Honey Bea's Everlasting Gift

By Lornabelle Gethers

This is a story about my great-great-grandmother, Maah on the Plantation in Abbeville, South Carolina during the Civil War Era which takes you to my mother, Honey Bea in Mount Pleasant - Charleston during the Civil Rights Era, and it ends with reflections on race relations 150 years later. It tells of our struggles as an African American family and how victories were reached through prayers and persistence......

The first four chapters start off in a slightly Gullah Geechie dialect of Charleston, with the modern English interpretation of those chapters at the back of the book for those that are not familiar with the Gullah dialect...

...MAAH - DURING THE 1860s CIVIL WAR ERA.....

Massa aint know that Mae Ann cant stand he tail now, and that she be fuh spit in he food and in he water every chance she get, since Massa done whip she child worsa than he would do an old mule....
Now it be a lil fore midnight and we slaves all be fuh sit or fuh lie down in the church, just fuh wait on somethin. They say President Lincoln done give we somethin that gonna free all of we slaves in the south..... I know I gonna go to Charleston with my freedom.....


...MAAH - WHEN THEY FINALLY GET TO CHARLESTON...

Lord, Charleston be just fuh crawl over with the Negro folks. I hey tell that most of the Negro folks in this ya whole country come from these
parts and now, cause I fuh see, what I fuh see, I be fuh believe them fuh real. They dey yet still got the slave market right ya in Charleston.

...HONEY BEA IN CHARLESTON, SC DURING THE CIVIL RIGHTS ERA IN THE 1960s...

The pastor continues on with his fervent preaching. God is able! He brought our people from a mighty long way! Oh yes, My God is able! We have got to have that same kind of faith next week when we go to vote. We have got to believe that God is sending deliverance to our people through Kennedy to free us from the Jim Crow Laws just he as he did a hundred years ago when he sent Abraham Lincoln to free the slaves. Answer this for me, please Is there anything too hard for our God?".....

I start thinking about those crazy Jim Crow s laws. Just last week we had gone to Woolworth to get a soda float for Sarah. I was tired because we had been shopping downtown all day on King Street and spending all my money in the white and Jewish stores. Most of the Jewish merchants were usually really nice to my babies and always told me how clean and pretty I always kept them. That day I was just too tired so I sat down at the counter at Woolworths...

The man that worked there refused to serve me because I was sitting down at the counter. "Niggra, you know you cant sit down at this here counter. You know the rules!" He says to me loudly. I was getting tired of the silly rules, and I was physically tired too. "I am paying my money just like everyone else that is sitting at the counter and I deserve to be served too."
He looked at me with scorn in his eyes and his face turned beet red with anger. Now you listen here, gal, I dont care what you are paying. You best be gittin out of here or I am gonna have to git you outta here myself, and then Im gonna call the patrol man on you."...

I look at him and say My momma always told me that git is for dogs, and I am know that I am no dog. I am due the same respect that you give to any lady!...

He leaves from behind the counter and comes around the front toward me and my three children. I thought about my babies and what would happen to them if the policeman came to arrest me and I had to leave them behind. I start to leave and he turns around to go back behind the counter and stumbles over a box in his path. He trips over the box and goes flying face forward and all I could think of is, "Da git for ya!" Which means, that it is good for him that something bad just happened to him as punishment for being so mean to me...

We get outside, and a white man runs up behind us. "Excuse me mam. I just want to say that I a

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483642109

Lornabelle Gethers

Lornabelle Gethers is an author, poet, and Gullah Geechee speaker from Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Her two previous books, Honey Bea’s Everlasting Gift and Honey Bea’s Gullah Stew Fuh De Spirit, both honor the Gullah Geechee culture of the Charleston Lowcountry as well as her parents and other ancestors going back as far as the day they were emancipated from slavery on a plantation in upstate Abbeville, South Carolina.

Book preview

Honey Bea’s

Everlasting Gift

Lornabelle Gethers

Copyright © 2013 by Lornabelle Gethers.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2013909730

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4836-4209-3

                Softcover        978-1-4836-4208-6

                Ebook             978-1-4836-4210-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 07/18/2013

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www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

