Who Do You Think You Are? Episode 3.05 Jerome Bettis

Nicknamed "The Bus," star running back Jerome Bettis spent 13 years in the NFL. In 2006, he led the Pittsburgh Steelers to a decisive Super Bowl victory before retiring a champion. A committed humanitarian, Jerome founded the Bus Stops Here Foundation to serve underprivileged children. He's gone on to work as a football analyst on television and radio. Jerome currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife and their two children. "My family is everything to me," Jerome says. He grew up in a tight-knit family where his mother and father attended every NFL game he played in. His father passed away a few years ago, but Jerome was fortunate to learn about the Bettis side of the family before he passed. He knows very little about his mother's side, the Bougards, and would like to go back as far as he can on that side of the tree.

Jerome heads to Detroit, Michigan to meet with his mom Gladys and his uncle to learn more about their side of the family. Jerome looks at photographs of his mother's parents, Mary and Abram, as his uncle tells stories about them. Gladys shows him a photograph of his great-grandmother Ruby, and he learns that his great-grandfather Burnett mysteriously disappeared from the family one day. The one thing Gladys knows about Burnett is that he had a reputation as a rebel rouser. Jerome goes online to Ancestry.com to see what documentation he can find. He finds Burnett's death certificate, although his name is misspelled on the document, and learns his 3x great-grandfather was named Abe. To find out why Burnett disappeared, Jerome heads to Paducah, Kentucky.

In Paducah, Jerome meets with Dr. Gerald Smith to help him with the research. Dr. Smith found a divorce record from 1921 that shows his great-grandmother Ruby officially divorced Burnett because he "abandoned her for more than one year." Jerome is deeply concerned about the type of man his great-grandfather was to just abandon his family. To find out more, Jerome heads to the McCracken Public Library to meet with Prof. Craig to search newspaper articles to see if Burnett is mentioned. He is able to find an article from The Paducah Daily Sun on April 6, 1897 that's entitled: "Struck with a Spoke: Colored Boy Swears Out a Warrant." Burnett pressed charges against his boss at a spoke factory for hitting him. "That took a lot of guts," Prof. Craig tells Jerome, "because in this era there were lynches in this county."

After the Civil War ended in 1865, Congress amended the constitution prohibiting slavery, making blacks full citizens and granted free black men the right to vote. As the Union army pulled out of the defeated South, southern states found ways to circumvent the federal legislation. They enacted the Jim Crow Laws, which legalized segregation in public places and kept blacks from voting. When 21-year-old Burnett Bougard bravely stood up for his rights in 1897, the odds were heavily against him.

"What do you think became of Burnett?" Jerome asks Prof. Craig. To find out, they look back at the newspaper archives and find furthers notices about the case. They find an article saying the case was dismissed "when evidence showed that the darky advanced in a threatening manner..." Prof. Craig tells Jerome that it's very typical for cases involving blacks to end up that way during that time, but it definitely took a rebel to make the charges in the first place. "This really helps me," Jerome says, "because with the divorce coupled with the rumor he was a rebel rouser, I was starting to develop a negative perception. But now, I don't think that applies. I think he was a strong-willed African-American man in a time when you really couldn't be."

Jerome starts his research on Abe Bougard, his 3x great-grandfather and finds a newspaper article from October 8, 1902 that says Abe sued the Illinois Central Railroad for two thousand dollars for being struck by a train. "That takes a bunch of guts, too," Prof. Craig says, to go up against a powerhouse company like the railroad. To find out more about the lawsuit, Jerome heads to Frankfort, Kentucky and meets with Jennifer Frazier, a law librarian, to look over the court documents. While viewing the documents, Jerome finds that Abe signed his name with an X because he couldn't write. Jerome is shocked at the reality that his ancestor couldn't write his name, yet he had the strength to sue the railroad.

The Illinois Central Railroad was the largest employer in Paducah during that time period and Jerome wonders how Abe could've afforded to fight them in court. Frazier found that Abe was represented by a prominent law firm of the time that believed in social justice. With further research, Frazier finds that the case went to trial, but during that time period, the jury would've been made up of all white members, which would usually not be good for cases dealing with African Americans. Surprisingly, the jury decided in favor of Abe, saying the railroad was in the wrong when they claimed Abe was trespassing while in fact he was working for them at the time of the injury. "This was a huge victory," a shocked Jerome says. "To think an all-white jury believed him... it means this was a man of integrity; they saw past race and that's amazing in of itself."

Jerome now has a better understanding of who his 3x great-grandfather was, but now he would like to delve deeper into Abe's past to see if he was born a slave. On Ancestry.com, Jerome finds Abe's death certificate from 1925. Even though Abe's birth date was listed as unknown, Jerome figures he was born around the end of slavery in 1853. He also finds on the death certificate that his 4x great-grandparents were named Jerry and Eliza, but they are listed as having unknown last names, which adds to Jerome's belief that they were slaves. For more answers, Jerome travels too Murray, Kentucky where he will meet with a professor of African-American history, Dr. Hardin.

Dr. Hardin tells Jerome that typically slaves would take the last name of their owners, and the county his relatives lived in had a known slave owner named Joseph Bougard. "It's sobering to think I may have found the man that owned my ancestors and that my family name actually came from him," Jerome says. Dr. Hardin and Jerome find the will of Joseph Bougard from 1841 that left his property and his slaves, Jerry and Eliza, to his wife at the time of his death. Now Jerome has proof that his ancestors were slaves and were treated like property instead of people. As they look in further records, Jerome finds a document that proves Abe was indeed born into slavery and was later sold at public auction in 1860 when he was 10 years old for $1,363. Jerome finds that Abe's parents also were sold but to different owners, meaning Abe was separated from his parents at such a young age.

Dr. Hardin locates the property Abe worked on when he was 10 years old, and they drive off to see it. "I want to walk on the same land that my 3x great-grandfather walked on and understand what he had to go through," Jerome says as he arrives at the location. "To actually stand here on the spot like this is surreal because my ancestors worked this land, they lived on this land, and ultimately they were sold on this land. Standing here and knowing what happened here, it's one of those moments that you never forget in your life." Jerome asks Dr. Hardin if Abe was ever reunited with his parents after he was sold off. Dr. Hardin shows Jerome an 1870 census document that records Abe and his parents living on the same property. "It's a relief, but it also reminds me of what my ancestors had to go through," Jerome says as he finally sees the complete picture of Abe and why he had such strength to fight for his rights as an adult.

Jerome heads back to Detroit, Michigan to tell his mother Gladys what he has learned. "When I think about the Bougard men, I see the strength in all their stories, and it makes me proud to be a Bougard man," Jerome reveals. He tells everything he's learned to his mother who is enthralled by the stories and documents he brought back. "Bougard men have strength," Gladys's says with a smile. "I definitely accomplished everything I set out to find on this journey," Jerome says. "I'm just so thankful for the wealth of knowledge that I'm able to give to my family, and I think that's the most important gift you can give."