For People with Bishop Rob Wright
For People with Bishop Rob Wright
A Family in Black and White with Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr.
What happens when you discover your family tree has branches on both sides of America's racial divide? Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr.'s journey began with simple curiosity about his family name and evolved into a profound story of reconciliation that's now a CNN documentary premiering September 21, 2025 at 10p.
In this episode, Bishop Wright has a conversation with Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr. about his discovery while teaching family history at the University of Georgia. Spenser found an alternate spelling of his surname that unlocked an unexpected connection – in 1871, a Black woman named Harriet Simrill testified against the Ku Klux Klan in a federal Reconstruction trial. Given the distinctive nature of his family name, Spenser realized there must be a connection through enslavement. This suspicion was confirmed when he found a Facebook suggestion for a Black man his age from his father's hometown with the original spelling of their shared surname.
Eleven years later, the two families reunite annually, have produced an Audible podcast called "Once Removed: An American Family Reunion," and are featured in CNN's "A Family in Black and White." Their story challenges the notion that denial is the only way to handle difficult historical truths. Instead, Spenser demonstrates how confronting these realities leads to healing and wholeness. Spenser's work reminds us that we are one human family despite our painful history. By choosing to be storytellers who look unflinchingly at reality, we become "peace warriors" committed to recognizing our fundamental interconnectedness. Listen in for the full conversation.
Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr, is the creator of the Once Removed podcast and a TEDx speaker on racial healing. His research has informed reconciliation efforts in Northern Ireland, Liberia, and across the American South—culminating in the first historical marker in South Carolina to mention the Ku Klux Klan.
His work has appeared on CNN’s The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper, Audible Originals, The New York Times, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and TEDx Asheville.
His students have won multiple international competitions, including two wins and an honorable mention in The New York Times Best Student Podcast Contest. Spenser lives with his family in Arden, North Carolina, and teaches at Christ School.
If you look at the research from trauma, very often we find these buried truths manifested in alcohol addiction and drug abuse. And you're not, I don't think you're living your full human potential if you don't know the whole story. There's research that shows that a knowledge of family history is the best indicator of emotional resilience and academic success.
Bishop Wright:Hi everyone. This is Bishop Rob Wright and this is For People. Special guest today, special guest, wonderful guest today Spenser Simrill Jr.. So I wanted to have you on the podcast because you're up to some wonderful work. So before we get to our work, why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do, and then we'll move to the reason for the podcast?
Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr.:Hey everybody, I'm a writer, producer and educator and 11 years ago I was teaching a course on family history at the University of Georgia and I was about to get married and I was curious about, you know, my, our lineage and I'm watching Henry Louis Gates on TV and I feel like he's talking to me. I mean, I just feel like that and just this process of taking people on ancestral journeys and using 21st century research tools. You know, my students and I, we were going to do this because I was curious myself and I found an alternate spelling of our family's last name, found an alternate spelling of our family's last name. My great-grandfather played football for the South Carolina Gamecocks during the Jim Crow era and in 1916, in the newspaper the name is S-I-M-R-I-L with one L, and then in the yearbook and when he married, there's a second L. So I ran that original spelling through Google Books, which is digitized. It's like Googling yourself. I don't know if y'all at home have ever done that, but you're doing that through time and space, like through all.
Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr.:Pretty much all printed material has been scanned and I find, in 1871, a 30-year-old black mother of four named Harriet Simrell testified against the Ku Klux Klan in a federal reconstruction trial. And this is just like whoa, because with our last name being so distinct, I realized that there had to be a connection of enslavement, that my ancestors had clearly enslaved Harriet. And then I find through Facebook a friend's suggestion for a black guy my same age, from Rock Hill, South Carolina, where my dad's from, with one L, with the original spelling. And I had to back up from the computer and just take a long walk, a long prayerful walk. You know, lord, what do I do with this information?
Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr.:So fast forward, 11 years. Our families have met. We get together every year for a reunion. Hopefully I can share some do's and don'ts about how potentially that can go down. We've produced a podcast through Audible, once removed, an American family reunion. We have a TED Talk, tedx Asheville, delivered last year, and now we are the feature of a CNN documentary, a Family in Black and White, hosted by Anderson Cooper, reporting by Sarah Seidner the great Sarah Seidner and we were supposed to air last Sunday, but the escalation of the Middle East, we're still waiting on that date to be reconfirmed.
Bishop Wright:You know, I saw the trailer, if you will, of this and it just affirms for me what I've been saying for years is that we are one big, complicated American family right.