Prologue

Preface

Introduction

Honey Bea’s Funeral

Chapter One:   Watch Night—Freedom Eve Church Service In Abbeville

Chapter Two:   Tenk Ya God For Yo Son, Sweet Jesus—We Be Free Now

Chapter Three:   We De Gwine Ta Chuston

Chapter Four:   Here Comes De Chillun And Honey

Chapter Five:   Honey Done Fall In Love

Chapter Six:   De Grans And Great Gran Chillun All Fuh Stat Fuh Come

Chapter Seven:   Those Two Mile Gals Wit De Two Cent Grin—Honey Bea And Gracey

Chapter Eight:   Honey’s True Love

Chapter Nine:   Irene Done Got Grown

Chapter Ten:   Honey Bea Done Jump De Broom

Chapter Eleven:   We Done Got A Baby

Chapter Twelve:   De Crazy Men Folks Dat We Got

Chapter Thirteen:   Branch Of Olive A.M.E. Church

Chapter Fourteen:   De Godly Sistas—Miss Tildie And Miss Stella

Chapter Fifteen:   Honey Bea Be Living On De Farm

Chapter Sixteen:   Livin De Married Life

Chapter Seventeen:   Rememberin Maah

Chapter Eighteen:   Havin Mo Chillun

Chapter Nineteen:   Let’s Make Us A Boy

Chapter Twenty:   Earthalee And Ronnie Wanderhills Junior

Chapter Twenty One:   Praise De Lord—Times Be Fuh Change

Chapter Twenty Two:   The Wanderhills

Chapter Twenty Three:   Blacks, Whites, And Politics

Chapter Twenty Four:   Integration Of South Carolina Colleges

Chapter Twenty Five:   President Kennedy’s Death

Chapter Twenty Six:   De Citadel In Dixie Land

Chapter Twenty Seven:   Greenhill

Chapter Twenty Eight:   A Merry Christmas

Chapter Twenty Nine:   A Sleep—In Job In New York

Chapter Thirty:   Lolabelle At Laing Elementary

Chapter Thirty One:   Lolabelle Decides Fa Go Ta West Virginia

Chapter Thirty Two:   Hope Of New Baptist Church

Chapter Thirty Three:   Goin To De New White School

Chapter Thirty Four:   Say It Loud At Whitesides

Chapter Thirty Five:   Lolabelle—De Dancin Machine

Chapter Thirty Six:   Equal Opportunity

Chapter Thirty Seven:   Lookin Fuh Fair Housing

Chapter Thirty Eight:   Our New Home

Chapter Thirty Nine:   De Eggin

Chapter Forty:   All Is Well

Chapter Forty One:   Lolabelle’s Insights And Ramblings

Chapter Forty Two:   Middle Schools

Chapter Forty Three:   High School

Chapter Forty Four:   Race Relations In High School

Chapter Forty Five:   College In North Carolina

Chapter Forty Six:   Lolabelle Be All Grown Up

Chapter Forty Seven:   Lolabelle’s Children

Chapter Forty Eight:   Takin Care Of Honey Bea

Chapter Forty Nine:   Infidelities Of The Past

Chapter Fifty:   An African American President In Honey Bea’s Lifetime

Chapter Fifty One:   De African American Struggles Of Today

Chapter Fifty Two:   Voting Without Honey Bea

Chapter Fifty Three:   Final Words At Honey Bea’s Funeral

Words That Honey Bea Wrote:   Momma’s Words…

My Freedom:   Chapter Fifty Four:   (Chapter One’s Deep Gullah Version—Waatch Night Church In Abbeville)

Chapter Fifty Five:   (Deep Gullah Version Of Chapter Two—Tenk Ya God For Yo Son, Sweet Jesus—We Be Free Now)

Chapter Fifty Six:   (Chapter Three’s Deep Gullah Version Of—We De Gwine Ta Chuston)

Chapter Fifty Seven:   (Chapter Four’s Deep Gullah Version Of—Hey Come We Chillun And Honey

Chapter Fifty Eight:   (Chapter One’s Modern English Version Of—Watch Night Church In Abbeville)

Chapter Fifty Nine:   (Chapter Two’s Modern English Version Of—Tenk Ya God For Yo Son, Sweet Jesus—We Be Free Now)

Chapter Sixty:   (Chapter Three’s Modern English Version Of—We De Gwine Ta Chuston)

Chapter Sixty One:   (Chapter Three’s Version Of—We Done Moved Ta Chuston)

Chapter Sixty Two:   Hey Comes We Chillun And Honey

Book Summary

This book is based on recollections of stories told to me by my mother, Bea and stories that were told to her by my great, great, grandmother, Maah. It begins on a plantation in Abbeville, South Carolina during the end of the Civil War era and takes us through some of Bea’s situations in Charleston during the Civil Rights era and then through Lolabelle’s perceptions of their lives and hers. It tell how situations were dealt with through prayers and how they reached their victories. This story, along with the key of prayer is Honey Bea’s everlasting gift to us.

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my children and to my mother and father, who I will love forever. And to all of the other people that were in my life as a young person, who have influenced my life so greatly, which includes, my aunts and uncles, my sisters, my first cousins, all of my family and my friends. And to Olive Branch Church and all of the pastors that were ever a part of it. I dedicate this book to the schools, communities, and all the people of Mount Pleasant, SC and also to my in-laws and my co-workers.

My Prayer

As I write and tell these stories, I need God’s leadership and guidance. I need his spirit and those of my people that went before me, in order to try to bring these stories and thoughts to life through pen and paper.

Dear Father God, in the name of Jesus, I ask you to breathe on me now and please guide me. I can’t even walk without you holding my hand. I believe that he, who has begun a good work in me will bring it to completion. I ask you to help me and to anoint my hands, my heart, and my mind, so that you will make this work great, as you have done in my two favorite writers, Toni Morrison and Terry McMillan’s works. I need the greatness of their talent to flow through me now. I thank you Father God, and count it done now, in Jesus name. Amen.

Prologue

I am thanking you in advance for taking the time to let me share this with you.

When it comes to my having the ability to write this story, I thank God first. I thank my mother for instilling in me the joy of reading by always having a variety of books and other reading materials readily available to me while growing up. And I thank my mother for all of the stories that she shared with me over all of the many years that we had together, but most of all I thank her for trying to make my sisters and me the best persons that we could ever be and for showing us a life of the love of Christ.

I thank my Aunt Gracey for being one of my first teachers and for always having a library of books for me to read even when I was not in school. I thank all of my teachers, from Reid Center, to Laing Elementary, to Mamie P. Whitesides, to Von Kolintz, to Laing Middle, and; to my Advanced English teacher at Wando High School for the ninth and twelfth grades, Mrs. Albreck. I thank my other English teachers, Mrs. Podggy, and Mrs. Cabbinass, who always made class so much fun. I thank my teachers and professors at North Carolina Central University.

If you have ever listened to the musical group, The Spinners, as they sing their classic song about Sadie, the mother, sweet Sadie Mae, that they are singing about, it reminds me of my mother, Honey’s oldest child, sweet Mabeline Bea… sweet, just like her good old southern sweet tea that she made every day.

