tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77538549129808093722024-02-20T10:23:14.770-08:00Osaabaw ShackAll eyes know is dat,`I don't here where us helluns came from,but I doos know we aint leavin here.We iz Ossebaw. And I'm de TallyWacker.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger49125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-35394136562389505672011-04-04T09:03:00.000-07:002011-04-04T09:03:39.396-07:00Where are dez Flat Foots?History: At the meeting between the Creeks and the Georgia colonists a "Treaty of Friendship and Commerce," was signed. The treaty acknowledged Native American ownership of all lands "as high up as the tide flows" between the Savannah and Altamaha Rivers and allowed the Europeans free right and title to the lands they occupied. The Creeks reserved the rights to use the barrier islands of Ossebaw, Sapelo and St. Catherines for hunting, bathing and fishing.<br />
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<em>And I looked up at the mound and asked, where did all deez flat feets go because we sure is black and I know day aint with those white folks us der at the tree.</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-661671899986792542011-02-26T07:10:00.000-08:002011-02-26T07:10:11.306-08:00February 26 Harris Neck FestivalStorytellers, shouters and others will perform at the annual Harris Neck Festival 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Feb. 26 on the grounds of the First African Missionary Baptist Church of Harris Neck in northern McIntosh County.<br />
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Sponsored by the Harris Neck Land Trust, the festival will feature performances by the Gospel Messengers and the Gullah Geechee Shouters, storytelling by Jamal Toure and food sales.<br />
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The land trust will also give an update on the Harris Neck Justice Movement, an effort to reclaim land taken by the federal government through eminent domain during World War II.<br />
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The government built an airfield on the land but deeded it to the county for public use after the war. After the county allowed the land to be misused, the federal government took it back and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now operates it as Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge provides important habitat for migratory birds, including wood storks.<br />
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The Land Trust represents former residents and descendants of former residents of the disputed property. They contend the federal government promised the property would be returned at the end of the war, but never followed through.<br />
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The group is trying to influence Congress to enact legislation returning the property to the original owners. The land was settled by freed slaves at the end of the Civil War. They and their descendants lived there until the federal government bought the property.<br />
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The church is on Harris Neck Road, about five miles east of U.S.17 in northern McIntosh County. Harris Neck Road and U.S. 17 intersect a mile south of Exit 67 off Interstate 95.<br />
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Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/georgia/2011-02-01/story/harris-neck-land-issue-part-feb-26-festival#ixzz1F4spWCtkUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-64168112892295369872011-02-03T14:50:00.001-08:002011-02-03T14:50:54.600-08:00What is Tally WackyTally Wacky is the speed of the water. It's de snakes before dem gators come.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-75497115085867794712011-02-03T14:49:00.000-08:002011-02-03T14:49:15.489-08:00Gunha SpeaksAnd Addy asked Gunha, Why are my people crying?Why we dying?And she said because mes people forgotsa their soul and de food and de ways of de old and day forgot to grown their own.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-40728155994421732792010-09-11T16:25:00.000-07:002010-09-11T16:25:00.672-07:00Little known facts Mitchelville"One of the places they settled was Mitchelville, established by Maj. Gen. Ormsby M. Mitchel. He set aside about 1,000 acres, and in 1863 started selling it off. It went for about $1 an acre. People saved money to buy land because they knew land meant freedom," explains Campbell as he drives his small bus toward Mitchelville. This was the country's first settlement of Freedmen (former black slaves), and its founding came before President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Residents elected their own officials. The town council passed laws, including the state's first compulsory-education law.<br />
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The U.S. government abandoned this fledgling community in 1868 because President Andrew Johnson was "very sympathetic with the Confederates," Campbell says.<br />
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After the Civil War, many former slaves remained on Hilton Head and on other South Carolina islands, such as Johns and Daufuskie, and Georgia 's Sapelo, Harris Neck and Cumberland . They fished and farmed. They operated sugarcane mills and gristmills. They grazed their livestock and hunted on the open, common land.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-20204629463573008562010-09-11T16:16:00.001-07:002010-09-11T16:21:11.367-07:00Burnside Barrier Island<div style="text-align: justify;">The barrier island of Burnside was a cool waterfront summer retreat for the Mercers. Now closed, the little yellow Allison’s store at Ferguson and Shipyard was a place where Johnny enjoying having a cold soda and visiting with friends during his summers on the island. Amanda Drive is named for his daughter and Hunt Drive for the banker who administered Johnny’s settlement of his father’s financial troubles.</div><br />
Mercer’s summers were spent at the family’s summer home at Vernon View, a section of Burnside Island that was purchased by Johnny Mercer’s father around the time of the younger Mercer’s birth. <br />
