Contemporary consequences of a 19th century local event

The final part of our day on the 22nd of September was a panel discussion about the Hamburg Massacre (1876) and its repercussions. The event, which was one of a series of meetings focused on this issue, took place at the First Providence Baptist Church in North Augusta.

The diversified panel included: professor James Oscar Farmer, Jr, from the University of South Carolina; Reverend Dr. Nathaniel Irvin, a pastor and a civil rights leader; our dear friend, a USC professor, Valinda Littlefield; Wayne O’Bryant, an award-winning author and historian, whose paternal ancestors used to live in Hamburg; Bettis Rainsford, a local businessman and historian, as well as Dr. Robert Scott, an esteemed historian and a  great researcher of North Augusta history.

The debate focused on the impact of the Hamburg Massacre on the situation of the black community after the Civil War. However, the crucial question was how to commemorate the victims of the tragedy. The crux of the matter was the fact that one of the people who died in those riots was a white man who took part in the attack on the black militiamen.

This controversial issue was not settled by the experts. Yet the debate proved there is room for compromise and mutual understanding. Moreover, the way the audience spoke its mind showed the deep interest and knowledge of the problem among the local community.    

Ania and Asia

Seperate Worlds: A Guided Tour of Black Columbia

On Thursday morning, after attending the lecture course on African American history, we left the USC campus in order to get a first hand impression of Columbia's African American history. and community Dr. Bobby Donaldson from USC's history department was our tour guide for the two hours we spent driving through the city and visiting various sights and neighbourhoods, such as the Mann-Simmons site, Benedict College and Allen University, and the South Carolina State House grounds, with both the controversial Confederate flag and the African American memorial on its grounds.  The tour offered an interesting overview over the city's history, why the city was, and to some extent still is, a city of "seperate worlds."

Walking through Columbia

The African American memorial on the State House grounds

Reception at Gambrell Hall at the University of South Carolina campus

After all the lectures we were invited to a reception organized by the Institute for African American Research, the African American Studies Program and the History Department of the University of South Carolina. We were greeted by Mary Anne Fitzpatrick, the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences who said that while South Carolina cannot be proud of its history, it is proud of its historians and historical research. We had a chance to ask some follow up questions to the lecturers who were eager to further elaborate on their talks especially professors Dan Littlefield, Todd Shaw, Valinda Littlefield and Harry Sigleton. Rebecca Brueckmann, a visiting PhD student from Berlin gave us some valuable insight into the USC academic experience as seen from a European perspective.  It was also a great opportunity to share our personal thoughts and impressions with our new student friends. We were all stunned by the hospitality and generosity of our hosts. The food was as delicious as the conversations J  

Asia and Olga

Gullah

The lecture which a lot of us found the most interesting was delivered by Tracey L. Weldon, PhD who discussed “Gullah” – the African-American language, popular among inhabitants of coastal regions of the U.S. states of North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. The professor began the talk with a linguistic introduction into dialects in general – explaining how people distinguish between good and bad English on the basis of power and prestige of the speaker. Then the proper topic commenced; we got to know the origins of Gullah. There exist two contradictory hypotheses about the source of this Creole language. First of them represents the belief that Gullah was born in the south-eastern states of U.S., as an independent formation, confluence of American English and African speech. The second one proclaims that this dialect came into being before African slaves’ arrival to America. The lecturer herself thinks that the first assumption is much more possible than the second one, but she finds in both of them a grain of truth. We also received very useful and interesting handouts that provided information on the lecture topic and examples of Gullah vocabulary, idiomatic expressions and verbal system. For me that was the most attractive session, not only because of the topic, which is something totally new and unfamiliar for me, but also due to the interesting way of introducing the issue by professor Weldon. I really hope we will have an opportunity to hear the Creole language during  our study tour.

Karolina

African Americans and Politics

The first session after lunch was about African Americans and Politics. The speaker, Todd Shaw, is an Associate Professor of Political Science and African American Studies at the University of South Carolina. The general topic of the session concerned the impact of Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act on the African Americans and the later influence they had, mostly affirmative action. At the beginning professor described the main purpose of the African American movements in the ‘50s and ‘60s – Jim Crow’s Laws and the centuries of segregation and discrimination of the Blacks in the United States, especially in the south. All that led to the first, most known event of the movement – the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 in Mississippi, started by Rosa Parks. Then everything happened really quickly. In the ‘60s President Lyndon Johnson introduced affirmative action – which required federal contractors to remedy discrimination against race, color and gender in public facilities, jobs and education. Now, after few decades of affirmative action in use, debates broke out – one side in favor of the action and the other against it. People argue whether it fulfills its initial purpose or creates another divisions and differences among the society. The answer remains open as there is no solution that would satisfy everyone.