I believe that Bishop Jakes once said that there is a time factor in connection to purpose and season. God, I am praying that this is the time factor for my purpose, and that is my season for this to be written and to be shared. As I write I am asking God to forgive me my nature of procrastination and to restore the season and purpose. If that time factor has already been disconnected, I am praying that he will somehow reconnect it all as I believe that all things work together for the good of those that love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.

I believe that Mr. Harvey once said that we all know that it aint over until the fat lady sings, so he just never invites the fat lady and that way it won’t ever be over. As long as you have breath in your body, there is still a chance for a second chance, and it aint over… and I agree with him, just don’t invite the fat lady and then she won’t be able to sing until you have fulfilled your purpose that God has for you.

The bible tells us to Honor your mother and father and it will go well with you and you will have good success. I sincerely believe that any success that I have had has been because I have always tried to honor my parents. My life has been very tough at times and I would always pray and God would always make a way of out of no way and bring me through. In my adult life, there have been many heart breaks, acts of abusive behavior toward me and losses in my life, but even through all of that, God has always given me the victory. God’s words said to take my yoke and learn of me… and you will find rest unto your soul, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

There were also times that I was a double minded person and unstable in all my ways. I had always loved the Lord, but I have made a few decisions without praying first, and I have had to deal with those consequences too. Sometimes, I forgot all about many of the other things that I had desired and many of the things that my parents had desired for me. I had put the desire that I had to write on the back burner for so long, that it had almost been lost.

When I was nineteen years old, I had sat down with my 79 year old grandmother after church service to interview and tape the story of her grandmother who had raised her. We sat down in my parent’s living room together while my mother was cooking her Sunday dinner. My mother would listen to her mother and then add her own recollections and tidbits of her Maah’s history from the kitchen nearby. I used this information for a required paper for a class at North Carolina Central University where I was a student. I received an A on the paper, and then I tucked away that interview tape in a drawer at my mother’s house and told my mother that I would use it one day to write a book. My grandmother died seven years later and I was so glad that I had that cassette tape that was so full of information. I also had Grandmomma singing on that recording.

This was one of my grandmother, Honey’s favorite songs:

"May the work I’ve done, speak for me. May the work I’ve done, speak for me. When I’ve done the best that I can, and my friends don’t understand. May the work that I’ve done, speak for me.

May the life I live, speak for me. May the life I live, speak for me. When I’m resting in my grave, there is nothing that can be said, May the life that I live, speak for me.

The work I’ve done, it seems so small, sometimes it seems like, seems like nothing at all-l-l-l, but when I stand before my God, I want to hear him say, well done. May the work that I’ve done, speak for me."

I want my fore parent’s life that they have lived, to speak for them in this work, to speak for them even though their bodies are resting in the grave.

Sometimes procrastination is the same as disobedience. Somehow through the many years that I had procrastinated, the tape was lost or thrown away. My life got really hard at times and writing a book was the last thing on my mind as I was trying just to survive. I kept telling my mother that I would write a book whenever she would bring it up. But without the tape I had lost my desire to do so.

I decided in early November, one month after Momma had died, that I was going to use my old barely working laptop to try to write this story. I had been writing on sheets of papers and notebooks for about fifteen years on and off and the book still was not coming together. I knew that I needed to start writing the story on a computer where I could save it and return to it with little obstruction or resistance. I listened to a motivator speaker one day on television who spoke about setting a goal and putting everything within arm’s length so that it would make it easier to complete the goal. He said that goals are more readily accomplished when you set it upon the path of the least resistance. Then you need to put the tools that you will be using for that mission or goal within arm’s length whenever possible.

My computer needed to be right by my bed, because all of my memories and stories for the book seemed to flood my mind at night and in the early morning hours, while I was still in bed. It seemed to be at this time that God would give me something that I needed to write down for the story. My lap top wasn’t in the best shape so I did not like moving it around. I was spending all of my time in the upstairs bedroom, but the laptop was in the downstairs bedroom and I did not want to move it because it had a bad cord and it was possible that it would stop working completely if I pushed my luck with it too much. It had already accomplished the mission of helping my oldest daughter to complete her master’s degree and it had been barely hanging by a thread even then. I had bought it from a store that sold used computers on the advice of my friend and co-worker, Kemmie. Through the years, my sister, Betty’s husband had put together PCs and laptops for my children, but I needed something that I would not have to share with anyone else while I was writing.

At the end of November, I received a letter saying that I had won a lap top computer and that I only had to pay ninety nine dollars for the shipping and handling. I sent in the money and hoped that I would not be scammed out of my much needed money. Two weeks later, I moved my very old laptop that I had been using for quite some time upstairs and it quit working a few days later. Well, I really needed that computer that I had supposedly won even more. I told the Lord that if he would make sure that they send that computer to me, I would sit down and work on that book fervently until it was completed. Low and behold about three days before Christmas, my laptop arrived. I couldn’t stop praising the Lord and thanking him for the gift.

I got busy doing other things for a few weeks. Then I heard an old episode of the show Girlfriends where Mia successfully writes her book. I say, Okay, Momma, I know that you are reminding me of my promise. I did nothing toward writing that week. Then a few days later, I saw a rerun of an episode of one of the Parkers situation comedy show. Monique’s friend tells her to work on a book and to set a goal of writing a page a day. I say, Okay Momma, I am taking the hint, and I will get busy with it. I had close friends die within the last twelve months and the thought came that I did not want Maah and Momma’s stories to die with me when I died. In that moment, I knew that tomorrow was not promised to me, and that I could not procrastinate anymore, so I finally sat down at that computer and got serious and got busy.