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Johnny would go down from the family’s river home at Vernon View to the Pin Point Brand Oysters cannery (now A.S. Varn & Company) to listen to the African-American ladies singing gospel, spirituals and folk tunes in their Geechee dialect as they worked. The area of the family’s riverfront summer home is not available to the public.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-51765174999967653542010-09-11T16:15:00.000-07:002010-09-11T16:15:46.778-07:00Pin Point & OystersJohnny Mercer learned many life lessons during his childhood visits to Pin Point, near his family’s Vernon View home. Pin Point is a little fishing village along an estuary south of Savannah , near the Bethesda orphanage. Freed slaves founded the rural settlement after the American Civil War.<br />
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It is one mile wide and a mile and a half long, and has been accessible by paved roads for some years. The small, predominantly African-American community has a well-established community of Gullah speakers, a dialect that draws heavily from West African languages.<br />
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The crab pickers in the Pin Point community will treat Savannah schoolchildren to a videotaped storytelling and impromptu a capella folk singing.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-39442866439247534402010-03-08T17:27:00.000-08:002010-03-08T17:28:59.355-08:00Where did all the Indians Go?Addy asks: Where did all the indians go.<br /><br />Buckie replies:They're in the soul and the moon. They became part of you.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-14235066506986021562010-03-08T17:25:00.000-08:002010-03-08T17:27:16.788-08:00I Know Why We have Have Daylight Savings TimeAngie says to Ossabaw: We have daylight savings time so the black folks,slaves could work longer in the field. That's the real reason,it wasn't for more sunlightUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-82891352927726599052010-02-05T19:12:00.000-08:002010-02-05T19:13:25.681-08:00500thousand.comWhat is 500thousand.com?<br /> <br />500thousand.com is a database-driven, web-enabled resource that will provide the complete genealogy of African Americans from 1619 - 1930. <br />The name comes from the 500,000 Africans brought to North America between 1619 <br />and 1866. This resource will be provided at no charge.<br /> <br />The Boundaries:<br /> <br />We are limited by the Census Bureau to 1930 and prior, based on average life expectancy of 72 years. 1940 records will be made available in 2012. 1619 <br />represents the first African Americans' arrival to Jamestown for which we have <br />few names, but most enumeration totals. <br /><br /><br />How does it work?<br /><br />The concept that makes us different is that we include the genealogy of the land to help define the genealogy of its people. Secondly, our process is <br />based on the concept of data sequencing. Data sequencing as we will use it; <br />takes the State and Federal Census, also tax records to determine how many <br />African Americans should be in any given county in any given year. That number, <br />including variables such as state, birthdate, etc. becomes the individual's name <br />until his/her actual name is discovered and appended to the record. Even if the <br />name isn't discovered until much later; we then have a method of tracking the <br />movements of the record. <br /> <br />This process of collective genealogy takes into consideration that any puzzle can be solved if you know how many pieces it is composed of.<br /><br /><br /><br />Mr. Dhata R. Harris<br />Executive Director<br />The Enitiative Group IncUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-48123916858629480322010-02-05T19:10:00.001-08:002010-02-05T19:11:32.532-08:00Where You Are From?ABEST Members and Friends;<br /><br />First of all, happy new year to you. Lets get started with a new years set of goals, objectives and achievement!<br /><br />Have you ever tried to research your African American genealogy only to hit a brick wall? Can't go back any further because the records don't exist?<br /><br />You're invited to attend this presentation on black genealogy and to learn of new methods to find those missing ancestors. The opportunity also exists to get involved in the technology behind the new database being developed for African American Ancestry.<br /><br />This is a most befitting topic for Black History month 2010!<br /><br /><br />Date: Saturday, Feb 6, 2010<br />Time: 10 am-noon<br />Location: Robert Fulton LibraryUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-64551470019475644142010-01-08T17:08:00.001-08:002010-01-08T17:08:53.176-08:00A Gullah SpeaksGeorgia Lost and Found<br />CURWOOD: It's Living on Earth. I'm Steve Curwood. On Georgia 's mid coast, there's a place that was once so isolated locals say it was three years before anyone there heard about the Emancipation Proclamation. The place is called Harris Neck. And while Lincoln 's words finally did reach the community in McIntosh County , its isolation didn't end with the Civil War. Well into the twentieth century, Harris Neck was a world apart from much of the United States . African-American families fished and farmed and owned their own land and boats. They built a community and sustained themselves for generations through their own businesses. Today that community is almost gone. It's been eroded by forces far beyond its control. And the local African-American culture, with its close connection to the land and the sea and its past in West Africa , is almost gone, too. Almost, but not completely. Living on Earth's Jesse Wegman recently traveled to Harris Neck. He met a man there whose own life story is also the story of the near-death of this unique culture, and of a small flicker of hope for its continuation. Here's his report.<br /><br />WEGMAN: If you ask Wilson Moran, the trouble started six months before he was born. It was the summer of 1942, and someone reported seeing a German U-boat in the waters off Harris Neck. Within days the military decided it needed an airbase there. The residents were given three weeks to leave.<br /><br />(Bird calls)<br /><br />MORAN: They took all the crops, carrying all the beans, peas, okra, tomatoes, all that stuff, carrying it out. Some houses they even tore down.<br /><br />WEGMAN: Several older townspeople died of heart attacks from the strain. Wilson 's grandfather, a farmer and crabber, refused to leave, and was removed by force.