Abraham Lincoln would find it odd to hear someone say “A house is being built over there” since for someone of his time the proper expression was “There is a house building over there.” In the same way, a rural black woman in 1850 would find it odd to hear her great-great-great-grandson saying “Folks be tryin’ all the time,” because in 1850 the unconjugated habitual be didn’t exist yet—it only came in around World War I. Her great-great-great-grandson would find it odd to hear her say, as she might, “Dose people am your other relatives an’ you gwine to town to meet ’um tomorrow.” But hear it
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