Just days after news broke that Benedict Cumberbatch was facing a compensation claim over his slave-owning ancestors, Glass Onion star Edward Norton has discovered that his ancestors also once owned slaves.
A preview for the PBS’ show Finding Your Roots, which sees celebrities exploring their family trees, shows Norton reacting to a photo of his ancestors with young slaves. The image shows a 55-year-old man and a 37-year-old woman standing with five girls, aged, four, six, eight, nine, and 10.
The show’s host Henry Louis Gates Jr told Norton that the adults were family and the children were slaves. “What’s it like to see that?” Gates Jr asked the actor.
“The short answer is, these things are uncomfortable, and you should be uncomfortable with them. Everybody should be uncomfortable with it,” Norton responded.
He continued, “It’s not a judgement on your and your own life but it’s a judgement on the history of this country. It needs to be acknowledged first and foremost, and then it needs to be contended with.”
‘When you go away from census counts and you personalise things, you’re talking about, possibly, a husband and wife with five girls – and these girls are slaves. Born into slavery.’
Meanwhile, actor Benedict Cumberbatch is fighting a compensation claim linked to a plantation with 250 slaves on Barbados that was ran by his ancestors.
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Cumberbatch’s seventh great grandad, Abraham, bought the land in 1728 and held slaves on it for 100 years.
When slavery was abolished in the 1830s it is believed that the actor’s ancestors were paid $11,000 compensation, the equivalent today of $6.4 million.
“Any descendants of white plantation owners who’ve benefited from the slave trade should be asked to pay reparations, including the Cumberbatch family,” said David Denny, who is fighting for compensation for the slave’s families.
“The money should be used to turn the local clinic into a hospital, support local schools, and improve infrastructure and housing.”
