Man’s Search for ‘Family’ Uncovers Connections

When Macky Alston was a child living in Durham, N.C., his father, a Presbyterian minister and civil rights activist, placed him in an all-black public school, where he was amazed to discover that he shared with many of his classmates the same surname. Death threats on account of his father’s activities later drove the family from Durham when Macky was 8 to relocate in Princeton, N.J., where his father still preaches and lives.

But the memory of his shared-name classmates provided the inspiration for Alston, now 32 and living in New York, to embark upon a project that has resulted in his deeply moving “Family Name.”

Alston is descended from 18th century slave-owning North Carolina aristocrats--you get the impression that every other plantation in the state belonged to an Alston. It is common knowledge that slaves took their masters’ surnames and that many a plantation owner exercised his droit du seigneur with female slaves.

On a return visit to North Carolina several years ago, Alston was struck by the fact that two large Alston family reunions, one black and one white, took place within a few miles of each other, and yet none of the members of each gathering were aware of the other reunion. Macky Alston, with his multiethnic crew, was the only Alston to attend both events. Alston believes that because much of his own life involved a secrecy--he is gay, and he only came out to his parents at age 19--he was driven to delve into other kinds of family secrets, to pore over actual documentation of his ancestors’ ownership of slaves and to discover blood relations between the black and white Alstons. The first task was relatively easy, the second, far harder.

As a filmmaker and as a family historian, Alston learns as he goes along, which imparts his film with a beguiling sincerity. Not surprisingly, Alston finds both white and black Alstons reluctant to talk about a painful past. Eventually, he makes connections, first with Fred Alston Jr., a noted symphony orchestra bassoonist, whose ancestors turn out to have been owned by Macky’s. Macky then learns of Charles Alston, an esteemed painter of the Harlem Renaissance who died in 1977 but left behind much archival material. What strikes Alston is how light-complexioned Charles Alston and his family were; Charles’ sister in fact admits that in the course of her life she had been able to pass for white.

“Family Name” becomes suspenseful as Alston grows closer to proving that Charles Alston’s father Primus, a prominent turn-of-the-century African American minister in Charlotte, was the son of Macky’s great-great-great-uncle, a slave owner. By the time “Family Name” is over, Alston has filled the screen with Alstons of every shade, creating a powerful image of the unity of the human family.

“Family Name” has an ending you could never anticipate at the outset--the first-ever gathering of Alstons, black and white.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: The film is suitable for all ages.

‘Family Name’

An Opelika Pictures presentation. Director Macky Alston. Producer Selina Lewis. Executive producer Nicholas Gottlieb. Narration written by Alston and Kay Gayner. Cinematographer Eliot Rockett. Editors Sandra Marie Christie & Christopher White. Music Camara Kambon. Running time: 1 hour, 29 minutes.

* Exclusively at the Grande 4-Plex, 345 S. Figueroa St., downtown Los Angeles, (213) 617-0268.