In the Parkers episode, Monique writes about her beloved professor, so the book is completed overnight. I knew that would never happen in real life, but I did take the advice of her friend to set a goal of writing at least a page a day. I set my goal at writing ten pages a day consistently and that worked. I took the week of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday off in January 2013, as I do every year, but this year, I had a goal in mind, and I would not rest until it was completed and published. I knew that the time had come to try to put pen to paper to complete the story that I had started and set aside so many times. My mother always wanted the story of her Maah Charlotte Frazier Holmes to be told to all of her family because she honored and admired her so much. I have used my mother’s notes, the stories that she has told me, her bible, and her A.M.E. hymnal to complete this work. From that January, through this summer, I have been stuck in one chapter of Isaiah of my mother’s bible. I try not to let a day go by without reading a part of chapter sixty. I know that he is talking about the coming redeemer, but in this chapter is my reminder of what God is promising to my family. Through this book, I am praying that God will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations.

Parts of this book may or may not be completely factual because they are only based on my recollections of the stories that were told to me throughout the years and have been passed down from generation to generation. Some of it is not nice and some may question why I would want to air my family’s dirty laundry. Some of it can become sort of off colored because that was how some of my folks tended to talk at times. Most of the names have been changed to protect others. No offence is intentional in any of my writings. As I ramble on about my family encounters and interaction with each other and others and also about race relations in our state and country I am sure that I may lose a few friends and family members, so let me apologize for any offence up front. This is my small world and I love each of you that have entered into it at some point. This is my city that I love. This is my state that I love. This is my country that I love. This is my family that have loved me, good or bad and that I have loved back, good or bad.

There is nothing famous or different or special about our family. We have not made any new discoveries or did anything differently from most African Americans that were born in the south during the same era. I am simply writing this story because I just want to make sure that the younger generation of my family are familiar with the older, past generation of my family—from the first Charlotte Holmes who was born in 1800 down to my little granddaughter, Shay who was born over two hundred years later. I start the chapters off in the Gullah geechie dialect of my people. Some think that the almost sing-song sound of some of the people from the Lowcountry and from our islands sound a little like the people from the islands of Jamaica and the Carribean people. If you are unfamiliar with that, I also have another version of the first four chapters at the back of the book in Modern English and then also again in—the deeper Gullah version.

I sit down to tell my story of my people—my great, great, grandmother, and my mother and lastly, after their stories have been told, then there are ramblings, remarks and reflections by me. We all have had our own battles in this challenge that we call life and have taken various paths to navigate our way, so let me share some of ours with you.

Preface

In 1850 my great-great-grandmother, Maah’s grandmother, Charlotte is listed on the census as one of the free inhabitants of Abbeville, South Carolina, on a small plantation near the western border of the state, near Georgia. It is believed that her master would free all of his elderly slaves when they reached the old age of fifty. She was fifty that year, and therefore she was listed.

Anyone that was classified as a slave could not be listed on the census by name or age. There was a big controversy over whether to list slaves in this census, and thereby humanizing them, in 1850, thanks to a South Carolina and Alabama politician and a few other southern gentlemen, they had decided that slaves should not be listed, only the free Negro inhabitants. No matter how much the New York and Kentucky politicians protested this, and gave reasons why slaves should be listed, by name and age, it was decided at the last minute that this would not happen. Therefore, many African Americans cannot find out a whole lot about their ancestors through use of the early census.

My great-great-great-great grandmother was named Charlotte Frazier. My great-great-great grandmother was named Mary Ann Frazier. My great-great grandmother was named Charlotte Frazier Holmes. My great-grandmother was named Mary Jane Holmes. My grandmother was named Josephine Holmes Manigault Wright.

The first Charlotte was born in 1800. Charlotte had a daughter named Mary Ann in 1837. Mary Ann had a daughter in 1856 and she named her after Charlotte, after her mother. Charlotte had a daughter in 1880, and she named her Mary Jane after her mother. Mary Jane had a daughter named Josephine in 1900 that was called Honey. Honey had Bea in 1919. Honey’s daughter, Bea was my mother.

On the 1850 census: The first Charlotte is 50. She is the head of household. She was born in 1800. Her daughter, which is the second Charlotte’s mother Mary Ann Frazier, was 13. She was born in 1837. Nancy Frazier, 30 yrs, Female. Hiram Frazier, 22 yrs, Male. Martha Frazier, 18 yrs, Female. Eliza Frazier, 16 yrs, Female. Gustavia Frazier, 15 yrs, Female. Female. Victoria Frazier, 8 yrs. Female, Izora Frazier, 8 yrs, Female. All were listed as living in Abbeville.

Mary Ann married July Frazier and he was born in 1835. They both had the same last name before they were married, so it is my belief that the slave master’s name was Frazier and they were both owned by the same master and lived on the same plantation.

Mary Ann and July Frazier along with their children moved to the Christ Church section of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, outside of Charleston from a plantation in Abbeville, South Carolina around 1869. There were only about seven or eight hundred people living in Mount Pleasant at that time even though the city of Charleston that was just two miles across the Cooper River was well populated.

On the 1870 census: Charlotte Frazier is 14. Mollie Frazier is 16, Thomas Frazier is 12, Julia Frazier is 8, Washington Frazier is 5 (male), Elizabeth Frazier is 3, Charles Frazier is 2, Mother Mary Ann Frazier is 33 and Father, July Frazier is 35. And they live in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina.

Around 1875 Isaac Holmes and Charlotte Frazier are married.

