Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 3, 1994 TAG: 9409060033
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Enoch is a Hairston, one of the Hairstons, a huge multiracial clan that stretches from coast to coast and numbers in the thousands.
For the past two decades - each Labor Day weekend - Hairstons from all over the country pick a city and descend on it, staging a three-day binge of familial love, respect for each other and solidarity.
More than 700 members of the clan were expected in Roanoke this weekend, the 21st annual reunion of a family that traces its ancestors to a group of southern Virginia and northern North Carolina plantations.
The ugly custom of slavery divided them more than a century ago, but in recent years it's brought them together.
"It's something wonderful, where you can extend the family across racial lines. All Hairstons are kin," the Rev. Otis L. Hairston said at a reunion kickoff at the Roanoke Marriott on Friday.
A large catered picnic in Salem's Longwood Park followed the hotel ribbon-cutting, and the Hairstons put on a gospel concert Friday night.
Tonight, they'll throw a giant scholarship banquet at the hotel, where former Mayor Noel Taylor will serve as principal speaker.
The celebration ends Sunday following a memorial service for Hairston clan members who have died since the last reunion.
Hairstons come from every state and in every color, creed, size, age and occupation. A sizeable percentage - far greater than in the general population - are ordained ministers.
"If they ain't preachers, they're deacons," joked Lexington, N.C., resident Squire Hairston, the clan's national board chairman.
Others are physicians, farmers, lawyers, writers, professional athletes and entertainers.
One of the eldest of the clan is 93-year-old Jester L. Hairston, one of the stars of the NBC television sitcom "Amen!" Hairston, who never misses a reunion, was expected to arrive on a flight to Roanoke Regional Airport on Friday night.
Other nationally known Hairstons include former NBA basketball player Happy Hairston, who played with the Golden State Warriors; and former pro football player Carl Hairston, who played for the Philadelphia Eagles and Cleveland Browns.
The family traces its roots to Scotsman Peter Hairston, who fled his native country in 1715 after he joined the wrong side in a power struggle against the king. Hairston established a plantation - with slaves - in North Carolina.
Eventually, Hairston and his descendants expanded the family holdings to nine plantations in three states - Virginia, North Carolina and Mississippi. Five of them were in Henry County. Over the years, the properties were also home to an estimated 5,500 servants and slaves, according to a Hairston family history.
The slaves had no surnames, and many of them adopted their masters'. Some actually were related to the Scotsmen. The family has counted more than 98 mixed-race births in one two-year period before the Civil War.
Unlike many black families with plantation roots, groups of Hairstons managed to stay closely knit after emancipation.
"We weren't sold off by masters as so many slaves were back then," said Roger Edmunds, a self-employed telecommunications consultant from Columbia, Md., whose mother was a Hairston.
The families spread far and wide over the years. Then in the late 1920s, in the midst of the early civil-rights movement, their kinship rekindled. Black and white Hairston families contacted each other.
For years, the principal gathering times had been funerals.
At one of them more than 20 years ago, "we sat down and started talking about how to get together on other than sad occasions," Squire Hairston said. He and a group of relatives formed the Hairston Clan Inc.
The first "national" reunion numbered 13 people in 1973. Since then the clan has swelled to more than 3,000 dues-paying members organized into 16 chapters spread over 10 states.
One of the principal functions of the Hairstons now is to expand the fold. One of the first things many Hairstons do when out of town is check the phone book for other Hairstons, Edmunds said.
"If you ask any Hairston, from anywhere in the country, you'll find they have roots in southern Virginia or North Carolina," said Joseph H. Hairston, a retired Washington lawyer and member of the Metropolitan Washington, D.C., chapter.
Two-parent households are strongly encouraged in the Hairston clan, something that Edmunds attributed to the family's strong spiritual roots.
The value system that has resulted encourages education and achievement by Hairston members. In fact, one of the principal reasons for the annual reunion is to give out scholarships to deserving younger Hairstons for their first year of college.
Still, there is no caste system according to education or social status, Edmunds said.
"When you come together as a family, it doesn't matter what you do. It's just that you're real, and that you're family," he said.
Soon, the family expects to be known far and wide outside the clan.
A Charlottesville writer is working on a book detailing its origins and where it's come since then. And a film-production company, part of the Scripps-Howard media conglomerate, is negotiating a documentary film that will be based on the book.
``We are special because we're one of the oldest, largest families that made an effort to connect before Alex Haley's `Roots,''' said William Russell Hairston Jr., a Falls Church novelist and unofficial Hairston clan historian.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***