Journalist Linda Holmes greets filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris with a large satchel containing her precious family photographs, news clippings and memorabilia. “I’m telling the world this, but I haven’t told all my family members”, Ms. Holmes reveals when she visited the Digital Diaspora Family Reunion Roadshow (DDFR) at Harlem Stage.
Ms. Holmes begins her story with her great-great grandparents’ photo dating back to the 1840s when slavery was still the law of the land in her native Kentucky. Ms. Holmes took a great sense of pride looking over the photos and accomplishments of her family. She smiles as she takes us back in time to visit her grandparents’ home in Kentucky, “…every summer we would go see Mama and Papa.”
“I love this photograph because the men are so handsome and the women are so beautiful,” exclaimed Ms. Holmes as she presents her parents’ wedding photo. Holmes goes on to relay the story of her determined young mother traveling far from home to receive proper education, and her father becoming a successful optician with his own office in New Jersey.
Ms. Holmes concludes, “As we share our stories, we see the similarities and it is creating a diaspora of community ’cause it’s UNITING!”
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