Multi-generational reunion celebrates family while remembering roots in slavery
Posted July 16, 2016 8:54 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
What began more than 160 years ago is remembered and celebrated each year as a family descendant from slaves on the Underground Railroad reunites in Toronto.
Six generations of the Howard-Holland family gathered for a multi-generational reunion on Saturday at Serena Gundy Park to celebrate their family ties and hold on to their roots.
“If you can remember who you are, then there’s nothing that really can stop you,” said Reverend Thomas Pumphrey, president of the reunion board.
This all started back in the 1850’s when two brothers escaped brutality on a plantation in Maryland via the Underground Railroad. Their escape left the family split in two – the Howards, who remained in slavery until emancipation, and the Canadian side, the Hollands, who were free.
“We have people from every vocation, every occupation, from doctors to custodians but we all cousins,” explained Pumphrey. “One of the things that we were always taught is that they can enslave our legs and our feet but they can never enslave our minds.”
This annual get together is a chance for the younger generation to write the history of the Howard-Holland family and to learn about the struggles of their elders.
“It’s pretty intense at times,” said Oneika, one of the family cousins. “You’ll look things up and you won’t really connect with it and then you’ll realize, that’s my history, I was a part of that.”
So a family initially separated by slavery is using those same ties to bring together the younger generation and plant new roots, watered by the history of their ancestors.
