Gullah/Geechee Gal Forging a Life

Gullah/Geechee Nation ♦ April 20, 2024 ♦ 2 Comments

by Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation (www.QueenQuet.com)

I vividly remember the first time I ever arrived in the Upcountry or upstate South Carolina. I had been chosen to attend Clemson University to study both medicine and engineering. I had an opportunity that many are not often afforded prior to finalizing their decisions concerning their future careers and I welcomed this.

Given that I am an animal lover, the orange paw prints that led the way made me smile. Unfortunately, the pain that I learned of as my roommates parents drove us off the campus to Union for the weekend removed that smile and left an indelible mark on my mind and my soul. When I left Union, SC, I never planned to return their again but GOD and history had another plan in mind.

In 1994, I stood in the middle of an apartment floor in New York City yelling at a TV screen: “She’s a liar! Stop lying! No Black man did this!” I was yelling at the news reporters (as if they could hear me) because I heard the TV in the background as I was cooking and they claimed that this woman Susan Smith had provided them details that they had sketched of a Black man with a wool cap on his head that supposedly had stolen her car with her children in it. I told all my friends that this woman is a liar! There is NO WAY that any Black man is wearing a wool cap in the summer time in Union, SC first of all and MOST of ALL, the confederates and Klan members there would now likely kill more Black men because she is lying.

I had been to Union and felt the fear that was in the people’s hearts and I continued to feel pain for them feeling shacked over 100 years after the end of the Civil War. I never thought I would hear of Union, SC on the national news but I sure wished that I could get into the TV and refute what was being broadcasted at that moment. I knew in my soul that no Black person in that town was going to harm that woman’s children. So, when it came out that she killed her own children, I just said, “I said she was a liar from the moment I saw the news report.” My friends said, “You were adamant about that one.” I said, “Because I have been to Union.” I could only shake my head after that.

I prayed that when I returned to Union in 2022 to see the Black History markers there that I would have a change of heart by seeing some changed minds. Instead, I found many with the same energy that I had felt there decades before. I told each person how I never expected to set foot back in Union because it didn’t represent what “Union” means when we hear it in the Lowcountry of SC. When we hear it, it represents the brave soldiers that our Gullah/Geechee ancestors and many others were a part of that fought for our freedom during the United States Civil War. I found it ironic that a place that has a massive history of lynching Black people has the name “Union.”

Unfortunately, the story of lynching will never stop being in the minds of the people of the town because the Black history markers there are about that subject. I know how narratives get told and retold and when there is no counter narrative, people can live down to the one that they have. So, as much as lynching is definitely a part of American history, I wanted more than that. I needed to see Black accomplishments in this town and county. So, we attended a Black history interpretation at Rose Hill Plantation State Historic Site which was led by Sister Enfinitee. She spoke about the healers and the midwives and the history of the women that cooked at the kitchen house. We walked through the woods filled with witness trees and journeyed back in time with her and other staff members. At the end of the tour, we wanted to support any Black owned businesses in town and we ended up spending most of our time at the building of the “Equal Justice Initiative” and donating to that effort. That made my soul feel a bit better about the fact that the markers across from the jail house in front of their building were about jailing and lynching. I had to pray unceasingly while reading each and filming the journey.

When we left that space, we supported a 90 year old man and his son at their store a few blocks away but were sad to hear that they planned to close down. I had to push hard for my soul not to closed down and shut off my heart for Union, SC. I wasn’t pleased that this place still hadn’t advanced too much since I had been here decades ago.

We were heading further north to see more SC Black History markers and I decided to also check out the library on the way out of town. It turns out that it is a Carnegie building which I have also been searching for an intrigued by during my many journeys. I had no idea that I would be asked to come and speak there less than a year later by our folks at the Rose Hill Plantation Historic Site. I was honored to be able to bring some Gullah/Geechee to the upcountry!

Once again, as I left Union, SC, I felt that would be the last time and I would just wash the dust off my feet when I got home. However, our new partners stayed in touch and let us know about the “Forging a Life” event at which there would be brick making and blacksmithing demonstrations and re-enactors. We were determined to support the Black history in SC, so I put the information out to the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition members and a few of us made our way to the upcountry once again. The park staff was grateful that we showed up and so were our folks from the “Equal Justice Initiative” who had a booth and an exhibit at the event.

This year, “Forging a Life” bore the theme “From Slavery to Freedom” and I was contacted by Sister Enfinitee to journey to Union once again. I had to pause and have a talk with GOD about bringing me back to this plantation in this town whose Black history was centered on lynching. I felt that there was some kind of message in me being brought back time and time again to a place that I did not have fond memories of for obvious reasons as a freedom fighting outspoken Gullah/Geechee. I felt in my soul that I needed to endure this journey in order to help the people. Maybe this was not just in support of Black history. Maybe this was in support of actually helping folks see and hear what free folks look like. So, on behalf of my ancestors, I accepted taking the journey to Union once again.

As the day for the event approached, I started seeing Rose Hill in my mind’s eye. I remembered the house that sat down the hill from the kitchen house and “big house” and I knew I wanted to present there. I knew that there were items in that house that needed to be given voice. There were souls trapped on that plantation that needed to be given voice. I prayed that GOD would use me as a vessel to do so. Oh! Won’t He do it! GOD and the ancestors spoke loudly as I sat on the porch and presented, “Gullah/Geechee Gal Forging a Life:”

Win mi staat shoutin pun de clay colored wid de blood of enslaved ancestas, mi cudda feel um dey dey da shout tuh. Hallelujah ta GAWD fa freedum! I felt ancestral souls freed from that place as I felt my soul feel free to be holistically and wholly Gullah/Geechee in Union, SC!

I had men come up to me and tell me how they had to hold back tears and others just let them flow. Their tears became the libation that I didn’t pour that day but that I knew GOD was sending to honor those Black ancestral soils that had toiled in Union, SC and did ultimately forge a life not only there but throughout the state. This place that we deem as one of “beautiful places and smiling faces” is often the embodiment of the song “Smiling Faces.” Many of the smiles are there to hide the pain behind them and I saw many of those smiles on my first few journeys to Union. I am blessed to say that this time, I saw true smiles of joy as folks came over to thank me and embrace me after applauding.

I only pray that these extremely necessary educational events continue throughout South Carolina and beyond because they illuminate the strength of Black people in America to endure hardships and still make it with GOD’s assistance. I pray that people will bring out intergenerational groups to the state and national parks and tell them that they want their tax dollars directed to telling the full story of these places as part of the day-to-day “interpretation” and not just the February or once a year events. People need to be clear that no plantation did or does survive without the skills of people of African descent.

We now need to also use those skills to support and benefit Black people not only now but into infinity. Black family, let’s keep forging lives that are about upliftment and freedom! Then we can all be a part of forming “a more perfect union.” Asé!