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The Curious Roots podcast digs deep in the living earth of our personal, familial and communal lives to help us understand how we exist in the world today. Though the format of the podcast may vary from season to season, be it narratives, one-on-one interviews or panel discussions, the root line is the same. What are the stories from our family and community histories that travel with us into the present? How do we understand and work with these histories as both individuals and as collectives to create the world of now and the future?
Season one of the podcast begins with the maternal story of my own curious roots, still buried, but breathing and holding fast in Harris Neck, Georgia. Each week, in six short form episodes, I’ll share the story of my mother’s people and how it informs my life today.
Curious Roots is hosted by Michelle McCrary and is co-produced by Moonshadow Productions and Converge Collaborative.
S2_EP1_Part 1 _Drft 2
Michelle Singing: [00:00:00]
Michelle McCrary: Welcome to Season 2 of Curious Roots. My name is Michelle McCrary, and I'm a descendant of the Gullah Geechee community of Harris Neck, Georgia. Welcome to Season 2 of Curious Roots. Through my maternal line, I'm connected to Harris Neck, and my grandmothers are Margaret Baisden White, Maddie Harris Baisden, Adella Grant Baisden, Katherine King Baisden, Elizabeth Cooper Grant, and Ethel Proctor Harris.
I'm kin to the Morans, Dunhams, Thorpes, Spauldings, and probably a few more. In season one, we unravel the story of Harris Neck, a thriving Gullah Geechee community destroyed by the venom of white supremacist jealousy and eminent domain. We told that story with a combination of my own personal archival audio and with the help of researcher and genealogist Terri Ward, who specializes in the histories of McIntosh County and the rest of coastal Georgia.
If you haven't listened to season one, I encourage you to go back and check out those episodes on Spotify, Apple, and wherever else you get your podcasts. This season, we have three episodes. two part episodes with some incredible people from the community, including two elders, Mr. Winston Relaford and Mr.
Griffin Lotson, and a fellow descendant from the community, Adolphus Armstrong, who is doing some amazing familial reconnection work through the help of DNA. Before we get to the interview, I want to acknowledge the passing of Ms. Josephine White of Hilton Head, South Carolina. Ms. Josephine spent her life holding on to her family's land in the historic community of Jonesville.
The land had been in the family for more than a century. Communities on St. Helena and Sapelo Island are continuing to fight the same fight that Ms. Josephine did in her life. trying to resist the invasive colonizing forces and their never ending quest to gobble up the land and erase the people. The kind of community disruption and destruction happens globally under a myriad of different circumstances, all with the same intended outcome, to remove people from their homelands and to exploit that land for the profit of a very few.
From Turtle Island to Palestine, it's all connected. Now I'm really happy to share with you my interview with Mr. Winston Relaford. I'm so honored to have shared a conversation with him. He's the chairman of the Harris Neck Land Trust and a son of Harris Neck. He and the Land Trust also collaborate with the African American Redress Network, a U.S. based transitional justice project whose mission is to co produce transformative efforts alongside communities to advance research and policymaking toward a more just society. Mr. Relaford and I sat down last July to talk about his family's deep roots in Harris Neck and the community's continuing struggle for justice.
Mr. Relaford's memories of Harris Neck beautifully recall the community's deep connection to the land and how the land nourished the echoes of indigenous West African fishing practices. I hope you enjoyed this interview. Thanks for listening.
Michelle McCrary: Mr. Relaford, I want to welcome you and thank you again so much for your time. I appreciate you. And, uh, I want to get this started by asking you, who are you and who are your people?
Winston Relaford: Well, Michelle, thank you for having me on. I'm, I'm delighted to be on with you today and hopefully I'll be able to share something with you that will be of importance and a value.
And so, uh, again, thank you. You and Pat as well. Now, uh, my name is Winston Relaford, and I am a direct descendant of Paris Knight. My mother was, uh, uh, Anna Lee Shaw, and she was the daughter of Charles Shaw, who was the, and she was the granddaughter of Mustapha Shaw. And so that is my connection. I'm also the, uh, great grandson of, uh, Justice of the Peace, or Judge Ed Lowe, as they call him, because my grandmother was Ed Lowe's, uh, daughter.
