Pinckney National Historic Site on Long Point Road. At the start of this year, the com-
munity partnership specialist left his office at the Pinckney site to take on a new task for the Park Service. He’ll be studying the Reconstruction era in the South, “a time of turmoil,” according to Allen. But regardless of where his new journey takes him, Allen’s legacy will always be the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor.
*****
Kingstree, a town of barely more than 3,300 people, is around two- thirds African-American, accord- ing to the 2010 Census, so it’s no surprise that Allen was exposed as a child to what he called “Africanisms.” For example, his grandmother, an accomplished cook, used rice in a variety of ways, and he noticed that a neighbor was always sweeping the yard with a straw broom. At funerals, family members passed children over the casket before it was lowered into the ground.
“I saw these Africanisms, but I
really didn’t understand them until I reached adulthood,” he explained. South Carolina State provided the
fertile ground for this transformation. As a freshman, he was exposed to Dr. Peter Wood’s “Black Majority,” and, for Allen, reading the book was like flipping a light switch in his head. “I began to understand. I saw
myself. He told me who I was. He enlightened me to who I am as a per- son,” Allen said. He spent the next 37 years spread-
ing the word about how slaves and their descendants have helped shape American history.
***** Allen’s first assignment with the
Rice changed everything in the Southern colonies, and to produce
National Park Service was lead- ing tours and making presen- tations at Fort Sumter, where the Civil War began. He soon realized that in- formation about how African- Americans have made their mark on U.S. history was unavailable to visitors to the bookstore, while the museum ex- hibits at the fort didn’t even men- tion slavery or the role played by African-American soldiers.
Michael Allen and his wife, Latanya, rode on a float in President Barack Obama’s inauguration parade in January 2013 because his
research revealed that the first lady’s great-grandfather was a slave on Friendfield Plantation near Georgetown.
“I decided that either I’m out of place or the Park Service is out of touch,” Allen commented. He wasn’t able to make changes at
the fort right away, but, by the mid- 1990s, funding became available to remodel the museum. “We were given the opportunity to transform the museum, to make it more broad-based and engaging,” he said.
Allen had succeeded in his ef-
forts to tell the African-American story to visitors at Fort Sumter, but his greatest triumph, Te Gullah Geechie Cultural Heritage Corridor, was still a long way from reality. Te road ahead would run up and down the Southeast Coast, through the halls of Congress and to the desk of the president of the United States.
*****
the grain that later dominated Allen’s grandmother’s menu, slave labor was a necessity. Who better to work the fields than people who had been growing rice for generations in a climate and geographical setting that matched that of the Southeast Coast? Te people who were brought to
the New World as slaves from Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea- Bissau knew how to grow rice. Te terms Gullah and Geechee, accord- ing to Allen, are interchangeable and derive from the names of tribes in West Africa. Today, the footprint of their culture stretches about 30 miles inland from the Atlantic coast, from Pender County in North Carolina to Duval County in Florida. Te idea of establishing the Gullah Geechee National Historic Corridor – “to as- sist state and local governments and public and private entities in South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina and Florida in interpreting the story of the Gullah Geechee and preserving Gullah Geechee folklore, arts, crafts
50
www.OldVillageMountPleasant.com |
www.MountPleasantMagazine.com |
www.MountPleasantHomes.com
Photo provided by Michael Allen.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204