As the nation gets set to mark Juneteenth this week, we’re spotlighting our ABC News partnership with
. It’s a project using genealogy to uncover the names of Black Americans enslaved in the U.S. before 1865.
Many of those unidentified enslaved people lived and had families here in central Carolina. One descendant in Durham has made it her mission to solve her family mystery. She’s found one very large clue: a square grand piano.
As a trained pianist, it pains Paula Harrell to hear the out-of-tune notes echoing from the 165-year-old piano in her Durham living room. But she still plays it from time to time. More often she just stares and wonders. And once, she says, the piano said something back.
“One day I was looking at it and I’m sure it spoke to me and said, ‘Find me,'” said Harrell, who once served as chairperson of the Department of Music at NC Central University.
Harrell was convinced the voice she heard pleading to be found was her great-great aunt who was born enslaved, likely in Caswell County.