Morgan Freeman Family History

Morgan Freeman was born on June 1st, 1937 to Morgan and Mayme Freeman in Memphis, Tennessee.

He spent much of his early childhood at his grandmother Avie’s home in Charleston, Mississippi after his parents had moved north.  When he graduated from high school in Mississippi in 1955, he joined the US Air Force.  But this did not work out for him and he soon left.

From these unpromising beginnings, he then tried to forge an acting career, firstly in Hollywood and then in New York.  However, success did not come easily to him.  He had to wait until 1987 when he was fifty and his film Driving Miss Daisy became a big hit.  Other acting successes followed.

He now lives close to his roots in a 124 acre ranch in Charleston, Mississippi.

Slavery

What is known about Morgan’s origins is from DNA analysis.  Some of his ancestors were from Niger.  A little over one-quarter came from the area that stretches from present-day Senegal to Liberia; while the remaining three-quarters came from the Congo-Angola region.

What is not known is how and when his ancestor came to America.  It was probably in a slave ship and he must have survived the journey.

Curiously, the path through slavery here was mainly traced in its later stages through the female side, based on the following records handed down:

• Sylvia Cain and Milton Wright were brought south from North Carolina to Mississippi probably sometime in the 1840’s.
• while their daughter Cindy, born in 1853, lived through emancipation.

Cindy’s Line.  Cindy Cain was still alive in the 1930’s and was interviewed as part of the Federal Writers’ Project.  She revealed that her parents had been owned by a man named Herbert Cain.

Though Cain owned the two since they were young children, he went on to sell Cindy’s father years later when she was a child. “Not even treated as well as a mule,” was Morgan Freeman’s reaction when he read the transcript.

Mayme’s Line.  Meanwhile the female line in Mississippi through his mother Mayme went back to another black woman enslaved, Celia Johnson, who was born in 1835.  She was with a white man Alfred Carr, thirty-five years her senior, who worked for her owner.

An 1870 census showed Johnson and eight children living with Carr five years after the end of slavery.  But although they lived together and wanted to be buried together, Mississippi law would not allow them to be legally married.

Elizabeth Carr, born into slavery in 1855 from this family, later married Samuel Greenlee and their daughter Lenora, born in 1886, was Mayme’s mother.

Later Lines

Following emancipation in 1864, Cindy Cain married Albert Anderson in Mississippi and they had a daughter Avie Anderson.

Avie married Morgan Hubert Freeman, of which not much is known except that he came from North Carolina (did his parents adopt the Freeman surname at the time of emancipation?).

They had three sons:

• Jessie Freeman (b. 1910) who worked for Inland Steel for thirty years and retired in Chicago
• Willie Freeman (b. 1913) who lost his life in 1945 while serving with the US Army
• and Morgan Porterfield Freeman (b. 1915), Morgan’s father.

However, their marriage broke up and Avie married again to Alonzo Cortledge in 1920.

Morgan’s Parents

His Father.  Morgan Porterfield Freeman, a barber, married Mayme Revere, a teacher, around 1935 and their son Morgan was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1937.

They moved north to Chicago when young Morgan was small and he was sent to his grandmother Avie’s home in Charleston, Mississippi. He moved frequently during his childhood, living in Mississippi, Indiana, and finally in Chicago where he was reunited with his parents.

Morgan Sr. was a heavy drinker and he died of liver cirrhosis in Chicago in 1961 at the young age of forty-seven.

His Mother.  Morgan’s mother Mayme was, like his father, born in Charleston, Mississippi.  She moved north with him to Chicago in the late 1930’s.  They later divorced.

Mayme was in fact married three times – first in Mississippi to a Mr. Anderson (two sons), then to Morgan (a daughter Iris and Morgan Jr), and finally in Tennessee to Grafton Curtis (three children).  A retired teacher, she outlived all her husbands and died back in Charleston, Mississippi in 2000 at the grand age of eighty-eight.

Morgan’s Place

In 1991 Morgan took title to the land in Charleston, Mississippi that had previously belonged to his parents and, before that, his grandparents.

His home there sits on a sprawling 124-acre property that includes a lake, working farm, and a stunning two-storey brick mansion.  One of the most striking fearures of the house is the grand foyer with its sweeping staircase and intricate chandelier.  The working farm has horses, donkeys, chickens, a vegetable garden, and an orchard.

The place itself is quite isolated, with only a few other houses in the immediate vicinity.

Morgan Freeman’s Family Tree

• Sylvia Cain m. Milton Wright. both born circa 1835 in North Carolina
• – Lucinda (Cindy) Cain (1862-1942)

• Lucinda (Cindy) Cain m. Albert Anderson (1866-1940) in Carroll, Mississippi
• – Avie Anderson (1887-1943)

• Avie Anderson from Mississippi m. Morgan Hubert Freeman from North Carolina (1875-1942) in 1906; rem. Alonzo Cortledge in 1920
• – Clara Freeman (1907-1984)
• – Jesse Freeman (1910-2003) m. Jean Hopson
• – Willie Freeman (1913-1945), died by homicide in US Army
• – Morgan Porterfield Freeman (1915-1961)

• Morgan Porterfield Freeman from Charleston, Mississippi m. Mayme Revere around 1935 and migrated north to Chicago.  They later divorced.  He rem. Kanary Lloyd (1919-1992).   Mayme rem. Grafton Curtis (1911-1990) in Tennessee in 1954.
• – Rudolph Anderson, with Mayme and former husband
• – Othello Anderson, with Mayme and former husband
• – Iris Freeman m. Elder Tubbie Gordon in 1957, moved to Kankakee (Illinois), with Mayme
• – Morgan Freeman (b. 1937), with Mayme