Reginald Hildebrand - The Hildebrand Name (clip)

Reginald Hildebrand: This is the story that’s handed down in the family, that at the time of emancipation they were on a plantation in South Carolina owned by a family named Wannamaker. Most of the slaves on that plantation took the name Wannamker and for that first generation, all of the slaves – former slaves – from that particular farmer plantation regarded each other as cousins, even though they weren’t blood ties, but there was that kind of connection.

But for some reason, our relative on that plantation chose not to take that name. And he decided that he was going to take a new name in freedom. An entirely new name. And so, he called himself Vanderbilt Hildebrand. Strictly, I’m of the generation that, there was a period when we’re throwing off those names – the slave names – and I have a different relationship with the name, in part because that actually is not the name of the master but, even if it had been, I see it as a deliberate choice, an action of self-identification on the part of the oldest relative I know anything about. So, being Hildebrand connects me to him, and to that act, that I’ve been carrying his name for the reasons that he said, whatever he was trying to assert then.

So, the complex relationship that many Black people have to their name, I don’t really feel that as much, even though you know, [it] doesn’t have a thing to do with Africa, but it does have a great deal to do with my family and the traditions of my family.