"FINDING OUR WAY"

 “FINDING OUR WAY”

We are at the end of our annual beach trip, usually to Tybee Island near Savannah.  We like Tybee because it is relatively undeveloped and still a bit funky, and it is also not a bad drive from Atlanta.  It is also the place where the Savannah River meets the Atlantic Ocean, and it is always moving to watch those two powerful bodies of water meet, flowing in opposite directions, then meeting with a clash, then becoming one, as the ocean takes over the river.

On one of our days here, we met our long-time friend Pat Hiott-Mason, her daughter Susan and granddaughter Mary, for lunch on John’s Island, South Carolina.  Pat was the original semi-matchmaker for Caroline and me, so we are always glad to see her – and we got to meet teen-ager Mary for the first time!  On the way back from that lunch, we crossed over the Combahee River on the Harriet Tubman Memorial Bridge, where there is a small historical marker that notes that this is the place where Harriet Tubman led Union troops to free over 700 enslaved people.  Tubman had been doing spy work in the surrounding plantations, letting enslaved people know that an opportunity for freedom was coming. In early June, 1863, she led several boats of mostly Black Union troops up the Combahee River, and when the larger Union ship blew its whistle, those who were enslaved came running out of the woods.  Out they came, and off they went.  The historical marker on Highway 17 downplays her role in the venture, though it does note that she was a part of it.  

Given the magnitude and complexity of this operation – it took a lot of planning and espionage work on Tubman’s behalf, and it struck a deep blow in the white enslavers’ hearts – we were surprised that this site is not better marked or celebrated.  Yet, we have to remember that it is located in South Carolina, the place where the first shots of the enslaver’s rebellion were fired in the Civil War and the place where the longing for the return to neo-slavery is still deep and powerful.  So, perhaps I should be grateful that it is even marked at all.  And, that date in June, 1863, marked an important month in the Civil War – Tubman’s raid, Vicksburg falling to the Union, Gettysburg in early July, and of course my hometown of Helena, Arkansas surrendering to Union troops on the same day as Vicksburg.

On the other end, we made a visit to Savannah the next day and found the Green-Meldrim House on Macon Street, where General William Sherman made his headquarters as he made his march to the sea, delivering Savannah as a Christmas present to President Lincoln in 1864.  In January, 1865, Sherman met with Black ministers and leaders in the Green-Meldrin House to hear their suggestions on how to implement freedom for the formerly enslaved people.  Out of this discussion came his Special Field Order 15, which confiscated land from the rebels and gave it to the newly freed people whose forced labor had built up the wealth of the Southern rebels.  President Lincoln had sent down Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to help facilitate the deal, and both had approved Special Field Order 15, which became known as “Forty Acres and a Mule.” 

    It confiscated lands mostly in South Carolina and Georgia, and it began to be implemented as the Union troops marched up through the Carolinas.  In one of the great tragedies of American history, after President Lincoln was assassinated, his successor President Andrew Johnson rescinded Special Field Order 15, returning most of the lands to the enslavers and their families.  Out of this failure came the neo-slavery that replaced slavery in the South until 1965.

    Though there are many wonderings in our history, this is one of the main ones.  Will we ever acknowledge the deadly cost of slavery and neo-slavery?  Will we ever acknowledge how much American wealth was built on the backs of the forced, unpaid labor of slavery?  Will we ever acknowledge our theft of the land from the indigenous people who lived here?  As we made our travels through this history-rich land on our beach trip this week, we thought of these questions and of the attempt of the current administration to “whitewash” this history, to take us back to the 1850’s when everyone knew that white men should rule the land and everything.  Until we have this kind of reckoning, we will never find our way.