<br /><br />MORAN: There is no sign that we ever lived there. Now, those people, they had a grade school, they had a fire house, they had a police department, which worked from the county seat therein. They had two oyster houses, two crab houses, and they had stores. They made everything, including their liquor. They made moonshine. They were good at it. Very good at it. (Laughs)<br /><br />WEGMAN: Harris Neck had been a tight community, about 90 families, all black. Mostly fishers and farmers, the children and grandchildren of freedmen.<br /><br />MORAN: And all this way of life was gone.<br /><br />WEGMAN: The military seized 2,687 acres at Harris Neck. The families were offered plots of land a few miles away, a fraction the size of what they had left. Five months later, in November 1942, Wilson Moran was born on this new land, in a small shotgun shack his parents built with wood they salvaged from their original home. He was the fourth of 13 children.<br /><br />(A vehicle drives on rough road)<br /><br />WEGMAN: On a late spring afternoon with the sun low in the sky but the air still warm, Wilson drives his old Dodge pickup a mile or so down Route 2 to the land his family once owned.<br /><br />MORAN: Now this land here, from here to the woods and back, my grandpa had 11 acres right in here. This was where his main house was.<br /><br />WEGMAN: Today the land at Harris Neck is lush and seems untouched by human hands. Shaded groves of pecans and live oaks open into the wide, flat marshland of South Georgia 's barrier islands. Wilson drives intently, hunched over the wheel. As the truck rounds a bend, he points to a large field.<br /><br />MORAN: That was a big old point, that's where they grew rice in my grandpa's day. These are people's, you know, livelihood. And it really destroyed a lot of people. Two of my uncles left and never came back. Both of them lived in Philadelphia . They became porters on the railroad. But it was just -- this hurt them, you know what I mean? That somebody could be so powerful to move you, and after they were through with it wouldn't let you back. They wanted to use the airstrips right here.<br /><br />WEGMAN: Out the window a dormant runway lies like an unhealed scar, its pavement cracked and overgrown with weeds. Moran says the military promised to return this land to the residents as soon as the war was over. But no one at Harris Neck remembers getting that promise in writing. So after the war, the land was turned into a county airport. Then in 1962, it was designated a national wildlife refuge.<br /><br />MORAN: Now it takes an act of Congress for us to get this land back. And you know, the Audubon Society, and they have little bird walks and they have archery hunting and, you know, things like that. But this land is ours. Is ours. It's beautiful, man, you wouldn't believe it, man. And to walk or ride a bike in here and just listen to all the sounds, man, the red-headed woodpeckers, the larks, the sparrows, the cardinals, the bluebirds. They're all here.<br /><br />WEGMAN: Do you come in here a lot?<br /><br />MORAN: No. It's not a good feeling for me. I don't enjoy coming in here.<br /><br />(The pickup advances)<br /><br />MORAN: Now, isn't it -- you wouldn't believe this was here, would you? This is where we lived. This place here was called Thomas Landing. This was the main landing for the community. Would you believe?<br /><br />(Car door opens, shuts)<br /><br />WEGMAN: Wilson walks through dry marsh grass down to the water's edge.<br /><br />(Surf, bird calls)<br /><br />MORAN: This, it doesn't get any better than this.<br /><br />WEGMAN: The water here is calm. It's protected from the open ocean by the barrier islands offshore.<br /><br />MORAN: Now, when I was a little boy, we'd come down here, and we'd hit this river, and we'd crab and we'd fish. And, like, there are oysters right there, and we'd oyster. Man, it was amazing, you wouldn't believe it. We thought it was all ours. (Laughs) We sure got fooled, didn't we?<br /><br />WEGMAN: When the families of Harris Neck lost their land, they also lost their docks. Fishing had been central to the community and to blacks up and down the Georgia coast for centuries. Many of the first Europeans to settle here were from cities and knew nothing about fishing. But the Africans who soon followed as slaves did. It wasn't long before they dominated the fisheries. Like their ancestors, they worked close to shore using small boats and cast nets. It was one of the last links they had. Even into the twentieth century, shrimping, crabbing, and oystering all remained virtually 100 percent black.<br /><br />(A boat engine starts up; voices on radio)<br /><br />WEGMAN: Then the diesel engine found its way into the area, which meant fishermen could use bigger, more powerful boats. If they could afford them. Within 20 years a new breed of fisherman had pervaded the industry. One with more money to spend, frequently northern, and almost always white.<br /><br />(Voices, chains. Man: "I'll stop it right there...")<br /><br />WEGMAN: After World War II thousands of white servicemen came home looking for work. Soon the Georgia fisheries were controlled by white families. By one independent estimate, of the more than 400 shrimp boats currently licensed in the state, blacks own and operate fewer than ten. When Wilson Moran was born, there were still blacks making a living on the water.<br /><br />MORAN: But as we began to grow older, we saw that it wasn't a good way of life. Every year you were in debt. Every year it was getting harder. And I just didn't want to do it. And none of my brothers. We decided that there had to be something more. There had to be something better than crabbing and being the low man on the totem pole. We didn't have the farms like my grandpa did. So hey, next thing for us, everybody started going into the military.<br /><br />WEGMAN: Wilson was 17 when he left McIntosh County and joined the army. Then he went north to Hartford , Connecticut , and became a cop. As American stories go, it's a common one. Young man from small town leaves home to find a better life. In Hartford , Wilson found it. He had a good job, and soon his wife Ernestine gave birth to their first child. But it didn't make sense to him that he should be doing well and yet be so far from home. He grew increasingly uncomfortable with his new life. Then in the late 60s, Wilson hit the breaking point. His unit was called to respond to a riot downtown. Amid the chaos, he shot a man. Not long afterwards, Wilson was on traffic duty, waving a group of children across the street, when a young boy pointed at him. The boy said, "That's the man that shot my uncle."