- Laura Kebede-Twumasi reports for the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis
In 2018, a friend of Carla Peacher-Ryan recommended a book. The friend had seen a reference to a sheriff’s deputy named Paul Peacher who was accused of enslaving Black men in the 1930s in eastern Arkansas. Since Peacher is not a very common name, the friend wondered if they were related.
At first, Peacher-Ryan winced. An enslaver in her family? She had known her ancestors to be poor folks who held racist ideas. But she had always thought they weren’t in a position to actively enslave people – especially in the 1930s. Slavery had been outlawed for seven decades by then. But her curiosity got the best of her and she went online.
After a few clicks on Ancestry.com where she had already begun building out her family tree, six words flashed across her screen: Paul Peacher is your great uncle.
“And I just couldn’t believe it, you know, but then I knew it was true,” said Peacher-Ryan, now a retired Memphis attorney.