This man says his father was born into slavery. Hear his story

This is my father. He represent memories. In this northern Florida graveyard, Wilbur Bell is visiting his dad, Cornelius Bell. Etched in the gravestone, it says born in May 1865, which would mean his father was born before slavery was outlawed in the United States. His father was 75 when Wilbur was born. Now, only he and his sister are still alive. As we speak today, we might be the only people in the United States and really can say that their parent or parents were born in slavery. So he's retracing that history going back to where his father was born, Homerville, Georgia, a town of a little over 2000. At 83 years old, Wilbur Bell had never been until now, walking alongside his nephew and daughter, reflecting. I remember talking to my father and he was a, he was a hard worker. He was a farmer, and I guess he was a businessman also. And while slavery may be a tie to their history, their mission in this journey is family. They went to the town's genealogy library. Doesn't happen very well. Hoping to find more. My dad passed last year. When he passed, that was one less person that could say what my uncle can say. It's kind of hit me right now. I'm trying to pull myself together. Right, right. I understand. They looked through a lot of the library's records, history, names of previous bells in the area from around the time his father would have lived there. There's some name correlation, like there's a wool Byrne Bell, and here I'm a Will Burbel, so they forgot to put the end on my name. That's it. Bell shared with us a copy of the 1940 census showing his father, then this picture of his dad believed to be from 1939. And while they didn't find everything they were looking for at the library, just to see the town where his father was born was discovery enough, especially ahead of Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. He's happy the country now recognizes the day officially. With the push back on history and what the country's been going through for the past, I guess 8 years, Juneteenth was a new day for black people, a new day for the country because it brought people closer together. His nephew doesn't just want to commemorate the past, he at times wants freedom from it. I wish we just stopped talking about slavery. We can't do anything about it. It was a horrible thing and to some extent perhaps we still, we still feel the the effects of that, but we can't grow and we can't move forward if we don't let it go. Wilbur Bell tends to agree. It's about moving forward, you know? But he also needed to honor his past, not just visiting where his dad was born, but in that a direct link to a time many thought was generations in America's past. For everyone. I'm one generation out of space. I'm two. And getting closer to his dad in the process. My father was Canadius Bell. He was survival. Omar Jimenez, CNN, Homerville, Georgia.