<br /><br />MORAN: And that was the end of me. And I couldn't last any longer. I didn't like it any more.<br /><br />WEGMAN: Moran packed up his family and headed back to Georgia , settling in Glen County . He tried catching and selling crabs as his father and grandfather had done. He even tried police work again. Ernestine was losing patience. They had a young child, and their jobs up north had paid well. Here, Wilson was making as little as $86 a week. Eventually he landed a job with the phone company, one of only two black men he remembers being hired in 25 years. It was a decade after the Civil Rights Act, but Wilson was discovering that in small southern towns, things changed slowly.<br /><br />MORAN: The mainstream jobs were closed, and even today some of them still are closed. There's no secret. You can't cover it up.<br /><br />WEGMAN: Wilson Moran had entered this world literally surrounded by the wreckage of a once vibrant culture. Now, at the end of his working life, he had never worked in his own community. And he had never been able to earn a living doing what he had been raised to do. His own children were putting down roots elsewhere. Wilson knew as well as anyone what all this meant.<br /><br />MORAN: When that way of life be interfered with, then the culture begins to fail. That subculture, the dialect, you lose the dialect. You lose the skills. Like building a boat. My granddad built boats. My father built boats. I cannot build a boat. You understand? My grandmother knitted nets. I can't knit a net. So therefore, we've lost these things. That was handed down through generations, is now gone. Now, I still have my garden, so I can keep myself informed. But my boys can't plant. They don't even know what season to plant in, right? That way of life is gone, yeah. It's gone. That's the end of it. Want to see my garden? Man, I've got a great garden. Come on, let's see my garden.<br /><br />(Footfalls)<br /><br />WEGMAN: Wilson 's garden is out back, on the same acre of land he was born on. Unlike so many others who left McIntosh County , Wilson Moran has come home.<br /><br />MORAN: This is my garden. You know what that is. Sweet potato. Man, they are something else. And there's my peppers. Sweet peppers...<br /><br />WEGMAN: Wilson and Ernestine returned here to Harris Neck in 1992, moving into a modest brick house next door to his parents.<br /><br />MORAN: I grow it and I can give it away.<br /><br />WEGMAN: A few years ago, Wilson retired and started this garden. It's small, nothing compared to the hundred acres his family once owned. But it's growing.<br /><br />MORAN: And this is just enough for me to keep me acclimated to what, you know, how to plant. And look how pretty and green they are. Aren't they pretty?<br /><br />WEGMAN: It's easy to see the loss in the story of Harris Neck. But the way Wilson sees things, standing on this land he left 40 years ago, something is truly lost only when you stop trying to find it. And recently, he found something remarkable, right in his own back yard.<br /><br />M. MORAN: (Singing) Wombay I walk a mon a cambaleali lily... [phonetic spelling]<br /><br />WEGMAN: That's Wilson 's mother, Mary Moran. A few years ago, an anthropologist named Joseph Apala heard Mrs. Moran singing this song. When he asked her where she had learned it, she told him her mother had taught it to her as a child. Apala traced the song to a region in West Africa that is now part of Sierra Leone . At less than half a minute, it's believed to be the longest text in an African language preserved by an African-American family.<br /><br />M. MORAN: (Singing) I walk a mon a cambaleali lily. Wombay I walk a mon a cambaleali lily... [phonetic spelling]<br /><br />MORAN: We found so much history, man, it is unbelievable, all kinds of stuff.<br /><br />WEGMAN: Wilson immediately began to look into his family history.<br /><br />MORAN: You've got the sentence, pictures. This is the root people right here. And all these people...<br /><br />WEGMAN: In 1997, Joseph Apala and Wilson Moran helped organize a family trip to Sierra Leone . In a small village called Sanahungola they met a woman who knew the exact song Mary Moran sang. She'd learned it as a child, too. Wilson says the trip to Africa was like a fairy tale.<br /><br />MORAN: Because me, being black, I don't know how many generations black in this country, called African-American, but ain't nothing African about me but my color, because everything about me is American.<br /><br />(Mary Moran sings)<br /><br />MORAN: So when they found out that this song took us to West Africa , yeah, it was unreal. How could I trace myself to not West Africa but almost the very village in which my grandmother's people came from? That's impossible. But it happened. And then, what was even more strange was, met a guy on the riverbanks, and this guy is knitting a net. The same way my grandma, Madie Dolly, knitted nets. And I said wow, this is unbelievable. And there are some guys making boats, the same way this guy here made the boats. It was unbelievable.<br /><br />(A boat cuts through water)<br /><br />WEGMAN: In Gullah, the West African English hybrid still spoken on the sea islands off Georgia and South Carolina , there is a proverb that says, "If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you come from." A song can't tell you where you're going, but the song that led Wilson Moran to West Africa helped him find a thread that runs through hundreds of years. From a riverbank in Sierra Leone through slave ships across the Atlantic , through his family's lost farmland, fishing boats, and nets, right up to his back yard garden, his mother, and himself, today. Wilson Moran knows he can't get back what's gone, but he also knows that the thread which ties his family to this stretch of Georgia coast isn't broken yet. And that he won't be the one to break it.<br /><br />MORAN: My children don't know this, but my grandson, who comes every summer, I take him on the water. I get him acclimated. And now, this summer I teach him how to cast the net, at ten. I'm just giving him a taste of what it is. He'll never learn how to read the water. He'll never learn how to read the weather, other than listening to it on television. But he will get some knowledge about what we were about. And every year we teach him, and every year we put him in situations that he can know something about his environment, that it was unique, and it is almost gone, but it did exist. So he can tell his children about it.