Wiz Khalifa recently joined Henry Louis Gates Jr. for an episode of “Finding Your Roots,” where he learned about his family’s history.
Recently, Wiz Khalifa sat down with Henry Louis Gates Jr. for an episode of the PBS series Finding Your Roots. During their conversation, the rapper received some difficult news about his family history. His fifth great-grandfather, Howard Williamson, was enslaved in Alabama in the 1870s. According to Gates, Williamson lived next door to the family that owned him.
Gates showed Wiz documents that really drove the point home. Thomas J. Williamson kept what historians call a “slave schedule” – basically a list of human beings treated like property. The records listed enslaved people by their skin color, gender and age instead of using their actual names.
But Howard Williamson’s story didn’t end with slavery. After gaining freedom, he worked as a tenant farmer and made some moves that impressed his famous descendant. Williamson registered to vote during Reconstruction, even though Black voters faced serious threats and violence after the Civil War.
That took real courage back then. The “Black and Yellow” hitmaker got emotional as he talked about feeling connected to ancestors he never knew existed.