On the 1880 census: Charlotte Holmes is listed as22. She is 24 and in her household are Isaac Holmes, 25 yrs, Spouse and head of household, Male. Lizzie Holmes, 22 yrs, Female—Sister in law. James Holmes (baby), Male. Male, Isaac Holmes, 4 yrs, Child, Male. Molly Holmes Female (baby). Molly is a twin with James and she was named after Charlotte’s favorite sister.

On the 1900 census: Charlotte Homes is 44 and in her household are Isaac Holmes 45. They have been married about 25 years. Three of their children have moved. They have 7 living at home. Mary 20, (Grandmomma’s mother). Thomas, 18, Rachael 16, William 11, Celia 8, Victoria 1, Josephine (her granddaughter and my grandmother) 1 month. My mother said Maah had twenty two children, but I do not find that amount listed on the census.

On the 1910 census: Charlotte Holmes is 54 and in her household are Celia Holmes, 17 yrs, Child, Female, Victoria Holmes, 10 yrs, Child, Female, Josephine Holmes, 10 yrs, Grandchild, Female (my grandmother). They are listed next to my other grandparents, Elizabeth Gathers who is 20 and Isaac Gathers Sr. is 24.

On the 1930 census: Charlotte Holmes is 74, not 70, and has been married and widowed twice, the second time by the first of three generations of Peter Gillians. They do not have any children together. She is listed as Charlotte Gilling. The head of household is Josephine Manigault (erroneously listed as Washington). She is 30, not 28. Her first cousin, not spouse, is Christopher Washington 18 (father of my mother’s godchild, Joe), daughter, Mable Brown 11, son, Louis Brown 9, first cousin, Oscar Wilson 7, (probably should have been 6), and daughters, Herline Gathers 6, and Bertha Collins 3 are all listed. I had always heard that my mother’s sister, my Aunt Herline and my cousin, Oscar were the same age.

On the 1940 census: Charlotte Frazier Holmes Gillians is 84, not 85 and she is living with her daughter, Cecelia and Cecelia’s new husband, children, and grandson. Listed are Henry Brown, 43 and head of household, Cecelia Brown, wife, 47, great-grandson, James Steed, 3. Charlotte’s grandchildren are Oscar 15, (probably should have been 16), Oliver 13, Victoria 11, Virginia 7, and my mother’s godchild, Beatrice 3.

On the 1940 census: Josephine Manigault (my grandmother) is listed as head of household she is 40, but is listed as 37. In her household are son, Louis Brown 18 (who is erroneously listed as a daughter,) daughters Erline Geathers 16, (Aunt Erline told me that she left home at 13, but she later returned.) Albertha Collins 14.

On the 1940 Census: my parents are now married and living in the same household with my paternal grandfather. Listed are Isaac Geathers Sr. as head of household, 51. Sons William 24 and Isaac Jr. 24. Daughter-in-law Mabel Geathers 20, and nephew Henry Smalls 22, (he is my daddy’s first cousin, but also my mother’s distant cousin on her mother’s side.)

By 1860 the slave population in America had already reached 4 million. As the inside slave trade became a more popular part of America’s mode of acquiring slaves, individuals lost all connection to families and birthplace. Also to add to this, earlier white slave owners were oblivious to the importance of the various African countries and tribes’ origins. That method of combining slaves from different countries and tribes, caused many slaves to lose all knowledge of varying tribal origins in Africa, because by that time, most had families who had been in the United States for many generations. Slave owners did not believe that we would need to know our roots, because we were mere chattels. As stated earlier, if you were a Negro, your name and existence as a human being was not even allowed on the Census in 1850 if you were not a free inhabitant. A South Carolinian politician was one of the key game player in getting that rule concerning the Census established. He wanted to make sure that our ancestors were not considered humans and therefore there would be no need to now list them as such. This state was also one of the first in 1712 to establish the South Carolina slave code which served as the model for other colonies in this country. Those who opposed slavery and believed that the Negro was more than a chattel, but a human being, consistently tried to outlaw slavery and to oppose such laws.

When Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election on a ticket of no new slave states, the South finally broke away to form the Confederacy. Since 1850, the rich cotton-growing southern states had been threatening to secede from the country and tensions had continued to rise, with even the white church ministers and pastors preaching about slavery in a positive light. John C. Calhoun, who had ties to the area near Abbeville, South Carolina was one of the main proponents of secession, although he died before the start of the Civil War. He had a home in the Clemson, South Carolina area, and he was buried in the St. Phillip church’s grave in Charleston, South Carolina as a hero.

In the eyes of many, this strong proponent of slavery, states rights and secession is still a hero to many even today inspite of the fact that he considered the slave to be inferior and of no intelligence. The views of this son of the south brings to mind the conservative views of the current Tea Party’s rhetoric that is being voiced today by those who also view our president as one that looks like the former slave, so therefore he has to be inferior and of little or no intelligence; no matter how much his IQ and education really refute that theory. We can justify any evil or views and slants on racism or conservatism and make it all sound good as long as we have enough ignorant gullible persons around to believe it as truth. And we can dress it up and try to make something that we know to be feces that stink to high heavens and sell it to others that want to justify the stench and label it as chocolate candy.

Calhoun died in 1850, but he had been successful in spreading the notion of secession prior to his death, and a decade later, after his death, his southern statesmen were still following his cue. In addition to seceding, four states which included South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas also passed completely detailed and defined explanations of their reasons and noble causes for secession, all of which put the blame completely on the northern states movements to abolish slavery, which was something that the southern states considered their constitutional right as slaveowner states.

The election of Lincoln in November 1860 was the final trigger for secession. Good old South Carolina did more to advance secession than any other Southern state. South Carolina adopted the Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union on December 24, 1860. It argued for states’ rights for slave owners in the South.

