain silent about violence and hateful rhetoric, or take a stand for racial justice. On Aug. 27, 2017, he stood before an audience of more than 5 million people during the MTV Video Music Awards to denounce racism.

The retaliation was immediate. “I lost a job, friends, income, and the possibility for career advancement,” he said. “Once I spoke out, I couldn’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.” Yet, in this life-changing moment in time, he had found his calling.

Today Lee speaks to people nationwide about eradicating racism and white supremacy. “There is a cure for racism. We can end it today,” he began. “Think of it this way: If I have a cough and find myself wheezing and struggling to breathe, the cough, wheezing and struggling for air would not be described as the diagnosis, but rather the symptoms. The root cause of all these symptoms is undoubtedly my asthma. With proper care, medication and treatment, the symptoms can be kept at bay or eliminated entirely. Left unchecked, the root cause of asthma could kill me. This whole scenario I am describing is analogous to racism and white supremacy in the United States of America.”

Lee believes the symptoms of racism in America are Christian nationalism, the school to prison pipeline, inequality in housing and health care, and the elimination of diversity and equity initiatives on college campuses. He challenged listeners to stop turning a blind eye to racially motivated behavior and to “address racism head-on wherever it presents itself. Silence is complicity. Silence is cosigning with white supremacy.”

Lee also stressed that we must commit to healing both the wounds that we have and the wounds we have caused. “This is our country’s potential for a great moment. There is a possibility for change,” he said.

The audience was captivated by Merideth and Lee’s presentations. Darrell Hairston, a keynote speaker for last year’s Journey to Racial Healing ceremony, traveled more than 200 miles from Martinsville to attend.

“They were both bold and direct in challenging us to learn more and do more to bring people together,” Hairston said afterward. “I appreciated their stories and the impact those experiences still have on them today.”

When we come together to build a more truthful and just community, we all win!

Laura D. Hill is the executive director of the Virginia Racial Healing Institute, which manages Coming to the Table-Historic Triangle. Learn more about her work at varacialhealinginstitute.org.