CNN Anchor: ‘Overwhelming’ Family Bombshell Gave New Meaning to Juneteenth
CNN anchor Victor Blackwell has opened up about his own personal connection to Juneteenth after he had a professional genealogist research and report his family ancestry last year.
Blackwell told The Daily Beast he thought he knew what to expect, but the report took him in a whole different direction and provided a completely different outlook into his ancestors’ lives.
“I was a bit nervous about handing all [of my family information] over because I didn’t know until the reveal,” Blackwell told The Daily Beast. “There was a bit of—I don’t want to call it anxiety but—some butterflies going up to the big reveal. Once I learned the story, it was humbling; it gave me some perspective. It gave my family [a] place in the story of the nation, and it was not what I expected. When you are a Black man with roots in the South, you think you know what the story is. And I didn’t.”