And so that's how I am connected to Harris Knack. And by the way, uh, excuse me, I, I'm also related to the, uh, to the grants. I'm also, uh, related to the Baisden, by the way, of, uh, Valencia, uh, who's Valencia McIntosh, but, uh, she was my grandmother's, uh, sister. And, uh, she, she was a Baisden. And, uh, so that is the other connection that I have.
So I'm deeply connected with Harris Neck.
Michelle McCrary: I love that you started there and I have so many questions about your connections and then my connections to you. Um, but I want to ask you, because most of the people who are listening to this and who will listen to this, they know of Harris Neck, um, through my connection to my grandmother, uh, the late Margaret Baisden White, um, and also to, um, Mr. Moran. and Miss Mary Moran and the listeners in the first season of the show were introduced to, uh, all three of those folks, including myself. So can you tell me the moment Or when you knew you were connected, um, to all these folks, uh, in Harris Neck.
Winston Relaford: Well, uh, that would be, uh, it would be difficult and it would be hard and easy at the same time because I've, I've known these folk from, uh, from the time I was, uh, Uh, a little child.
And of course, the connection was we, we lived in Riceboro, which is about 15 miles from Harris Neck. And we lived up on on Highway 17 in Riceboro. And, but My summers , and in fact, many times during the year, we would spend time in Harris Neck and I remembered Harris Neck and the connection we had because we would go to the different homes down there.
And I would remember my, my aunt Katie and her husband, Jesse, Jesse Grant and Katie Grant. Those were my, that was my mom's, uh, half sister. So we would go and visit them. And on the other, while we were there as kids growing up in the 50s, uh, we would go by, we used to call her Aunt Amelia. That's, that's what we, uh, didn't know the significance of it.
But, you know, she died when I was, uh, what, seven years old. Uh, but I remember as a child going by Aunt Amelia's house. Now I didn't know, uh, Cousin Culey. Uh, well, I knew of Cousin Culey at the time. I didn't know Wilson. Because, uh, I guess we were fairly close to the same age. However, I did know, uh, Cousin Culey.
We always remember that and I always remember coming by and seeing, uh, her and her referring to my grandmother as Cousin Mary. So that was the connection that we had, uh, with Harris Neck from an early age.
Michelle McCrary: It is so similar to my grandmother. Um, her father was Ed Howard Baisden, and her mother was Mattie Harris.
And her parents were separated. And when she went to Harris Neck, it was also during the summers, because I think when her parents split, um, they moved to Savannah. So it is so similar. And, um, just for those. For clarification for folks who remember season one, Cousin Culey is Miss Mary, and that was, uh, one of her nicknames.
And Aunt Amelia is Amelia Dawley, who folks will know, uh, as the carrier of the song from Sierra Leone. So this is how deep, I don't want folks to know the connection is, and I really appreciate you for, uh, laying that out. For people.
Winston Relaford: Oh, you're quite welcome. It's uh, we have a rich history and that that history uh, does go go deep and it's uh, I think it speaks to the resilience of uh, uh, and and the faithfulness of uh, Of a God who saw fit for us to be able to, uh, trace our roots all the way back to it's, uh, to the beginning.
And that was very exciting to me and particularly with The Language You Cry In that documentary that was done and also the fact that we Had people in our family with enough foresight to preserve certain things and that song was uh, it's an absolute treasure
Michelle McCrary: It really truly is and um My, my task from Mr. Moran was to memorize that song and I have been, you know, making my way to memorizing that song so I can pass it on to my daughter. Um, and, and you kind of bring up the community of Harris Neck and the foresight all of our ancestors had to just hold on to this connection to the continent. And I would love to know what are your Most vivid memories of Harris Neck, what do you remember about the community and, and, and what it was like and the, the sort of like energy and the things that would go on there?