Bishop Wright:And you know, you see a push these days to sort of paper over the complication that's alive in your story, that we are both. We are one thing and we are different things and we are knit together and we have hurt each other and we've tried to make amends. We're all of those things at the same time and so you know in a really visceral way, you know you're just a wonderful example of this. So how did you push through this? If I can ask, because you know, when I talk to people and we talk about racial reconciliation and healing, your dad, your family, has talked about that for years here in Atlanta, talked about that for years here in Atlanta. How do you encourage people? What do you say to people who say you know, I don't want to know the stories. That was then. This is now. If I go back, what will I find? How do I handle perhaps some guilt or shame? What do you say to those folks?
Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr.:Well, there's a choice. What happens if you don't look at it? I mean, if you look at the research from trauma, very often we find find these buried truths manifested in alcohol addiction and and and and and drug abuse. And you're not, I don't think you're living your full human potential If you don't know the whole story. There's research that shows that a knowledge of family history is the best indicator of emotional resilience and academic success, and so, yes, it can be nerve wracking for a while. I think my family knew about this subconsciously the whole time and I think none of the white or the black symbols had known about Harriet and her testimony consciously, but I think it was buried deep within our psyches and our bodies and you know it's also, you know there's an element of choice you can't force anybody to do stuff but there's also a body of evidence showing the transformative power of knowledge, especially informed by faith, that I hope, hopefully, could steal or encourage people to go on the journey.
Bishop Wright:You know, one of the things I like to say is that as we live with faith, that is, as we live with God, as God's words and God's ways begin to sort of touch our hearts, one of the indicators of that is that we increase our appetite to tell and to hear truth right. One of the great markers of a mature spirituality is that we can let reality be reality right, and so your story says that right. Is that? You know? Because if I, if I've got my facts right, you know, your dad and a member of let's call them the Black Semerals met at Kentucky Fried Chicken as an initial meeting and began to talk about Harriet, that painful and courageous thing that she did. Painful thing she went through, but courageous thing she did in response.
Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr.:That was a hell of a first meeting. I mean, you can't make it up really. No, I was talking to Debra yesterday she's just fantastic in the documentary and she called it. The Kentucky fried meeting is what she called it and one of the cool things that we did is we started sketching our family trees out, you know, just trying to get to know each other, um, and to see, um, what's. I think what's cool about these projects is is, as you learn about the deep history, you become invested in the, in the, in the, in the present and the descendants of it. And it goes the other way, like once you, once you develop a bond with somebody, then it makes you more curious about you, know their ancestors, like how, how we got here?
Bishop Wright:Yeah, I mean you know I've I've talked a little bit about this on the podcast before um, you know I'm adopted uh and uh because of, uh, you know some genetic stuff and my wife's you know sort of tireless uh research, I found my biological mother, found my mother, therefore found my Irish sort of family, and thank God they're still alive and I can talk to them and we talk regularly and have a laugh and it's wonderful just to get that story and found out that that side of my family had been in the country since 1730. So before America was America Right, and then and then on the other side of it, we just sort of found my father's side, african-american, who comes through Kentucky as a coal miner, through Tennessee as laborers and farmers down into Columbus, Tennessee. You know Mississippi, you know so just just you.
Bishop Wright:You learn these amazing journeys and you know through these, these tools that we now have available, you learn the stories and there really are incredible stories and you know, I feel like I stand just a bit taller knowing more about those stories. I feel like maybe I'm a little bit more mature about understanding human nature and how all of us fall short and I think I feel a little bit more hopeful in that if we can face some of these things and and you know these hard parts it actually builds bridges with other people. You know I can bring a little bit of understanding bridges with other people. You know I can bring a little bit of understanding to your messiness if I can stand in my own messiness.
Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr.:You know what I mean? Yeah Well, just the emotions you described the awe, the curiosity, the humility, the hope, the empathy. I mean that's all what happens, you know, by going on this deep, on this deep, deep dive.
Bishop Wright:Well, you know, what your journey Spenser, really does affirm is that we don't have to be caught up in denial. Denial is not the only way we can tend to our messy histories, right. That we don't have to be caught up in denial. Denial is not the only way we can tend to our messy histories, right? It's pretty spiritually courageous just to say I'm not gonna use denial as an option here and to use clinical language. When we don't do that, we actually embark on a journey where we might actually integrate all the parts of who we are right and that's wholly, literally, wholly and wholesome is to integrate. You know, I'm all these things all at one time. And so what are you teaching young people? How's this?
Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr.:touch your time with young people and informing them, and so what's neat about it is is the students are also learning research skills. You know. They're learning like archives, how they're cataloged. They're learning the role between primary sources and secondary sources. They're learning interview skills. They're learning 21st century computer stuff, as far as you know, producing a podcast or a video and it's yeah. So I feel like they're getting a lot.
Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr.:I want to circle back real quick to what your talk about denial and our story was denied for at least 50 years. Harriet's testimony and the Klan trials in York County, south Carolina, are the source material for the Birth of a Nation, the infamous DW Griffith film, and there's a recent study from Harvard that after that film came out, in counties where the film was shown, lynchings rose 500%. So I'm in talk now to develop a museum exhibit with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and I really think this is this presents a moral crossroads, like with our story, if you engage the truth and you go through the thorns, this is the briar patch of the South. Right here it can be healing, it can be transformative. If you deny it, if you look away, it can lead to propaganda, it can lead to violence. So you can see Harriet's testimony and you know it's something that you can't turn away from. It's there, it's visceral, her courage.
Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr.:There's also a movement back to Liberia. That the Black Semerals she gave up the chance to begin a new life in Arlington and that's been amazing is reconciling with them. When we unveiled the first historical marker in South Carolina to mention the Ku Klux Klan they came for the unveiling and we had never met them before and so all of a sudden they show up and it's just so fun and just amazing. Beautiful, resilient people and you know, so like now I have cousins, who I have cousins in three continents. Now, you know, through this, through this journey, I'm profoundly grateful and just excited to to learn other people's stories. And just excited to learn other people's stories, I'm developing a children's book about Reverend Elias Hill, who was the leader of the Liberian migration. So trying to tell the story and share it with people of all ages and interests, it's really exciting.
Bishop Wright:It's really exciting. You know, this storytelling bit is one of the most subversive things we can do, right. I mean, you know, one of the things that Empire does right is Empire it decides on. You know what can be said and what can't be said, what can enter into speech, what can't be entered into speech. And then you know, the biblical record is a record of men and women who decided to speak, you know, kinship and speak family, and speak revolution in some cases, and speak faith and speak hope, and really, you know, in ways that the empire was really uncomfortable with, and that's why we kill the prophets and, ultimately, that's why we kill Jesus, because they embody and speak possibilities that are inconvenient for the empire.
Bishop Wright:So you know, you, determining or deciding just to continue to tell this story of kinship, of, of um, of uh, of moving forward, of denial, is not an option, really is subversive, um, you know, because if we keep these stories alive, uh, I think we keep reality in the room, right, and and we're not sort of overwhelmed, uh, by all these, uh, you know, these manicured stories that were being sort of force fed, that the world is messy, that we are, that we're linked, ultimately, um, uh, that, uh, that truth is inconvenient and yet that truth has its benefit. I mean, this is what you're saying by doing the work that you're doing and you're trying to get this into the hands of, you know, lots of different kinds of age groups. So this is just truly amazing. I'm so glad that this came to CNN's attention and that they're going to give it some air. How did CNN get involved?
Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr.:I had a friend from college who works there, and we had a hurricane, of course, in October and I had a little bit of— Asheville was hit very hard.
Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr.:Yeah, mainly where we are. We're up on on a plateau, so it was more like a tornado, uh. But we didn't have food or we didn't. We had food, we didn't have power or water for a couple weeks and I just pitched my friend this idea and it's just sort of slowly, slowly, slowly made its way up, and what what I admire and appreciate working with them is their rigorous fact checking. So after we were done, it took about three weeks. Every single claim they needed to see a paper trail of evidence and luckily I had it.
Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr.:People don't know this, but there was a chance in American history for black people's family structures as it was originally intended to be recorded in the 1850 census and it made a debate to the Senate floor and really I think it made the white folks on the big plantations. It was just too much information and too much too much exposure for them, too much humanity, and so they replaced the quote names of slaves with numbers of slaves and effectively erased a hundred years of black family history. So now to go back before 1870, you really have to go into the white folks' records. So we had this Moses-like figure and if you want to find his story, his family story. Before then you have to go look into the house of the Pharaoh. But what that potentially does is, in the South, 46% of families in South Carolina in 1860 enslaved human beings. But what it can do is it can create a shared project where you can't separate one family story from the other.
Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr.:And I went to Northern Ireland with my dad. We went on a peace march in Derry, the side of Bloody Sunday, with a Catholic high school and a Protestant high school. And what was remarkable about this is, in doing so, these young kids have a shared experience of the past. There's no alternative facts. They know that this happened and they learn it together and then, in doing so, they have bonds and friendships forming in the present that ultimately is going to change the whole tenor of the nation.
Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr.:So we sort of did that inadvertently, michael Simerle and I he's my, he's my black cousin, you know the same age. You know, by us going to libraries, going to historical reenactments, us go into libraries, go into historical reenactments, you know we turn something that we that could potentially divide us into a unifying and a healing moment. And you know our friendships continue to strengthen through the days. And you know it just it's. It's really really I think about them and and and pray for them and with them, and it's just awesome, yeah, and pray for them and with them and it's just awesome.
