Finding Your Roots | Rita Dove’s Ancestor Had Run-Ins With the Law | Season 11 | Episode 3

Rita’s great-grandfather was charged with assault, but he pled not guilty and found himself on trial where he argued that his victim had threatened his wife after losing all his money gambling.

According to the defense, your great-grandfather was simply trying to protect his home and his family, especially his wife.

So what do you think really happened?

Woo.

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

I don’t know what really happened.

Guilty or innocent?

I think he’s guilty.

Think he’s guilty?

Would you please turn the page?

Rita, this was published in the Evening Star on May 6th.

Oh, yay!

Would you please read the transcribed section?

“Damon Jackson was tried in the criminal court yesterday for an assault with intent to kill and found not guilty.”

Your great-grandfather was indeed acquitted.

How does it feel to see that?

Oh, I’m thrilled!

I think this is kind of wonderful.

I mean, if he had not been found not guilty, who knows whether I would’ve ended up being here at all for that matter.

That’s true.

That’s true.

The records of Damon’s trial no longer survive.

So we don’t know what inspired the jury to reach its verdict.

It’s also unclear whether Damon’s brush with the law had a significant impact on his life.

Just a few years later, now going by the name of Gates Jackson, we found him in trouble once again.

“Speakeasies Raided.”

Oh gosh.

“Policemen O’Dea and Brawner yesterday raided three speakeasies in what is known as ‘Swampoodle’ and captured Gates Jackson of No.

65 Jackson alley.

Jackson was fined $250 with three months in the workhouse as the equivalent.”

He was charged with running a speakeasy.

Well, there he graduated into, you know– Business.

Yes.

He’s an entrepreneur.

Remember, he was running the craps game.

He was running the crap game but now he’s moved out and kind of done a speakeasy kind of thing.

Well, you gotta get ahead.

Do you identify with this ancestor of yours?

He was a character.

Well, what I identify with is the fact that he was staying alive, that he was trying to make it through in, questionable ways.

Very definitely.

But there’s an energy, it sounds like, to this person.

Both with the incident before, but also with having a speakeasy in this crazy district.

And also going by a name Gates.

I mean, Gates Jackson has a certain great ring to it.

I think it sounds noble.

And so, yeah in a certain way I’m like, go on.

Okay, let’s see what you’re gonna do.

The jury’s out on whether he was good or bad.

Unfortunately, we had little more to share with Rita about her great-grandfather.

He passed away in September of 1909, and his death certificate, which lists his occupation as a laborer, suggests that he died suddenly.

“Cause of death, tuberculous meningitis, exhaustion.

Duration, eight days.”

Aw.

He was only about 40 years old.

No.

Yeah.

He had a bacterial infection in his spine and brain, and he was suffering from exhaustion.

Worked to death.

Mm.

What’s it like to see that?

It’s very sad.

I feel very sad, and I don’t even know this man, but he basically came to life in two pages or three, some newspaper articles, and now it’s gone.

And, think of all the lives out there like that.