One day in December while searching a database I have access to through my job, I came across the following newspaper article from the Chicago Defender. I was doing a search for Dred Wimberly, a black Senator from NC that I suspect is a brother to one of my 3rd great-grandmothers, and this article came up. It came up b/c the Rev. Kemp Plummer Battle was married to one of Dred’s daughters, Annie.
Now, the interesting aspect of this is the Reverend’s name. He’s black. Dred himself was a slave on the Battle Plantation (see previous posts) and it was the WHITE Kemp Plummer Battle that suggested he run for office. The white Kemp Battle was former slavewoner of Dred, and is a former president of my alma mater, the University of NC @ Chapel Hill and Dred was a slave on his family’s plantation. I found it striking that Dred’s daughter would have married a black Kemp Plummer Battle!
Perhaps the Rev. was named after the white Kemp; perhaps the Rev.’s ancestors were too slaves of the Battle plantation. I’ll have to dig deeper and explore this further.
Rev. Kemp Plummer Battle
