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Notes -
But the grandfather doesn't seem to have requested a transfer. Since he was Episcopalian, there's a lot more centralised church government and record-keeping than if grandpa was a random Baptist or non-denominational minister of an independent church. Had he been threatened by the KKK, there would have been some record of that, even as a reason to ask his bishop to switch him to another diocese. And Moore seemingly has already blamed his mother for telling him fake family history, when caught out. So there may well be some kind of family legend that is not based on actual fact, about why Great-grandpa went back to Jamaica (he was born and raised there and when he got the chance to return, he did, is the real truth but that's too simple).
Moore does seem to have gone for the more emotive story of "my entire family was run out of the USA by the KKK" and one reason I'm dubious is because of the tendency of activist African-Americans (or Foundational Americans or Descendant of Slavery Americans, whatever the new woke term is) to exaggerate and flat-out invent 'just-so' stories to make their history of suffering and abuse even more awful. See the fake etymology around picnic, for example. And now that African-Americans have to share the racial spoils with other, newer, minorities coming to the USA, they're marking out their territory as "no, we suffered the most, we deserve the most DEI etc.!"
I think it's handy for Moore to spin up family history into the same kind of "descended from Cherokee princess" as another person we've all heard of, when competing for "pick me for the slot for the candidacy" when you're trying to rack up the Oppression Olympic points. A bit like AOC and her "I'm just Sandy from the block who had to work as a waitress unlike the rich kids at college", when in fact she had some plum internships and after-college gigs herself. Also her magpie ancestry, where she kept discovering that as well as being Puerto Rican, she was also part-Taino and Jewish heritage and I don't know what else. Ditto with Harris and her story of the Oakland childhood, when she's the daughter of two academics and partly grew up in Canada and was not the same background as someone from the ghetto. Not to single those out in particular, every politician wants to be seen as a man/woman of the people who understand you little folks because I, too, grew up hardscrabble (see Gavin Newsom, for God's sake, retreading his tough childhood. A lot of us were brought up in struggling circumstances, Gavin, but we didn't have connections to the Gettys which paid off when we started working lives). As the NYT article points out:
I have no idea what is the real truth in all this, but the Beacon makes a list of accusations:
And again, no idea if Moore has presidential ambitions, but see the NYT about how it's beneficial for Democratic candidates (for any office, I guess) to make the most of "now, I may look privileged, but let me tell you about my hard, tough, deprived family background".
“My father was a tool—“
“Yes, we know, Mr. Starmer. And so are you.”
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