<br /><br />(Bird calls, fade to flute up and under)<br /><br />WEGMAN: For Living on Earth, I'm Jesse Wegman, with Wilson Moran in Harris Neck, on the coast of south Georgia .Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-70212158540089820972010-01-08T17:06:00.001-08:002010-01-08T17:07:31.672-08:00The Crab Factory<strong><em>Another great update from M Harris</em></strong><br /><br />The barrier island of Burnside was a cool waterfront summer retreat for the Mercers. Now closed,<br /><br />the little yellow Allison’s store at Ferguson and Shipyard was a place where Johnny enjoying<br /><br />having a cold soda and visiting with friends during his summers on the island. Amanda Drive is<br /><br />named for his daughter and Hunt Drive for the banker who administered Johnny’s settlement of<br /><br />his father’s financial troubles.<br /><br />Mercer’s summers were spent at the family’s summer home at Vernon View, a section of Burnside<br /><br />Island that was purchased by Johnny Mercer’s father around the time of the younger Mercer’s<br /><br />birth. Johnny would go down from the family’s river home at Vernon View to the Pin Point Brand<br /><br />Oysters cannery (now A.S. Varn & Company) to listen to the African-American ladies singing<br /><br />gospel, spirituals and folk tunes in their Geechee dialect as they worked. The area of the family’s<br /><br />riverfront summer home is not available to the public.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-63849386570037513142010-01-08T17:04:00.001-08:002010-01-08T17:05:44.646-08:00PinPoint and Johnny Mercer<strong><em>Contributed by M Harris</em></strong><br /><br />Pin Point<br /><br />Johnny Mercer learned many life lessons during his childhood visits to Pin Point, near his family’s<br /><br />Vernon View home. Pin Point is a little fishing village along an estuary south of Savannah , near<br /><br />the Bethesda orphanage. Freed slaves founded the rural settlement after the American Civil War.<br /><br />It is one mile wide and a mile and a half long, and has been accessible by paved roads for some<br /><br />years. The small, predominantly African-American community has a well-established community<br /><br />of Gullah speakers, a dialect that draws heavily from West African languages. It is the birthplace of<br /><br />Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. In Justice Thomas’s memoirs, “My Grandfather’s Son,”<br /><br />he vividly describes the poverty in which he spent his early years, and the hard work and discipline<br /><br />of his years living with his grandparents in Savannah .<br /><br />The crab pickers in the Pin Point community will treat Savannah schoolchildren to a videotaped<br /><br />storytelling and impromptu a capella folk singing.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-68494596501343108722009-12-05T20:54:00.000-08:002009-12-06T08:10:11.930-08:00Aunt Jemima and her ScarfAll pretty black mamas from the south adorn there heads with the prettiest scarves.You see it in the Southern Pictures of old,the slave women in the field,as the headdress of the Black Mississippi Masalas,this colorful headdress of color.So,I wonder if it carries a special meaning on <strong>Aunt Jemima's </strong>Head Scarf, <strong>Mrs.Butter Worth's </strong>headdress, or my grandmama's photos.Is this part of our <strong>Southern Heritage</strong>.Are we all descended from the <strong>Geechee</strong>?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-30919949581314002162009-12-05T20:45:00.000-08:002009-12-05T20:54:11.452-08:00The First Mobile Home, Black ChurchesNow just consider Addy of the curious sorts.She has been all throughout the coastal waterway,this slave cabin,that slave cabin and of course church,the epicenter of the black community. And she truly believes the black church was the first portable modular premanufactured home.All the churches look the same.You don't have to ask where the bathroom is,the kitchen, the deacon room, or the cemetery.They are all built the same.So my questions,was this an earlier version of Negro shui.Did the building have to face the east,did so many pews have to be in the room, was the men's bathroom always on the right,and the women's on the left,and how is it they all have the table in the same place when you walk through the front door. And they all sit by the same big oak tree at the same angle.<br /><br />Disclosure:Addy is only talking of the churches where the baptisms occurred in the local water and you had to clear the tally wackers and alligators away before the dunking was done to heaven.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-30740243489812610372009-12-05T20:00:00.000-08:002009-12-05T20:17:24.071-08:0040 Acres And A Mule Fall Festival TalkNow Addy had some flashbacks...She knew the group <span style="font-weight:bold;">40 acres and a mule</span>,the beer <span style="font-weight:bold;">40 acres and a mule</span>,the negro talk of <span style="font-weight:bold;">40 acres and a mule</span>,and the reparations raps by the new artists of <span style="font-weight:bold;">40 acres and a mule</span>.She kind of giggled inside at the Harrisneckeans rant of reparations and their <span style="font-weight:bold;">40 acres and a mule</span> at last Saturday's Fall Festival at First African Baptist Church Field meeting. She giggled inside thinking good luck on getting that one,don't hold your breath.<br /><br />Well, due to circumstances beyond her control, Addy found herself riding through the rice fields of Mound Bayou,Mississippi.And as a plaque to the Black Struggle,their resides the first family in the country to receive their<span style="font-weight:bold;"> 40 acres and a mule</span>,and yet another,and another.And the local Black Mississippians know this like ordering french fries from McDonalds, or getting okra at a Geechee fest.She sat dumbfounded,and was like I thought that was a Myth.The Raws is that family's name,they got their <span style="font-weight:bold;">40 acres and a mule</span>,and so did their neighbors. And right around them sits their 40 acres.And they did get their mule.<br /><br />Now,I am looking back at the Fall Festival and saying not only is Harris Neck coming back,but if they got their 40 acres,who else got their 40 acres, and when do we get our 40 acres.