Winston Relaford: Well, to a, to a small kid coming from, uh, off the road, uh, as they would, they would call it, we, we were up on Highway 17, so we, we lived on the road, and when we would go to Harris Neck, some of my most vivid memories is going down and, uh, And, and having, uh, one thing that I just never forgot was how my Aunt Valencia made me feel.
She always made me feel, uh, feel special, uh, when I came down there and she, uh, she would, uh, just give me, uh, you know, so much respect. And, uh, and paid attention to me, you know, for me, I'm from, I'm the oldest of 12 kids, so I, not that my mom didn't love me, but she didn't have time to sit there and stroke me every day.
So the legend did some stroking for me when I would go down there. And what I would remember about her is walking down that road, Sandy road, barefooted, walking through the yards. And of course the yards were always impeccably cleaned and, you know, And the interesting thing about at Valencia's house, she had her, her kitchen was not connected to the house, except through a breezeway and a, and an overhang, if you will, for lack of a better word, it was like a, uh, um, uh, a covering that went from the house to the, to the.
And it was always different because we would walk through there and she'd always have something for me. She'd give me something when I was there, but I found out later in life that that house was built on the same order that they were built in Sierra Leone, which is what I found when I went to Sierra Leone.
The houses are built. With the kitchens outside and then of course, I found out later that the reason they did that is because if the kitchen caught fire, then you had an opportunity to put it out before it caught the rest of the house on fire. And so the likelihood of a fire would be started in the kitchen.
And so that's, uh, I found that so interesting. And then when I went to Africa and then to see that the homes are built that way, even the very, very affluent homes are built with the kitchen away from the house. And that's, uh, I found that very interesting. The other interesting thing about Harris Neck was to go down and listen to uncle Jesse tell stories.
And, uh, in fact, I've got a recording of him. Hey, he must've talked with me to two hours or more, just talking about the different people in the Harris Neck community and who was there. And, and, um, and then he told me about my grand great grandfather, Ed Lowe. He told me about my great grandmother. Leticia, uh, Curry Moore.
And it just gave me a history on, on that. And also the, uh, told me we talked about our connections with the Mifflin's, uh, that were, that lived in Savannah and also the basins. And it was, uh, it was just an, it was historical for me just to sit and listen to the older people talk. And everybody was related down there.
Cousin, uh, uh, I always remember cousin Sonny, cousin Sonny Timmons. I remembered, uh, uh, cousin, uh, uh, uh, Campbell, um, uh, uh, his wife's name was Ethel, Ethel Campbell and, uh, that cousin. Then we had the older people that lived down behind the church in Harris Neck. There was a, uh, the first AB church and there were relatives that, that I don't recall their names now, but they lived down there.
I also remember the, uh, Uh, just, uh, Alonzo, uh, cousin Alonzo Thorpe, who lived down on the, on the river down that lane, with his daughter Maude and, and some of the, the others there. So they're, my memories of Harris Neck are very vivid on what they had. And I remember all the, the handmade boats that were there.
I remember, uh, the gardens. Everybody had a garden. And, uh, things were planted, uh, and they, they, they managed, uh, that way. And after, as I'm, after I became an adult, then I recognized the, uh, the independence that Harris Neck represented. So that was, uh, very, very, uh, Indicative of my grandmother, she carried that same kind of, uh, spirit and that same kind of, uh, of, uh, how should I say, the, the, that same counter tenacity of, of, of being independent and my grandmother was a fiercely independent woman.
And so those are the things that I remember of Harris Neck.
Michelle McCrary: I, I love that and I'm so glad that we're speaking and that I'm recording you speaking because a lot of my journey to understanding Harris Neck and the legacy and my ancestors was through recordings that I made and my grandmother made. So the recording of your uncle, Jesse, if you haven't digitized it, I would encourage you to digitize it and.
If I may be so bold, I would love to hear it, um, because I took the time to digitize all of the tapes that, um, my grandma Margaret made, um, you know, when she finally told me about Harris Neck and we, you know, our thing kind of turned into going down to the country, as she called it, and going to speak to folks.
