Reggie Harris isn’t your typical songwriter. He is recognized as an expert in songs of freedom and justice. Harris was able to share his knowledge and stories with Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College (SMWC) virtually during his keynote address on Oct. 28. The presentation was not only eye-opening, but a small concert as Harris played a few of his songs.
Civil and human rights shape much of his work, as do his life experiences – in some cases, they are closely intertwined. Harris is a descendent of Williams Carter Wickham, a lawyer and confederate general who owned a plantation, Hickory Hill, in Ashland, Virginia.
Harris, having grown up in Philadelphia, didn’t know much about his roots from Virginia. He knew his family had moved from the south during the Black migration from the Richmond area. On a trip to Richmond in 1992, Harris’ cousin told him about his family’s beginnings on Hickory Hill. How Wickham had six children with a slave – Harris’ descendants.
“It was great to know this information,” Harris said about a booklet his cousin had given him with his family tree. “But it was also a bit overwhelming.”
After tucking away the document in a cabinet somewhere, Harris went on with his life – teaching, writing and singing.
In 2010, he was asked to teach at a camp about civil rights in Asheville, North Carolina. He decided to share the complex ways slave owners and slaves coexisted, citing his relation to the Wickhams. Once the session was over, one of the camp attendees, Fran, approached him and said she knew of another relative of Wickham named Lisa.
Fran said she used to be friends with Lisa and believed they could get in contact. After a year and a half of not hearing anything, Harris had forgotten about the conversation.
When Harris got an email from Fran saying she had reconnected with Lisa, and that Lisa wanted to talk to Harris, he was more than surprised. He thought on it, but finally decided getting into contact with Lisa was something he couldn’t pass up.
As he introduced himself over the phone, the voice on the other line cut him off saying, “Where have you been? You were supposed to call me three weeks ago!”
Then and there, Lisa and Harris had reconnected as cousins in a twisted family tree.
“We were embracing each other as family, but it was a little weird … a little strange,” Harris said when he met with Lisa and her brother in Richmond down the line. “But, none of us gave in to the weirdness.”
The day Harris left Richmond, Lisa offered to show him the Hickory Hill property, which was no longer in the family – as long as he was willing to jump a small fence. And although he hesitated, he just thought, “What could go wrong?” So that’s what they did.
Harris was so full of emotion as they wound around the driveway that it took him ten minutes to get out of the car.
“Traveling down that road, I just had a lot of thoughts going through my head. I could see the house, but I felt like I could also see the ghosts,” he said. “It was very emotionally unraveling.”
They stood on the porch of the house where Wickham lived, looking into the living room through the windows. Lisa described what had changed. As they parted ways, he went north, and Lisa headed south. But the thoughts of Hickory Hill stayed on Harris’ mind for weeks after.
“And you know when a songwriter is thinking of nothing else, you can be sure a song is coming,” he said, absentmindedly strumming his guitar. After trying to start his song, he found it was more difficult than he anticipated. “I knew that the reason was because it wasn’t just a song for me to write.”
He called Lisa and asked what she was thinking on that day on Hickory Hill. After that conversation, he was able to write the song.
“It still gives me chills to think on that day,” he said.
Since 2012 and his walk on the property, he said he and his newfound family have had many conversations, some of them difficult. Several of them revolved around the Wickham statue located in downtown Richmond. As a family, they wrote to the mayor five years ago asking for the statue to be removed from public land. County officials dragged their feet on it. But as the displays for George Floyd, who was killed in police custody, began all around the country this year, the statue was pulled down by protestors.
Harris’ cousin, Will, were there the night the statue was pulled down. This has sparked a slew of conversations with both his cousins on the Wickham side, and also on Harris’ side. A scholarship was formed by the Wickham family for those studying race as a form of reparation for their family history.
These events landed his family in The New York Times and on CNN, speaking about legacy and activism.
“It’s been a remarkable journey,” Harris said. “But one that many people in our nation are having now. We have no idea in our lives what one word, one moment, one sentence, can reveal for us.”
While the journey of his family tree is an emotional story, that’s not all Harris spoke about. The night he presented to campus was his 12th anniversary of his liver transplant. His doctors had told him in 2008 that he had a week – maybe two – to live. That’s when they found a liver for him, and it was a “perfect match.”
Harris, not only a performer, is also co-chair of the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Living Agency Project, a group committed to increasing the knowledge of the modern civil rights movement, and keeping momentum going.
His first solo album was released in 2018, and covers topics such as peace and justice, health and personal challenges.
“Fear has no place in my life,” he said. “I am going to live as I think and as I believe.”