<br /><br />The EndUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-83311042525942583752009-12-04T22:55:00.000-08:002009-12-05T20:18:43.912-08:00First African Baptist Church Harris NeckHinder Me Not oh world because I was so happy to see Reverend Timmons Jr,walk blindly by faith to the table and eat.That's how strong the Geechee Gullah eatings smell. And 3 times people had to tell me he was blind.I finally got it when a bee flew right into his fish and he kept eating.<br /><br />And then my cousin next to me,whose nose was stuck down in the red beans and rice...and the white folks who just drove off the road and helped themselves to some food. You knew they hadn't seemed black people before,but they decided it was time for them to eat so they caught a little of the Gullah spirit so they can make their way over to the eating tent.<br /><br />So word to the wise,next time you come,get everybody's name before the food starts.We all know Chester Dunham and McIntosh county,but I don't know the name of the soul eating the sloppings next to me. No wonder,the other church was called Hinder Me Not..because nothing hindered Reverend Timmons from his food. A Blind Man that walked and smelled by faith,so much for seeing eye dogs.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-16591010071076514112009-12-04T22:48:00.000-08:002009-12-04T22:53:16.375-08:00Black Smoked FishNow,I went to the Harris Neck Fall Festival,and the folks there were some kind of greedy.They ate all of the Black Smoked Fish at 10 morning. Now,isn't that something because the Festivities and the Cherokees didn't start til 10 morning either.<br /><br />That just doesn't add up.So, which ever one of yal kin folk ran off with the Black Smoked Fish can you please post the recipe so us others can make some up the street.<br /><br />I didn't travel all down those geechee roads for nuthing.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-63079803106311010232009-12-04T22:45:00.001-08:002009-12-04T22:45:56.414-08:00FAB Harris Neck Anniversary FestivalFAB Harris Neck Anniversary Festival<br /><br />Fund-Raising Festival at First African Baptist Church of Harris Neck on Harris Neck Road in McIntosh County. From 10 AM to 4 PM on Saturday November 28. Delicious food. Entertainment. Activities for kids. To raise funds for the Harris Neck Movement. <br />Saturday, November 28th, 2009<br />10:00 AM - 04:00 PM<br /><br />Location: <br />FAB Church of Harris Neck<br />Harris Neck Road<br />Townsend, GA<br /><br />Contact:<br />Phone: 912-832-3931Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-10411042050643640772009-12-04T22:20:00.000-08:002009-12-04T22:45:31.313-08:00F.A.B. Harris Neck 2009 Fall Festival November 28It was midday...Addy..her Cherokee spirits and foremothers had traveled a few hours to get to the woods we call Harris Neck. And she says foremothers,because it is the only place where God's voice is a woman,the Cherokee nations speaks through a women,and the Afrikan mother is worshipped by all men on their feet.<br /><br />As Addy pulled into the First African Baptist Church located on the Ancestor's land,she thought of only two things...the crocodile eyes in the pond and the Cherokee/Creek Indians on the stage. She had too forgotten that the Indian soul had been melted in the black ancestry that lines the Gullah culture.She was greeted by the spirits of the wood and remembered how to run through these woods and outrun the tally whacker,the deer, and the croc as she had when she was a child.It is the one thing that made the slave the slave to begin with. The Afrikan Slave was master over Mother Nature and the master couldn't conquer without the Afrikan Slave subduing the land.<br /><br />Nature slaved to the Afrikan souls and that's why this land remains unconquered by the Whites until its returned by to its Afro-Indian hands.That's why we were all here to remember how we were booted off,and the Afrikan mama's that have held on after death to see it returned. A history never written but never forgotten.<br /><br />She also thought about what fools her and her brother had been to run this marsh as young as if there were the only existents.<br /><br />The best part is that Amelias hammock was still there, the Old Country Store was still cooking and like Ossabaw the long road to life was still intact. And even better,no names need to be remembered we recognized each other by spirit.<br /><br />This is the only place where Addy will worship because as they say God is in the Water. The Water Spirit is in the water..it's that spirit that gets you cross the sound and calls out snake as you run through the water.This is Harris Neck...Where our people once sailed from to other ancestral grands.Yes, the storyteller said it right, the Water Spirit will call you to the water,to the edge of the water,and when you get in,only then do you get the Cool Water of The Holy Ghost.<br /><br />Welcome to Harris Neck.<br /><br />I hope to see ya here next hereUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-27432761140113623952009-10-10T12:40:00.000-07:002009-10-10T12:41:30.681-07:00Reverend Edgar Sunny Timmons SrThe passing of our family member: Edgar Sunny Timmons Sr.<br /><br />Please visit the Obituary for Edgar Timmons (Sunny) Sr.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/savannah/obituary.aspx?n=edgar-timmons-sunny&pid=128844229">The Obituary</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-60329771684843420342009-10-10T12:19:00.000-07:002009-10-10T12:24:25.133-07:00Georgia Outdoor News and Vernon HoltVernon Holt <br />The Saga of Harris Neck NWR<br /><br />THE SAGA OF THE HARRIS NECK WILDLIFE REFUGE<br />Follow this discussion here: <a href="http://forum.gon.com/itrader.php?u=306">Georgia Outdoor New Forum</a><br /><br />At the recent mention of hunting on the Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, I thought it might be of interest to give an account of how the refuge came into being.<br /><br />The refuge occupies 2800 acres of coastal land and is in reality an island, being separated from the mainland by salt water rivers, marsh, and tidal creeks. The lands originally were granted to a handful of influential individuals (the Kings, Harris’, and Thomas’) in the 1736’s to 1740’s. They were slaveholders who cleared and worked the land for long staple Sea Island Cotton as well as for rice culture.<br /><br />This agricultural system thrived until the Civil War period when this source of labor no longer existed. With it no longer feasible to work the plantations, the lands were simply abandoned since they had virtually no value.