Descendants of Alabama slaves reunite in old plantation house

Antonious Colts made his first trip to the old house he’d read about on the Internet as part of an ongoing search for himself. He and many others took part in the reunion of the Coats and Thornton families in Etowah County this weekend. The event happens every two years in this community of about 1,500 people along the banks of the Coosa River.
But this time was different. The families are descended from the enslaved people who built the two-story plantation house that shares their family names, sitting alongside the Appalachian Highway, within sight of row upon row of cotton. On Sunday, they were invited inside and to wander the grounds of the white columned, antebellum mansion that dominates the landscape.
This trip inside, though, came at the invitation of the house’s owner, a white woman descended from a family that has owned the house, at one time or another, for 150 years.