ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — With a shared history rooted in slavery, two families are confronting America’s past — and imagining a better future.
Standing at the top of Asheville’s Craggy Pinnacle, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Michael Simril and Spenser Simrill paused to take in the sweeping view. The climb had been a symbolic one, in more than one way.
The two men call each other cousins. Not because they grew up together, and not because of bloodlines, but because of a complicated family history stretching back to slavery…