Archives For November 30, 1999
On Sunday, Feb 23, 4 PM, come to Wesley United Methodist Church on Johns Island for a program, “Awakening the Ancestors through Music.” Participants will learn about Lowcountry sprituals and funeral songs. Co-sponsored by International African American Museum, The Progressive Club of Johns Island, Gullah Geechee Heritage Corridor Commission, Charleston County Public Library, and Wesley United Methodist Church.
On Monday, Feb 24, 6 PM, come to the College of Charleston Sciences Auditorium, room 129, to hear a talk by Margaret Seidler, “Telling the Story of a Charleston Family of Slave Traders and Those They Sold.” Co-sponsored by the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World (CLAW) program at C of C and the Center for Family History at the International African American Museum.
CSSC Director Bernard Powers was interviewed on SC Public Radio this week, talking about the work of the Center.
On February 1, Dr. Powers also represented the Center at “History Makers and Trailblazers,” a symposium on the “history of access, equity, and inclusivity” at the College. This event was part of the College’s 250th anniversary observances, which began last week. Dr. Powers moderated a panel entitled “Breaking the Color Barrier,” with C of C alums Otto German and Linda Dingle, Mayor Joe Riley, Dr. Andrew Lewis, and the Honorable Lucille Whipper, who had just received a Founders’ Day medal from the College (see photo below). Representative Whipper, who worked at C of C under President Ted Stern, was a memorable presence on the panel. As a student at Avery, she had applied to the College in 1944 and was rejected because of her race. The College finally desegregated in 1967.
At last week’s event, Rep. Whipper reminisced with Dr. Powers about her successful efforts in the 1980s to preserve the Avery Institute building and transform it into a part of the College, the Avery Research Center.
Bernard Powers, CSSC director, was on his way to do field research in the Caribbean when he was contacted by a BuzzFeed news reporter. “This is an article on the recent debate over weddings at plantation sites,” Dr. Powers notes. “Early this a.m., I was responding to the reporter on my phone on a small ferry plying the choppy waters between St. Kitts and Nevis.”
Here’s an excerpt from BuzzFeed News:
Dr. Bernard Powers, the director of the College of Charleston’s Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston, told BuzzFeed News that the inherent beauty of plantations must be contextualized.
“If these places looked the same and had a different history, no one would object and they would simply be recognized for their beauty. And they are beautiful today because in part due to the knowledge of slave gardeners who tended [to] them,” he said. “Recognize the people who did the work and contrast the beauty with the brutality. Both occurred and must be recognized and reconciled.”
This country, Walcott-Wilson added, was built by slaves. Finding a wedding venue anywhere that hasn’t been touched by slavery would be difficult.
On November 12 at 6 pm, in Room 227 of Addlestone Library, Dr. Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh will deliver a lecture entitled “‘The Issue of Females’: Abortion, Infanticide, and Ethics in Southern Slavery.” Dr. Wells-Oghoghomeh is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Vanderbilt University. The Conseula Francis Emerging Scholar Lecture honors the memory and legacy of Conseula Francis, a greatly beloved C of C English professor and director of the program in African American Studies.
David Blight lecture: Race & Memory in Charleston, Fri Nov 8, 1:30 PM, The Citadel
CLAW lectures on “Ancestries of Enslavement:” Elizabeth West, “Black Kinship Lineage and the Cistrunks of Noxabee County,” Wed Nov 20, 5:30 pm, Rita Hollings Cntr; Terri Snyder, “Claiming Freedom and Black Antislavery Work in the American South,” Thurs Nov 21, 5 PM, Addlestone 227.
The Social Justice Committee of CSSC hosted the start of the May 9 Gullah Society procession on the C of C campus, in Barnet Courtyard.
Cards were inscribed with messages that were then buried with the ancestors.
C of C faculty in academic regalia joined city officials, Gullah society members, schoolchildren, and other community members in a procession down George Street to the Gaillard Complex.
Gullah Society President and founder Ade Ofunniyin, walking with the Mayor of Charleston, escorted the coffins to their final resting place. Dr. Ofuniyyin teaches African and African American studies at the College of Charleston.
The program was designed by Ms. Joanna Gilmore, a Gullah Society staff member who also teaches at C of C. It included an essay by C of C professor of architectural history Dr. Nathaniel Walker and another essay by CSSC director and emeritus history professor Dr. Bernard Powers. Among the speakers during the ceremony was Dr. Kameelah Martin, chair of C of C’s African American Studies department and a member of CSSC’s Executive Board.
More coverage from the Post & Courier.
This op-ed reflects on the significance of the May 9 event honoring those ancestors whose labor contributed so much to Charleston. Written by Julia Eichelberger, CSSC Executive Board member and director of the Program in Southern Studies.
Read op-ed on Southern Studies program blog, Studying the South
Read on Post and Courier website
https://www.postandcourier.com/opinion/commentary/commentary-honoring-charleston-s-ancestors/article_d0bf5854-6c48-11e9-a4a6-cf9ed406c0c3.html
The Office of Institutional Diversity and other C of C faculty and students are working to produce a documentary exploring the lives of enslaved people who built Randolph Hall. Dr. Bernard Powers, CSSC director and Emeritus Professor of History, appears in this trailer for the film, which the filmmakers hope to complete in 2020.
On Feb. 27, 2019, CSSC took part in the Gullah Society’s “Rise Up” event at the Cannon Street Art Center, where numerous Charleston residents received the results of the analysis of their DNA conducted by the same research team that has been analyzing the remains of African and African-descended people in a burial ground discovered under the Gaillard Auditorium complex.
Community members were thrilled to receive their DNA test results suggesting who their ancestors were and what parts of the world they came from.
https://www.postandcourier.com/multimedia/local-african-americans-receive-dna-test-results-as-part-of/collection_a368138e-3afa-11e9-97ab-231d3bf15811.html
https://www.postandcourier.com/news/the-dead-have-been-woke-plans-shaping-up-to-reinter/article_9972ea00-3912-11e9-9cc8-f3cef799f75e.html
In February, CSSC Director and Emeritus Professor of History, Dr. Bernard Powers, delivered a lecture entitled “Denmark Vesey, South Carolina and Haiti: Borne, Bound, and Battered by the Common Wind.” This was the keynote address for the first evening of the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World’s academic conference, “The Vesey Conspiracy at 200: Black Antislavery in the Atlantic World.”