Tamera Mowry-Housley became quite emotional after learning about his enslaved ancestors in the latest episode of ‘Finding Your Roots’.
Mowry-Housley enters the show knowing little about her genealogy other than that she is of mixed race with a Black mother from the Bahamas and a white European father.
Tamera Mowry-Housley sheds tears when she learns about her 9-year-old ancestor being enslaved
“We’ll see what kind of person you are,” said host Henry Louis Gates Jr. told the ‘Sister, Sister’ star.
The actress learned of an ancestry on her mother’s side, Margaret Rolle, born in 1825. She discovered Rolle was a slave laborer in a country “driven by slavery,” the film reveals. .
A mother of two, Mowry-Housley was saddened to learn that Rolle, then nine years old, had been listed as a slave on official documents.
“You want to protect them, you want them to keep that chastity. But for Margaret, that didn’t exist,” she told Gates Jr.
Although slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire at the time, Rolle, like other former slaves, was forced to work for the next four years for their former employers. without getting paid.
As a result, Rolle didn’t fully escape slavery until she was about 13 years old, Gates told Tamera.
“Well,” said the 44-year-old exasperatedly. Gates then asked, “What do you think Margaret would think of you?”
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“She would be so proud” to see her ancestors now moved Mowry-Housely
Mowry-Housley smiled at first before quickly trying to hold back her tears.
“She would be proud,” Mowry-Housley said. “Oh, no doubt she would be proud,” Gates replied.
Tamera Mowry-Housley gets emotional after learning about her enslaved ancestors in ‘Finding Your Roots’
Exploring a person’s past can lead to emotional discoveries and in the latest episode of Finding Your Origin, Tamera Mowry-Housely was confronted with a… https://t.co/o3K4Jw84ej pic.twitter.com/UDTc5cdzqg
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The actress thinks about how her ancestors coped with slavery and how she reacted when she won her freedom
She continued: “But you only feel (sad) when she had to go through it as a child,” the actor added. “I wonder what she went through to get out of her current situation.”
The 44-year-old mother-of-two then pondered how Rolle might deal with slavery. As well as how she reacts when she finally gets her freedom.
“Then, to finally be free… (I wonder) what it feels like, that first breath,” she said.
Mowry-Housley knows that her family’s ancestry is tied to an important historical event. Some of Margaret Rolle’s family members were likely owned by an English baron named John Rolle.
The slaves rebelled against John Rolle in 1830 in an event known as Pompey’s Uprising.
In an exclusive clip “Finding Your Roots” shared with TODAY, Tamera Mowry-Housley discovers that her 13th great-grandfather, William Brewster, was a British religious leader who became one of passengers on board the Mayflower in 1620. https://t.co/iqbjHQ6Y81 pic.twitter.com/3h9Dw9W8Lq
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While they didn’t necessarily earn their freedom, Gates said, “they have made a place in history by “bringing inspiration and hope to generations.”
“It’s beautiful,” she replied.
Tamera says the ancestral revelations showed her “The power to absorb and carry on.”
Gates then asked her how these revelations had changed the way Mowry-Housley saw herself.
“You know when you always say, ‘I got it from my mom?’ Well, I definitely see that stream of power growing and continuing. That’s what I get out of all this,” she said.
Furthermore, the actress also learned that another of her ancestors – William Brewster – was an English religious leader who became one of the Mayflower’s passengers in 1620. This made Mowry-Housley think about his multiracial heritage.
“This is the crazy thing about being bisexual. I have the blood that started it and then I have the blood that was enslaved by it,” she said.
