Bennett: As Black America marks 500 years of resistance in August, Virginians still remember the formerly enslaved

Bennett: As Black America marks 500 years of resistance in August, Virginians still remember the formerly enslaved

Have you ever met someone who had been enslaved? Until recently, I would have answered that question without hesitation. No. Slavery belonged, in my mind, to grainy photographs, courthouse records, faded census pages, and museum exhibits. It was unquestionably real, but safely distant, separated from the present by generations too numerous to count. Then I had a phone conversation with my great-uncle while researching my family’s history. We wer…