The state of South Carolina was a key player in secession and in the role of starting the Civil War.

The firing of a cannon from the battery in Charleston, South Carolina happened on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, a key fort held by Union troops in South Carolina. Lincoln called for each state to provide troops to retake the fort.

This marked the start of the Civil War, which caused a large interruption of the Southern life style, with many slaves either escaping or being freed or recruited by the Union army. The Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in January 1, 1863. This would only end slavery in the southern slave states that had seceded. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery one of his war goals. The main goal of the war was to reunite the union. The ending of slavery was secondary to Lincoln, who if he had a choice to reunite the union in any other way, he would have, despite the urgings from the abolitionists of his time.

But in spite of that, by creating and signing this proclamation as he did, he brought about the death of a way of life for a nation of white slave owners as well as a few Native American slave owners. And in doing so he brought about the birth of a new way of life called freedom for a nation of black former slaves. In his Emancipation Proclamation, he put the first coffin screw in to insure the death and burial of slavery in America and with the Thirteenth Amendment, he put the last coffin screw in it to declare that it would never rear its venomous ugly head in victory from the grave again.

It proclaimed all those enslaved in Confederate territory to be forever free, and ordered the Union army to treat as free all those enslaved in ten states that were still in rebellion, which applied to about three million of the four million slaves in America. The Emancipation Proclamation also ordered that the former slaves be enrolled in the paid service of United States’ military.

It could not be enforced in areas still under rebellion, but as the army took control of Confederate regions, the slaves in those regions were emancipated rather than returned to their masters. From up to about fifty thousand former slaves in regions where rebellion had already been overtaken were immediately emancipated, and over three million more were emancipated as the Union army moved in. The Proclamation did not apply to the five slave states that were not in rebellion, nor to most regions already controlled by the Union army. Emancipation there would come after separate state actions and the December 1865 ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, which made slavery illegal everywhere in the United States.

The war itself had effectively killed and ended slavery even before the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States in December of 1865 that formally outlawed the institution throughout the United States. Officially, slavery in the United States ended when the 13th Amendment was ratified on December 18, 1865. This was achieved during the Abraham Lincoln administration.

On April 10, 1862, Congress declared that the federal government would compensate slave owners who freed their slaves. I wonder why there was no compensation to the slave himself or even to his family members even if generations later for all the work he had done for this country.

Maah was born in 1856—close to ten years before slavery ended nationwide. She was nine years old in 1865 when the Thirteenth Amendment went into effect and she was seven years old in January 1863 when the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect.

Introduction

My name is Lolabelle Gethers, and I am from Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. The town of Mount Pleasant is a beautiful southern coastal regional place outside of the city of Charleston. Most of my people from both of my parents’ sides of the family still live here and I have a very large amount of cousins to love in a town that is quickly becoming larger than many of the cities in this state.

The people that are native to the area, black and white alike, will always have a part of my heart and the town of Mount Pleasant will always be near and dear to me. They made it a safe haven and a great place to grow up in as an African American in the sixties and seventies in spite of all of the turmoil that was stirring in the rest of the south.

My mother always called our town, God’s Country because of the people and because of its beauty. Most of the people are the most honest and the friendliest that you will ever meet. Even today it still has the small home town feel, because whether you are at the grocery store or at the town post office, someone is sure to smile at you or strike up a friendly conversation. It has not lost that charm of being a small village. Of course my mother has always been biased about her town. She consider every thing in Mount Pleasant to be better than the rest of the state. She regarded the Mount Pleasant Police Department to be the best in the country. She has always said that they are smart, and nice, and they always keep our town safe. She even regard the traffic lights to be superior because of the way it worked in comparison to the others in various cities and towns. As far as Honey Bea was concerned, Mount Pleasant has always been the best, even far back into the olden days.

In the olden days, there were villages. The village of Greenwich was the first village of what is now Mount Pleasant. That is an area near where a lot of beautiful homes where the well to do and well off white folks live. My mother’s father, who was a self-made educated businessman, lived pretty close to that area. My mother said that he was the first black man to own an automobile in Mount Pleasant. I am not sure about that. But I am sure that, if he did, no one wanted to get in that automobile because it was a hearse because he was the town’s black undertaker.

My maternal grandfather lived on Venning Street in the old village and also had his business there. Venning Street was named for Nicholas Venning. Near that area is Whilden Street. Whilden Street is named after Elias Whilden who had five sons that fought for the Confederacy. There had also been a Whilden Plantation in the early days. The first library that I spent hours at outside of school, is also in this area. This is the area that leads to my favorite park, Alhambra Hall, which I grew up loving.

I once read that the name of the town where I was born and bred, came from the plantation owner, Jacob Motte who had at one time owned the area. James Hibben later purchased the plantation in 1803 and the land was surveyed and divided into town lots.

My older folks told me that they once referred to our town by the name of Hungry Neck. The oldest map of the area once referred to it as North Point.

Mount Pleasant became a town in 1837 when it combined the two small villages called Greenwich and Mount Pleasant. The town grew rapidly when many other surrounding villages were added in. These included Hibbens Ferry, Lucasville, and Hillardsville.

The town grew gradually even more as more and more villages and tracts were added to the original villages of Mount Pleasant and Greenwich. The first of these that were added to the town was the Hibben Ferry Tract. It was added in 1872 and this was also the part of the town where they had ferried people across the Cooper River into the City of Charleston since the late 1700s.

The ferry charter was obtained by Andrew Hibben in 1770 and this was the first ferry that connected that part of Mount Pleasant to Charleston. The ferry carried passengers and their carriages and even their cattle back and forth daily before the first Cooper River Bridge was built.

