Black Family’s Story Part Of Historic Record Of Illinois

The Penelton family hold a reunion every two years in Edwardsville, Ill. It is a time for them to reconnect to their roots. Photo provided by Rise Strategy Group.
The Penelton family hold a reunion every two years in Edwardsville, Ill. It is a time for them to reconnect to their roots. Photo provided by Rise Strategy Group.

Black Family’s Story Part Of Historic Record Of Illinois

By Tia Carol Jones

Teri Penelton has been doing research on her family for some time. Retired, Penelton has made researching her family a pastime. She started about 15 or 20 years ago, because she wanted to know more about her family and where they came from. 

While she knew that her father was from Southern Illinois, she didn’t know how his family got to Illinois. Through doing the research on her family, she discovered that her ancestor, Nelson Pendleton, was granted his conditional freedom in Illinois more than 200 years ago.

Nelson Pendleton’s story is part of the Illinois African Descent-Citizens Reparations Commission’s Harms Report that was recently released. The report documents the historical and systemic inequities that were visited upon Black Illinoisans and trace their effects to this present era. 

Penelton found out that her family was part of a Black settlement in Turkey Hill, Ill. She has Pendleton’s indentured servant papers, and it showed that he came from Virgina to Illinois. She has also come across jail records and a record of freedom and emancipation for Pendleton in 1823. 

“In 1818, Illinois was to be a free state, and Nelson was indentured until 1823 and was jailed to get his freedom. So, from an indentured servitude to slavery, it shows that chattel slavery was still existing in Illinois,” Penelton said. Illinois was established as a free state on December 3, 1818. 

Penelton said she feels like she is standing on her ancestors’ shoulders and they are screaming to her to continue to tell their story in America. She said that the Illinois ADCRC’s Harms Report, has helped get their story of her family and other families out to the public.

 She encouraged every African American family to start to do research on their family’s history. She said that by doing so, they would see how significant they are within America. She said that when people ask why she has worked so hard to research her family’s history, she said she tells them that no one can take her family’s history from her. 

“Do not deny me my history. Nothing is more personal than your own story,” she said.

Penelton said her family still holds a reunion every two years in Edwardsville, Ill. She said they hold it there because it is where her great grandfather was married. She said Nelson Pendleton is either her great great grandfather’s father or her great great grandfather’s grandfather. She said her great grandfather was in Nelson’s will. She said last summer she started to tell Nelson’s story.

“We as Penelton’s have been a part of Illinois since it has become a state, we were established here in Illinois in 1818,” she said.

A public hearing will take place on April 25th. It will be livestreamed on the Illinois ADCRC YouTube channel. During past public hearings, there have been discussions about pathologizing the Black family, mental and physical harm and neglect, and how these things have harmed Black families and how reparations can repair the harm done to descendants of enslaved Africans. For more information about the Illinois African Descent-Citizens Reparations Commission, visit https://adcrc.illinois.gov.


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