Surry Native Wraps Up Documentary On His Family’s 1619 African Ancestry

By Rosaland Tyler
Associate Editor
New Journal and Guide

A leap of faith pushed Antonio Charity to leave Surry County, Va., finish Howard University in 1984, and return home to work for 10 months at Smithfield Foods’ meatpacking plant where he earned wages that financed his move to New York.

Now, a leap of faith has pushed Charity to write and direct a new documentary, “Where Charity Begins.” It is about his ancestors’ journey from Africa to Surry County, in the 1600s. Charity recently returned home to Surry County and wrote and produced the documentary, aiming to tell the story of his family’s connection to the first Africans who arrived in Virginia in 1619 including his kinfolks who have lived in Surry County since the 17th century.

The new documentary is being released long after Charity landed roles in the 2018 “Bumblebee,” played the role of a sheriff in the 2022 Netflix romantic comedy “Falling for Christmas” that starred Lindsay Lohan. His Hollywood portfolio also includes multiple episodes on AMC’s Emmy-nominated “A House Divided” soap opera and two episodes of Seth McFarlane’s Star Trek-inspired 2017-22 series “The Orville.” He has performed for HBO, Netflix, Hallmark Christmas movies, and “Grey’s Anatomy.”

He is the son of James D. Charity Sr. and Emily M. Charity. He is the youngest of their 12 children.

Describing his most recent leap of faith – his new documentary – Charity said, “We’ve been free (people) for a long time.” Court records show his ancestors were not enslaved. “We’ve been ‘free,’ in quotation marks, since the 1600s,” Charity recently told the Smithfield Times. “I told my daughter that much and she asked ‘why isn’t this known?’ and I didn’t have an answer for her.”

Since risk taking and serendipity are themes that run through his family tree, it may explain why his new documentary shows a man revisiting his roots in Surry, which is located directly across the James River from Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg. There, he meets those who prove his family not only settled here but were among the first “twenty and odd Africans” to arrive on these shores in August 1619. The documentary aims to definitively settle questions about the origin of the Charity family of Surry County.

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Describing his new documentary in a Jan. 1, 2023 Facebook post, he said, “An African-American man journeys home to his roots in Virginia in search of confirmation that his family is one of America’s oldest and that he might be a direct descendant of the first Africans to arrive on these shores in August 1619,” he wrote. “A local researcher says her research reveals that the Charity family is possibly the oldest African-American family with pedigree, meaning that there is documentation to verify my family’s roots.”

“Growing up in Surry was amazing! I’ve always intended to come back here,” said Charity, whose Hollywood career spans three decades. “I want my daughter to have the experience of growing up in a smaller community surrounded by lots of family and friends everywhere she goes.”