DULA: I've looked at my own family history and I've documented three different governors that were likely involved in creating the laws of slavery.
When I found out that Briayna had studied political science, that whole area, I thought, "Well, that matches the harm that I need to unwind."
For white people, one of the most important things to know is: this is not a gift.
I am repaying a debt.
CUFFIE (voiceover): I started working with Lotte.
I've learned things about my grandmother, I've learned about -- a lot about my great-grandparents, down to their personality traits and even some of the ways I stand when I take pictures.
It's, it's very creepy to see someone, you know, who's born in the 1870s have the same pose when they -- when she took pictures.
DULA: Bri and I teach a class in reparative genealogy.
We really cater to white people who have a family background of enslavement, and we give an idea of what steps you would take to begin to do repair work.
One of the first steps: understand the genesis of the racial wealth gap.
ROCHESTER: You've got Black people today in America that own about two percent of U.S. wealth.
After all of this time, about two percent.
How did we get here?
DULA: The history of my family really shows exactly how it works mechanically.
It all started with Elisha Paxton, my third great-grandfather.
He established a plantation near Lexington, Virginia, beginning around 1815.
And with the proceeds, likely from the plantation operations, he was able to send many sons to law school, including my second great-grandfather.
So right there you have the benefit as education.
In the early 1830s, several of Elisha's sons, including my second great-grandfather, moved to the Mississippi Delta.
There they set up a law practice, and later, multiple cotton plantations.
JACKSON LEE: Cotton became king.
Cotton drove the creation of the Wall Street banks, and made, really, the economy of the United States.
But where did it put African Americans?
ROCHESTER: If you go back to 1860, we know there's about four million Black people held in bondage.
Those people are the most liquid asset in the country.
22 trillion in today's value, in terms of the value of those folks to the country.
It's an enormous impact.
So the first is, what was extracted from those people during that period of time?
The second is, what was extracted from those people following that time during the Jim Crow era?
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