They're strangers with a painful shared bond: Robert E. Lee enslaved their ancestors

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/24/ [login to see] /arlington-house-robert-e-lee-reconciliation
There was a one-of-a-kind reunion over the weekend at Arlington House – the national memorial to Robert E. Lee that sits atop a hill in Arlington National Cemetery. Descendants of the Confederate general gathered with the descendants of the people the Lee family once enslaved on the property in Virginia.

Many of them are seeing one another in person for the first time after meeting virtually for the last two years in pursuit of racial understanding in what's known as the Family Circle.

"I'm on this committee, the Family Circle, to bring back the memories of our ancestors, as well as reconcile with the family that enslaved them," says Cecilia Torres, a retired teacher from California. She's the great-great-granddaughter of Selina Gray and Thornton Gray.