Bishop Wright:Yeah, you know there, you know we talked about, you know, I talked about one indicator of sort of spiritual maturity being, you know, that we can increase our ability to tell and hear reality and truth. You know, the second indicator I would say would be sort of giving up all claims to separateness and superiority, Right, and so you know, that's the thing. As we move along and your work is sort of revealing that even that pilgrimage you went on is is there. You know, ultimately there really is no other. Ultimately we are together, Ultimately we're knit together.
Bishop Wright:Yeah, we've had tragic and terrible fights. Division continues to bedevil us, but you know, if we can find the courage and the empathy, we really realize that. I mean, it's honestly sad to say we have so much more in common. Yeah, that's true, but also that we're actually just the same. We're actually just a human family. You know, people talk about a human race and I'm like you know what the hell are we? Where are we racing to? We're a human family. We always have been, since our ancestor walked out of East Africa, We've always been the same. We judge each other by, you know, these adaptations that come to all of us just because of climate and superficial factors, but we are the actual same.
Bishop Wright:The mitochondrial DNA says we are a family and so you know, I think these kinds of what we might call peace warriors, right, People who are going to wage war on the side of peace, which means brotherhood and sisterhood and shared humanity. This is what I hope. Faith is the message, that faith in all of our houses of worship, our Jewish temples, our Muslim mosques, our Christian churches. This is what I hope is really the sermon every Sunday. To some degree or the other, We've found ourselves and locked ourselves into these tragic cul-de-sacs.
Bishop Wright:We see it now in Gaza, we see it in Ukraine, we see it all over the world, we see it in Congo, we see it in all these places. But ultimately, if we could ever get to the place where we simply realized that I'm yours and you're mine, we belong to each other Our DNA says it right how much different the world would be. It sounds even so silly and syrupy to say it out loud because immediately people say well, that sounds great on Sunday morning, for instance in the sermon, but in the real world, right? So we have decided that reality really is not this, but reality is war, war and war, and so I'm always grateful for these kinds of stories and people like you, frankly, who have just decided to zoom out and see the truth.
Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr.:Well, thank you, and I mentioned to your producer, easton, that your essay on the American South as our holy land was deeply inspiring and that really encouraged me to create this historical marker and to view the South where we are, as this place for healing, and it definitely also helped me reconcile whatever conflicted feelings I have about the past and about the South. So it's, it's really great to be here. It's another reminder that we're all branches of the same same human tree. We're all made in the image of God and I love this podcast.
Bishop Wright:I'm really, really honored, honored to be on it no-transcript that you know my ancestors come right up out of enslavement. You know in Columbus, mississippi, and out of the soil in Tennessee and deep into the earth. You know in coal mining in Kentucky. So I mean, you know, what does our subconscious know? That is only just now, you know, trying to find its way to the surface, right Into our lips. Last question for you you know you're a dad, yeah, yeah. So say a little bit about your family. And then what do you tell the kids about this piece of work that dad is doing? I mean, do they get to go to some of these family reunions and gatherings?
Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr.:And what are their questions when they go to these gatherings.
Dr. Spenser Simrill Jr.:Well, that was one of the main reasons why we did it is we saw that we're doing this in the presence of children and we want to present the best version of ourselves, like we don't want to be judgmental or prejudiced around our kids, and so I think my kids have experienced integration on a subconscious level, before they ever knew about slavery or civil rights, where they'd go to these family gatherings. And my son, when he became interested in computers, he would Google the funny names Simril and Vaughn, white folks and black folks, and you know to him it was all one. But now I think that they're learning about these things in school. They're going twins, boy we're going into the fourth grade. You know we were reading these books, like you know who was Harriet Tubman and who was Gandhi, and and you know we're using this as this, as a teachable moment, you know, for hopefully for them to be more, to be kinder and more, more empathetic and curious and and grateful that that we don't have these, these institutional separations, you know, keeping us apart.
Bishop Wright:Yeah, Wonderful. Yeah, we're doing what we do in the presence of children. That's the takeaway. You know what we say. What we achieve you know I'm really arrested by a quote that I heard the other day is that, you know, people are actually not the sum total of their goals, they're the sum total of their choices, Right, and so that's just at a granular level. We are the people who make the choices that we make. You know, the good news is there's grace in all of that, but but you've made a choice. You've made a choice to be a storyteller. You've made a choice to not look away but to look, look in and and we're grateful, Spenser. Brothers and sisters, we are with Spenser Simrill Jr..