Marcin

HE saw the best in me

via

These are the lines I will always connect with the church service we visited today in the First Nazareth Baptist Church. Funnily enough, I wasn't in the least nervous before getting into the church - I usually am in new situations, thinking about how it will be, what we will do etc. But not today. 

Today I walked into the church, listened to the wonderful music und started smiling like crazy. The atmosphere was magical and I was just watching in awe... not quite knowing what exactly  had happened to me when I crossed this threshold. I am by no means a religious person, for believers I am probably a heathen. I have not been christened and rarely visit churches, and if so, then for architectural reasons or  sightseeing. I think it is a very human characteristic to believe in something - anything really - fate, God, chance, etc., I am convinced that people and animals have souls, and that faith itself offers hope to many people who seem to have no hope, who feel alone, or simply enjoy the feeling of an almighty .father protecting us. As a student of American studies I also see religion in the US as some kind of marketplace. Churches in the United States need to "cater" to their customers, entertain them, make them feel good about themselves - or they will lose members of their congregation and possible generous donations. In Germany, Kirchensteuer provides churches with funds and services are mostly rather stiff.Well, at least, that's what I heard because I have never been to a regular Sunday service there... But I remember not liking the mass at Christmas to much.

The First Nazareth Baptist Church of Columbia will definitely not lose members because of ennui ;) The music was fantastic and I was actually moved to tears (I'm generally an old softie) more than once. "He saw the best in me" was one line in a song, ( click here) to which young women performed a dance. Curious and a little sceptical at first I watched them and only half-heartedly listened to the lyrics. But finally they hit home: This was the song for me! Being a contemplator and very critical of myself, I could not help feeling comforted and sad at the same time when I thought about the lyrics. Teary-eyed as I was I looked around me and saw so many happy faces, people swaying and singing along...  I wished I could have that kind of feeling, of contentedness, more often in my life. Somehow "worshipping" was far from being boring and stiff, it was actually fun and felt like something you were doing for yourself, like a spa treatment for your soul :) I guess you can tell that I loved it and I felt absolutely comfortable, even though - or maybe exactly because - we were almost the only white people in the church. I was constantly goshing over the fantastic voices, the atmosphere, the feeling of unity among the people. I will not convert but I will also definitely not forget this amazing experience.

That is why I would like to thank Valinda Littlefield for taking us with her to the service and for the not so quick lunch afterwards :) It has been an amazing Sunday and as of now it was the best day I've had on our trip.

Caro

PS: I guess this text is a little too emotional, but that's how I felt it ;)

 

The African American Religious Experience

The African American Religious Experience – talk given by Harry Singleton, Minister and Theologian, Professor for Religion at Benedict College, Columbia

When Harry Singleton, a minister and professor for religion, talked about the black religious experience, he mainly referred to the experience with Christianity. He said that the belief in God and the adaptation to Christianity was relative to survival and liberation.

But this religious experience was a very complex one. Although “white Christianity did not mean us to be humans, but was a means of social control of the slaves” – he says – the black experience had different understandings of God: the belief in God was important for liberation thoughts. But there were two strains of solution thought:

1. The priestly dimension, which meant that the solution to get out of slavery was divine.
2. The prophetic dimension, which was always in tension with the first one, says that “God calls us to engage with our lives”, that faith meant a commitment to change things. The prophetic dimension aimed to humanize black history.

Then he talked about the complex experience of Dr. Martin Luther King and the tension with his own Baptist congregation and the Black Baptist Convention.

In the discussion time we talked with Harry Singleton about the role of Churches in bonding experiences, the role of Islam (which he says implies a different experience, because it is seen as providing a more global and international connection than Christianity and as a “religion of protest that allows to fight for freedom”) and the roles of African based religious survivals (which he believes did not have any significant relevance in the struggle for freedom – but which might be arguable, since for example folk medicine and magical practices must have been important in the daily struggle, and there is evidence that many of these aspects survived to the present day).

Elisabeth Thiele