The family history of Sen. Mitch McConnell could be a case study in the way many whites built lasting wealth in part by exploiting the labor of enslaved African Americans.
Sandy MazzaCotton plants soak up the sun at a farm still operating in Limestone County.ATHENS, Ala. – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was born about 40 miles from his great-great-grandfathers’ Alabama cotton farms, worked by slaves 100 years before.
As a child during segregation, McConnell lived on the white side of Athens, where black residents were only allowed to visit for work and were typically paid very low wages. Records about the McConnell family shed light on the history of the region that residents say is still shaped by the legacy of slavery.
Malone's great-grandparents were slaves, and he remembers his grandparents, who were sharecroppers, telling him how white farmowners kept them poor and in debt. The lush land was near the Tennessee River in the northwesternmost corner of Alabama, on the Tennessee state line. Davis, part of a group working to preserve the only black school in Limestone County for decades after the Civil War, said economic disparities persist, but she doesn’t support paying reparations for the decisions of people who lived more than 100 years ago.
A USA TODAY Network review of census documents and local property and accounting records show that slave ownership was passed down through generations and persisted in the McConnell family through the Civil War. Josiah and Jane Daley, the parents of Richard Daley, also owned slaves, according to Limestone County Chancery Court records from the mid-1800s. A property dispute mentions their two female slaves, 10-year-old Nancy and 20-year-old Eliza.
The file the senator requested documented James McConnell’s purchases and sales, administered by his son, Andrew. It served as his will and included a list of heirs to receive payments upon his death. Mitch McConnell’s family’s prominence is still apparent in Athens, where he lived until the third grade, when his family moved for better opportunities.
Walker’s great-grandfather escaped slavery and became a soldier before establishing his own farm. But the family struggled, and after graduating from Morehouse College, Walker faced a choice of farming cotton or going into the military. A neighbor across the street remembered playing with water guns with McConnell as children, according to an Athens News Courier article.
Martin said he didn’t make any black friends until he joined the Army, and he wishes it had happened earlier. In April, a brawl erupted at Athens High School after a parent started a"Black Lives Matter" chant on campus. When police responded, a fight broke out. A video showed officers hitting several students.
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