This is also a town where the people of the eighteen hundreds era were instrumental in promoting seceding from the union and for assisting in the start of the Civil War in rebellion. In 1860, a meeting was held in Mount Pleasant that created the first secession resolution for the state of South Carolina. Mount Pleasant was also the secret training place for the nine man crew of the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley. It was from Breach Inlet in 1864 that this little vessel was launched and attacked and sunk the USS Housatonic.

The white people of Mount Pleasant, like that of every other white person in South Carolina during that era considered the institution of slavery to be right and almost sacred and that anyone that dared to say anything against it, surely could not be a Christian or even remotely sane. They were staunched like in their belief of the things that they held to be true and fought against the ending of slavery and our freedom until the end.

But according to my Great grandmother, those same white people were the ones that seemed to accept the turn of events a little more readily than those in other parts of the state. Maybe it was just my family and my experience, but the race relationship between blacks and whites in that town always seemed to be a little more progressive from other cities and towns in South Carolina.

Shortly after the end of the Civil War, an area called Scanlonville was created for newly freed slaves. Slaves who had worked the area plantations were free to seek their own enterprise. Scanlonville was one of the first black communities that was formed in Charleston area after the Civil War, and it still exists today in Mount Pleasant. Robert Scanlon was a freedman carpenter and former slave and he purchased the six hundred and fourteen acre property. He founded the Charleston Land Company which was made up of one hundred poor black men of the Charleston area who paid ten dollars for each share in order to purchase large tracts of land. The Charleston Land Company then divided it up to be possessed by the newly freed slaves that wanted to be land owners. The former Remley’s Plantation, was divided into large farm lots and smaller town lots to form the community of Scanlonville. The Charleston Land Company and Scanlonville is one of only four known co-ops of this type by former slaves after the Civil War. I spent a lot of time in that area as a very young child also because it included the Riverside Beach and that was the only beach where black people could go in the early sixties. I lived down the street from Remley’s Point until 1969 when we moved to an all-white area.

Most of my ancestors, with the exception of my mother’s father, all come from the part of Mount Pleasant formerly known as Christ Church Parish. This is the area that is north of the Shem Creek. Now Christ Church Parish has become part of the town of Mount Pleasant.

Christ Church Parish was created along with many other parishes in that area under the 1706 Church Act. The Church Act made the Church of England the official state Church of South Carolina. All births, marriages, deaths and any other public record were kept through Christ Church Parish church. The Christ Parish Church is still located in the six mile area of Mount Pleasant today. The present building was built in 1800 which has many tombstones all around the property of the many plantation slave owners and their families from days gone by because they were there since the 1700 and the days of slavery.

My family members are part of a group of people that some may consider to be the Bin Yas. The Bin Yas are usually very nice, smart, and talented people that have been here since the days of slavery, when they had no choice but to be here. Even back then, they were a proud, strong, group of people who always wanted a better way of living for their off springs.

They are the same people that chose to stay here later, even when they had a choice. They were somehow able to purchase land, and have their own farms and homes and they continued to live the simple country way of life for a long time. As their country way of living began to change, a lot of them learned to adapt to their surroundings, and embraced the small town way of living by acquiring an education and by getting jobs away from the farms in the city of Charleston.

The older generation of African Americans from Mount Pleasant have kept us rich in our own heritage. We are Gullah Geechie people with ties so deep in our native roots, in our land, and in our coast. Our people knew how to go crabbing and fishing for a variety of seafood, as well as how to plant the vegetables and fruits on their own farms while raising pigs, cows, and chickens to provide our meats. We grew up eating grits every morning for breakfast and eating rice every evening for supper or dinner. Even as a small child we were taught to make these two staple items. And once you had mastered the preparation of making red rice you really felt like you had made a great accomplishment.

Our people grew up learning how to prepare rice and the best seafood dishes and the finest soul food southern cuisine around. You have to have seafood to go with all of that rice. We know how to go crabbing to catch the crabs, and then how to cook the crabs, without letting them crawl away, once we bring them home, and put them in the seasoned, boiling water, and then we know how to eat the crabs without even touching the Dead Man parts even as a child.

Cooking and eating great food is a way of life in the Lowcountry, and no meal in the home that I grew up in was complete without a plate of rice. In probably every home in those days, you were sure to find a bag of rice and possibly a bag of grits sitting in a cupboard or in the pantry. In our home, my mother would never allow her home to run out of these two items. She used them every single day of my life growing up and I absolutely loved it. I sometimes find myself, even now making a quick simple snack of rice and milk and eating it as a cereal. The last gift that my daddy gave to me on the day that he died was a twenty-five pound container of rice in a white quilted plastic sack.

The origin of the first rice mill even came from these parts. A man named Jonathan Lucas gained fame in South Carolina for the invention of the rice mill. One of the first mills he built was on Shem Creek at Haddrell’s Point in Mount Pleasant.

In our homes and in our local restaurants, we serve rice or grits with a variety of other dishes, whether it is shrimp and grits, fish and grits, okra soup with shrimp over rice, conch stew and rice, oxtails with rice, collard greens and rice, rice prioleau, red rice, a variety of beans or peas and rice cooked together, and so many other variations of rice or grits dishes.

You have to visit all of the lovely restaurants in our beautiful town of Mount Pleasant, like the Gullah Geechie restaurant in four mile and the others on or near Shem Creek in Mount Pleasant and in downtown Charleston. You are sure to find so many tasty items that are served with rice or grits that have been passed down from generation to generation.

