Tony Rand, a Democratic North Carolina state senator, had no idea that some of his relatives were African American until he watched the 2008 CNN documentary "Black in America."
"I was sitting there, that Saturday night, just up reading the week's papers and watching the program," Rand told CNN. "Then I hear, 'We are the Rands. The mighty, mighty Rands. And then I said to myself, 'What?'" He said he then listened to family historian Martha Rand Hix begin to describe the family’s patriarch.
"When they were talking about William Harrison Rand, I knew that was the William Harrison Rand in our family," he said. "Then they started talking about North Carolina, and I said, 'Well, God oh mighty,' ... it was just amazing."
The following day, CNN reports, he called his 41-year old son, Ripley Rand, and asked him to contact their Black relatives. Soon, Tony and Ripley Rand were invited to attend the next Rand family reunion in July in Sacramento, Calif. What Tony Rand learned is that his son, a state Superior Court judge, was already putting leaves on the family tree.
“Ripley Rand had begun typing out a hand-bound version of a 100-page manuscript compiled by his great-uncle, Oscar Ripley Rand III, and started to create a digital version,” according to CNN. The common denominator among the widely dispersed Rand clan is William Harrison Rand. A White farmer and slave owner, Rand married Sarah Ann Mullens in 1842, and they had seven children. He also fathered seven children with his Black mistress, Ann Albrooks Rand.
“Every other year, hundreds of African-American descendants of Hal Rand get together at a different location for a massive family reunion,” CNN reported.