NPR/CoastLine: Lucy McCauley on the crimes of her white ancestors and her role in racial reconciliation

Lucy McCauley was well into adulthood — married and raising her daughter — when she discovered her white ancestors had enslaved people. A few years later, she learned her great-grandfather, William Berry McKoy, was a key figure in facilitating the violence that led to a coup d’état in Wilmington, North Carolina in November 1898. What’s she doing with that knowledge? How do the actions of her forebears inform her own identity?

As we examine events traditionally omitted from textbooks, such as the 1898 coup d’état in Wilmington, North Carolina, and as we learn more about the long-term impacts on African Americans descended from enslaved people, our understanding of present-day America evolves. What we do with this new understanding is at the center of a public debate about racial reconciliation.

Read or listen to this interview of Lucy McCauley on WHQR Public Radio (NPR) on CoastLine in North Carolina, HERE.