<br /><br />The freedmen were given small tracts or were simply allowed to squat on the lands which they had formerly tended. Harris Neck then became an isolated community of small farms scattered over some four square miles. These people were self sufficient, working their small farms and gardens, and tending their livestock. Many of them were heavily dependent upon the bounty of the sounds, streams, and marshes. They rowed their heavy bateaus out to the oyster grounds on ebb tide, where they harvested the bounty when low tide exposed the fine quality oysters. They returned to the landing, utilizing the flood tide to make the task less burdensome. They utilized the same process to make their way to the mud flats where they cast their handknitted nets for the bounteous shrimp and mullet. I have heard it said many times, “you could never starve a man who lives on the river”<br /><br />All was peaceful for these people and their little bit of Eden until the advent of air travel dictated a need for emergency landing strips at intervals along the coast. In the mid 1930’s the Civil Aeronautical Adm. Acquired some 200 acres in the middle of Harris Neck and constructed a grass landing strip capable of handling DC-2 aircraft. With minimal effect the people of Harris Neck carried on with their normal lifestyle.<br /><br />All was well until 1941 when the US was thrust into World War II. Surveyors and Lawyers moved into the community of Harris Neck without warning and began condemnation proceedings to acquire lands for an Army Air Corps base. The people were totally bewildered and helpless to resist the taking of their lands. They were told to move immediately. As they did so their houses, barns and any evidence that people had once lived there were bulldozed and totally removed.<br /><br />The air base was activated in 1942 and operated until 1944 when the war ended in Europe . During this time it served as a training facility for fighter pilots (P-39’s and P-40’s) which were utilized mostly for enemy submarine patrol along the coast.<br /><br />Shortly after the war ended, the property was deeded to McIntosh County with the provision that the county keep it open for air traffic and further that they do an acceptable job of maintaining the facilities, including lights on the runways. In complete defiance of the special provisions in the deed, the county powers that be (County Commissioners and Sheriff)) proceeded to strip and loot everything of value from the base, wiring, plumbing, pumps, electric motors, even to the extent of moving entire buildings which were converted into dwellings.<br /><br />In addition to the looting of the facility the county commissioners leased the entire airbase, including the old colonial Livingston Mansion (which had been the officers club) to the county sheriff to be operated as an “exclusive club”. When the Feds learned that the county had sub-leased the property to the sheriff, they promptly informed the county that they were repossessing the property due to failure to perform the requirements of the provisional deed.<br /><br />The Harris Neck Army Airbase was then turned over to the US General Services Adm. For disposal. When the US Fish and Wildlife learned of this turn of events, they requested that the land be turned over to them to be utilized as a waterfowl refuge with emphasis on providing a rest stop for migrating geese. Their request was honored.<br /><br />The US F&W Service wanted the land because it was available, and not because of its suitability as a waterfowl refuge. Land in this coastal area leans heavily toward wetland. Not so with this particular piece of land. I would estimate that no more than 5% of the total area is in wetland. To counter this wetland shortfall, the Service diked areas on and around the old runways and then dug wells and set up huge pumps to provide water for the man made potholes. One small wetland on the edge of the refuge provided a site for a rookery for Egrets, Herons, Wood Storks, and Alligators.<br /><br />What Might Have Been: If the Fish and Wildlife Service truly needed a Waterfowl Refuge at this point along the Ga. Coast, prime wetland sites were available for their choosing. Fact of the matter is that they could establish a dozen new refuges today on the Atlantic Flyway and they would not increase the number of ducks. Ducks cannot be manipulated like chessmen.<br /><br />There is a social aspect to this matter. Condemnation continues to this day to be a controversial subject. This land was taken from these people for a worthy cause. Most people who are familiar with this history have strong feelings that the land should have been turned over to the families of the former owners. I happen to be one of these.<br /><br />The Harris Neck Wildlife Refuge is a lovely place to visit today. While it makes little impact on “waterfowl” today, the service promotes it as a great place for bird watching. As a token to hunters, they allow three days for hunting deer. They also have a boat launching ramp. The humanitarian aspect associated with this refuge is seldom mentioned today.<br /><br />My knowledge of this area stems from the fact that I lived within five miles of Harris Neck while this story unraveled. I knew many of the people who were affected by this based being established. I also knew the local officials who by their own greed cost the citizens of McIntosh a wonderful resource. I hunted for 35 years on property immediately adjacent to Harris Neck.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-39465289771336339632009-10-10T12:15:00.000-07:002009-10-10T12:17:36.376-07:00Coastal Georgia Historical Society...A Bit Of Our History<span style="font-weight:bold;">Gullah Heritage<br />Transatlantic linkage: The Gullah/Geechee-Sierra Leone Connection</span><br /><br />The Gullah, or Geechee as they are known in Georgia, are an extraordinary group of African-Americans who live in small farming and fishing communities on the sea islands of Georgia and South Carolina. Because of their geographic isolation, the Gullah/Geechee have been able to retain more of their African heritage than any other African-Americans. Their ancestors' ability to cultivate rice and their high resistance to malaria due to the sickle trait, a heritable hemoglobin characteristic, are common links to Africans from the "Windward" or " Rice Coast " of West Africa, particularly to the country of Sierra Leone .