I am a Gethers geech to my heart, and love I it. I was born and bred in Mount Pleasant and I grew up eating a whole lot of rice, so I guess that makes me officially a geech. Rice is something that I would never give up. It is a part of the fabric of my make-up and who I am. Our sweet grass baskets that our ancestors made were originally created in order to cultivate the rice crop in the Lowcountry.

Another characteristic of our people is that we have learned how to make something out of nothing. We could make a great meal when we don’t even have anything in our cupboards. And we have always been very creative with our hands.

We have a dialect and a language like no other and no matter how long we have been in this country; we still have very strong connections to the mother-land, Africa, especially to the western parts of Africa. It shows in our culture, in the sweet grass baskets that our people weave and beautifully design, and sell on the sides of the streets to the many Charleston, SC tourists. Our artistically talented women and even some of our men offer their beautiful sweet grass baskets for sale along our highways in the former Christ Church Parish area along Highway Seventeen North in Mount Pleasant.

They showcase these beautifully artistically created baskets at the annual Sweetgrass Festival every May or June in Mount Pleasant. These baskets are made almost exactly like the shukublay basket that they make in Sierra Leone. That is a strong connection that is continuing forever. The connections also shows in our strong beliefs in the supernatural, and in our great respect for our elders and our past and our clinging to our ancestors and in our longing to hold on to the old customs and stories that have been passed down to us for many generations.

This year as I attended the Sweetgrass Festival and saw all of the people of Mount Pleasant that I have had as a part of my fabric all of my life, it blessed me completely. It felt like I was hugging one of my mothers, as I embraced Mrs. Judith, my friend Shelley’s mother whom I had known and loved forever. She had been my mother’s friend and my Aunt Gracey’s cousin and our families had been intertwined with love and history way back before I had been born.

Our families embraced our past, but they all still looked forward to a future of changes that would enhance their lives and that of their children. We were told that whatever you do, do it as unto the Lord. If you help someone or do something nice for a person, don’t wash a person’s face in it. And if you are doing something good, don’t turn around and ruin it and make it into something bad. Don’t milk the cow and get a good pail of milk and then turn around and kick it over. We were taught not to take destructive shortcuts, because shortcut broke down the donkey’s cart.

Growing up in the home of African American parents in the Low Country land of Mount Pleasant, your life was full of words of wisdom and sayings past down from the older folks that they received from their older folks. Those words have kept most of us on the right paths. And I want these words to keep my future generations on the right paths. This is the path that my family took in our journey from slavery through today.

Honey Bea’s Funeral

My name is Katrice and today is the day that we are burying my grandmother Honey Bea. My grandmother and I have always had such an especially close relationship and I am going to be lost without her. I look around the church, the church that my grandmother has loved so much—the church of my great, great, great grandmother and all of my family for generations on my mother’s side.

Light shines through the beautiful long, stain glassed windows of this deeply Southern African Methodist Episcopal Church in this deeply Southern town. We are right outside of the city of Charleston, in the state of South Carolina where it is almost so Southern that it still hurts. So Southern that it can’t right all of its wrongs. So Southern, that even if it could right the wrongs, it would refuse to do so. So Southern, the sins of the past refuse to be washed away permanently. They are reminders all around, outside of this sanctuary of safety, outside this sanctuary filled with our family’s love. Inside of this cocoon we feel the Spirit of Jesus Christ, God the Father, and the Comforter—The Holy Ghost—our blessed trinity and we feel the urging of ancestors who have been here before, paving the way for us. This building is steeped in the traditions of our people. We need it all now, this day, more than ever before. Yellow and red shards of light illuminate the thickly burgundy carpeted floor of the rich colors of my childhood—my mother’s childhood—her mother’s childhood. And her mother’s mother childhood for generations back. And now my mother’s feet sink into them as she stands to speak about the life of an amazing woman—Our Honey Bea—Our Momma.

Today my sisters, our children, and our cousins, friends and other love ones and I will bury the lady that I considered the most beautiful, smartest, most stylish, most dignified and classiest lady in the world. And she was always so kind to others. My mother treated everyone she met with a smile always and I would like to think that she passed that on to us. She had such a love for her savior, Jesus Christ and a compassion for people. She had a respect for education and a joy for reading and a hunger for knowledge. She always had words of wisdom for us and she even left a legacy when wrote words and sayings passed on to her from her great grandmother that she desired that each of her loved ones have and keep.

Surely, this can’t be real, and I am wondering why no one is waking me out of this dream that I am having. I must have been sleeping for quite some time because this dream seems to be continuing without an end. The dream seems so real, but it can’t be. My grandmother can’t really be gone, because I still feel her comforting spirit all around me. I still smell her sweet fragrance of White Diamonds. I still hear her words of wisdom and admonishments and her praises of everything that is good. I still hear her prayers to her Father that she loves so much and has passed on to a family that she has loved fervently with all of her heart. I still see her looking so beautiful and elegant, but the picture is skewed. Instead of showing my beloved grandmother standing upright, it is showing her lying down as I have seen her so many times in her bed in her bedroom. This picture is skewed because it is not showing her lying down in her bed that is in her bedroom, but instead, it is showing her lying down in a casket in front of the church pews and behind the casket is the pulpit with her new pastor, who she never had the opportunity to get to know because she had been sick during the whole time of his leadership. Next to him is her former pastor, who in his faithfulness to her request has traveled so many miles back to this church to keep his promise that he made to her over four years ago when she had been near death in her hospital bed, but had miraculously returned to life. Next to him is one of her daughter’s pastors who had travelled all the way from another state with a busload of his loyal church members to show their love and condolences. Then there is the minister that had worked with her husband for many years, whose wife had worked with her for many years—whose family had almost felt like family to us for so many years. Next to him is one of her sons-in-law’s elderly father who is a former