Juneteenth 1865-2025: Kinfolk and family

HOUSTON — Juneteenth is more than a date on the calendar. It’s a return home. A time to reflect, rejoice, and reconnect. In KHOU 11’s fifth installment of our award-winning Juneteenth series, Juneteenth 1865–2025: Kinfolk and Family, we explore the legacy of African American families — from their roots in African villages to reunions held under Texas oaks.

Set against the historic backdrop of Brazoria County’s Levi Jordan Plantation — near the banks of the San Bernard River — the special reflects on how enslaved people fought to preserve the sacred institution of family, even as it was being torn apart.

We feature powerful voices from the broader African American community who trace their lineage to formerly enslaved people. Their stories, passed down through generations, echo the pain of separation and the triumph of reunification — and serve as a call to action for viewers ready to discover their own history.

Long before the brutality of the transatlantic slave trade, African life revolved around family.

“There was a strong family unit in the villages,” historian Sam Collins said. “Multiple generations living near each other—grandparents, children, cousins. Kinship was the foundation.”

This deep-rooted cultural tradition of community, where the term “family” includes play cousins, godparents, and chosen aunties, was both disrupted and preserved as Africans were enslaved and scattered across continents. Only 6% of those trafficked through the slave trade ended up in North America. The rest were sent to the Caribbean and South America, tearing families apart before they even arrived in chains.

On plantations like Levi Jordan’s in Texas, enslaved people lived under constant threat of separation. They were stripped of identity, freedom, and each other. Mothers were sold away from their children. Husbands torn from their wives. The pain was so acute, holidays like Christmas were feared, not celebrated, because they often brought sales and separation.

Yet, from that trauma emerged resilience.

“The definition of family became broader,” said genealogist Sharon Batiste Gillins. “Even if we didn’t share blood, we shared experience, and that made us kin.”

Plantation siblings. Play cousins. Community aunties. In a world where legal marriages were forbidden, enslaved people created their own ceremonies, like jumping the broom, to honor love and unity. After emancipation, one of the first things formerly enslaved couples did was get legally married, affirming their commitment in the eyes of the law and God.

The end of slavery did not instantly restore what was broken. When emancipation came in 1865, the first mission for many freed people was to search for lost loved ones. They placed ads in newspapers. They visited churches. They inquired with Freedmen’s Bureau offices. Freedmen placed ads in newspapers. “Have you seen my daughter?” “Does anyone know where my husband was taken?”

One ad, read aloud in the KHOU 11 special, still echoes through history: “I wish to inquire for January and Becky Grimble, my step-children. I have not seen them for 39 years…”

Often, they never found them. So they built new families—in church pews, on land they managed to acquire, and in neighborhoods where everyone became kin.

Land became the new lifeline, and with it, legacy.

Just 14 years after Juneteenth, two formerly enslaved brothers bought 200 acres in Victoria County. Their descendants—Micki Flowers and Vicki Fabre—still own that land, now nearly 3,000 acres strong. Their grandfather Pete Rydolph would become Victoria County’s first Black millionaire. Their grandmother, Gertrude “Gertie” Rydolph, graduated from Prairie View A&M in 1917, ran the family books, and rode horses like a pro.

Their story, like many others, is a blueprint for reclaiming identity, dignity, and economic power through land and legacy.

This year’s special also explores the tradition of family reunions—an act of joy born from loss. Families like Gillins’ gather year after year to remember, reconnect, and preserve what was nearly lost. 

“We eat, we laugh, we take pictures, we tell stories,” she said. “We honor who’s come before and welcome the ones just born.”

While not every family can trace their roots back centuries, many continue to search, fueled by scraps of paper, faded photos, or a tree drawn by a great-grandfather decades ago.

Juneteenth 1865–2025: Kinfolk and Family isn’t just a documentary; it’s an invitation.

KHOU 11 created this special to empower our community to begin their journey into family history. Whether you’re curious about your great-grandmother’s roots or your family’s migration story, it’s never too late to start.

From churches like Antioch Missionary Baptist—founded by Rev. Jack Yates, a former slave and the patriarch of one of Houston’s first Black families—to institutions like Prairie View A&M, once a plantation and now a beacon of Black excellence, the African American family has built community out of chaos.

As Dr. Marco Robinson of Prairie View A&M puts it in the special, “Community building was absolutely paramount. Without those institutions — those churches, those schools — there was no semblance of a good quality of life.”

Even in the shadow of Jim Crow laws and systemic discrimination, Black families created something lasting.

Juneteenth is about freedom and it’s about family. This year’s special “Juneteenth 1865-2025: Kinfolk and family,” reminds us that freedom means more when it’s shared, and legacy means more when it’s understood.

As children run through Emancipation Park and families gather for BBQs and worship, we remember the struggle, honor the journey, and celebrate the kinfolk who made Juneteenth possible.

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