<br /><br />The Gullah/Geechee-Sierra Leone linkage is about people separated by time and ocean, who speak a similar language and share similarities of crafts, food ways, music, folk tales, architecture, textiles, ceramics and belief systems.<br /><br />This exhibition page celebrates the cultural linkage and the rich heritage shared by the descendants of Africans taken from their homeland to work as slaves in America , African-Americans repatriated to Sierra Leone after the American Revolution, and the Sierra Leonians who have sustained through the generations the culture and traditions shared by these three groups.<br /><br />The warm, semi-tropical climate of the sea islands makes Georgia and South Carolina a perfect location for the cultivation of rice. Rice cultivation was a special skill that captives from Sierra Leone possessed which made them highly prized in slave trading. From ca. 1700-1800, over 50,000 slaves were imported by South Carolina and Georgia planters from the Windward Coast of Africa, specifically, the Senegambia, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, to cultivate large plantations in the growing of rice and cotton. Ethnic and cultural groups from this area included the Djolas, Wolof, Serer, Mandinga, Mende, Temne and Vai. Despite antislavery importation laws enacted in Georgia in 1799, slaves quickly outnumbered their masters on the sea islands. Slaves from Sierra Leone were often purchased in Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia to be taken to isolated communities in Georgia such as Sapelo Island and Harris Neck where their unique African culture was preserved.<br /><br />The slave trade brought the importation of slaves from the Windward Coast region of West Africa to the rice growing regions of the coastal sea islands of Georgia and South Carolina through a complex pattern of migration and relocation. Slaves from Sierra Leonean ethnic groups such as Mende, Temne, Vai and Fula intermingled with slaves from other parts of West Africa . Living on the sea islands, isolated from outside influence, the Gullah/Geechee community still reflects this cultural linkage with Africa .<br /><br />The profitable slave trade that fed on ethnic warfare in West Africa is represented today by the remains of what was once a major slave trading fortress and castle at Bunce Island in Sierra Leone on the Sierra Leone River . Between 1672 and 1807, the slave trade flourished under the protection of powerful English cannons at Bunce Island . The fort, with its adjacent shipyards, supplied slaves by using a fleet of vessels that cruised the Windward Coast .<br /><br />By 1870, it is estimated that 10-12 million Africans were taken to the Americas , many of whom perished during the transatlantic voyages. Slaves were purchased by the Europeans for textiles, iron guns, Venetian glass beads, rum and brandy, and were exchanged for rice, cotton, indigo, gold, silver, sugar and tobacco in the Americas .<br /><br />During the American Revolution, British forces offered slaves freedom and grants of land if they fought for the Crown. Many slaves fled the plantations of South Carolina and Georgia for this promise. Two important figures in the history of the repatriation of sea island slaves were Henry Laurens, an influential planter, slave trader and the Charleston agent for Richard Oswald, a Scotsman who owned Bunce Island during the 1750s and 60s. During the Revolutionary War, Laurens became President of the Continental Congress. Captured by the British, Laurens was rescued by his associate Oswald, then the leader of the British negotiating team for the Treaty of Paris. Laurens and Oswald, though on different sides of the war, tried to force the return of the freed slaves to their owners in America . The British commander in New York refused and, on his own authority, directed the slaves to safety in British Nova Scotia.<br /><br />In 1787, British philanthropists founded the " Province of Freedom ," which later became Freetown , a British crown colony and the principal base for the suppression of the slave trade. By 1792, 1,200 freed slaves from Nova Scotia joined the original settlers, called the Black Poor. Another group of slaves who had rebelled in Jamaica , , the Maroons, followed in 1800. The British established a naval base in Freetown after outlawing the slave trade in 1807 and patrolled against illegal slave ships. Those rescued from slave ships were taken to Freetown . Over 50,000 recaptives had been settled by 1855. Known as Krios, the repatriated settlers of Freetown today live in a multi-ethnic country embracing such diverse groups as the Mende, Temne, Kono, Vai, Krim Sherbro, Gola, and Loko.<br /><br />Although the ancestors of the Gullah/Geechee came from different ethnic groups living along the Windward Coast of Africa , many aspects of their contemporary material culture are shared specifically with Sierra Leoneans. In addition to rice and indigo cultivation, there are strong shared traditions of the following skills and crafts between Sierra Leone and coastal Gullah/Geechee communities: Textiles, fishing, foodways, folktales, vernacular architecture, music, basket making, net making, language, belief systems, pottery and woodcarving.<br /><br />This exhibition is presented by the Coastal Georgia Historical Society, the Museum of Coastal History and the Sierra Leone National Museum . It was made possible by funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities Public Programs. Additional funding assisting the project provided by the International Partnership Among Museums, the United States Information Agency, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Additional information can be obtained by contacting the: Coastal Georgia Historical Society, 101 12th Street, P.O. Box 21136, St. Simons Island, GA 31522, (912) 638-4666.<br /><br />Acknowledgements This text is from an exhibit brochure presented by The Museum of Coastal History and The Sierra Leone National Museum. Used here courtesy of the Coastal Georgia Historical Society.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753854912980809372.post-39868951410997525692009-09-28T10:33:00.000-07:002009-09-28T10:36:36.455-07:00Ossabaw Island Asks Part X<strong>Ossabaw Island: </strong>Cousin Mayberry, You never went over to Ossabaw?<br /><strong>Cousin Mayberry:</strong> I never been on Ossabaw Island.But they got that boat that come over there and get them.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0