History | Equality
Man Accidentally Buys Plantation That Held His Slave Ancestors
The story of Fred Miller, who purchased a home with an enormous history.
Fred Miller was serving in the Air Force in Southern California. He was a civil engineer who often flew home to visit family in Pittsylvania County, Virginia.
It’s a quiet rural town near the southern border of the state. The area was built and maintained through tobacco farming for hundreds of years.
Pittsylvania County had over 14,000 slaves. Virginia was one of the biggest slaveholding states, with nearly 500,000 slaves at its peak.
None of this was on Fred’s mind as he began shopping for a post-military home. He just wanted a place where he could host big family get-togethers.
His sister, Karen, found a house — which he was initially resistant to buying. He’d called it “The scary one.”
He bid $220,000 but didn’t think he’d get the offer because he was black and living in rural Virginia.