And I got to speak to cousin Evelyn Greer, and That was one of my favorite conversations. And just like I try not to mourn the elders, uh, that I missed.
Winston Relaford: Right. Right. And Evelyn is, Evelyn is one of those that I miss dearly because I worked hand in hand with her, uh, with the Harris Neck Land Trust. And she was, uh, she was a wealth of information, but, uh, I love her fierce independence and I loved her, her, uh, don't quit attitude.
And that, uh, that was Evelyn. You could always expect her to give you an encouraging word about, uh, not giving up, not, not stopping and, uh, and keeping the movement alive and doing, doing for ourselves those things that we, uh, tend to want to assign to other people to do. She was very adamant about that.
Which, uh, brings about that, uh, independent spirit of the people of Harris Neck, and, you know, which leads me to another part, uh, Michelle, if I may, uh, there was, uh, the Harris Neck people were fiercely independent, and, uh, uh, talked about it in, in terms of them being, uh, so independent that they were a threat to the, uh, Uh, to the white community and, uh, you know, which would bring a part of our history.
Uh, uh, it would bring to bear on us something that we didn't really didn't expect. And, and, uh, and it puts us in a, where we are today because of that independence. And so, yes, we were fish independent. We were boat makers. We were net makers. We were, in fact, one of the things that we used to always do. I remember my dad always, uh, purchased his nets from Aunt Valencia.
And Valencia made, uh, cast nets. And, uh, that was one of the things that we, we use. That was one of the tools we use for fishing. And I was a small kid. I was too small to throw the net, but I was, uh, you know, I watched my dad throw it. Until I was, uh, large, big enough to throw it myself. But, uh, and I always bought his net from Aunt Valencia.
A lot of people bought nets from Aunt Valencia. And it was the independence there. And just getting in the river, uh, going out and, you know, getting oysters. Going in the river and cast netting for shrimp, going in the river, cast netting for fish, going in the river to, uh, to hunt, you know, we hunted the river.
So, we, the river was the, the lifeblood to Harris Neck and they didn't have to leave the, leave Harris Neck or very much. It was, uh, it was all there, you know, they had to go in and get grain, you know, grits and, and sugar and, and things of that nature. The staples they would get, but for the most part, they were self sufficient.
Michelle McCrary: And that's what I got when I spoke with cousin Evelyn. And I remember That day, my grandmother brought a recorder that she forgot to put the batteries in and we didn't have a, a cord for it. Cause it was back in the days of cassette players. And so I literally everything that Ms. Evelyn told us, I wrote it all down by hand and I still have those notes.
And I, I remember her telling me about, um, you know, after 1942, she, I guess when she was a little bit older, she wound up going out to California and working out to Cal, going out to California to work all by herself. And I just remember like, just thinking how cool she was for that. And just, you know, I have a real interest in, um, You know, just history, but especially black history and the history of black folks in California is so amazing.
And to know that she was there at that time when it was so rich, um, it makes me, it makes me smile all the time. And so I just, you know, you're talking about, um, this fierce independence and. The fierce independence is a threat to the white community, and it's reminding me of so many other incidents in history, you know, particularly the red summer, all of the removals, um, across the country of thriving black communities.
Can you just talk about, from the, the community's perspective, or at least in your perspective, you know, being a part of the community, why, I can't make sense of white folks and their motivation, but what is it, do you think, really caused the The sort of attention to Harris Neck and the really, it seems like a real concerted effort to just to remove the community and displace it.
Um, because I remember reading in an essence article about the first movement in the seventies that there were several other places around Harris Neck that were available for the federal government for the army to put this airfield, they chose Harris Neck. Can you talk a little bit about, sort of like, what was the lead up to that and why, when they had other space available, did [they just choose to target Harris Neck?
Winston Relaford: Well, I think, uh, you, you, You made a point early on and you said that it was a concentrated a concerted effort to, uh, to target, uh, us in the at that time. Again, the I think the independence and not needing them and we weren't subject to the. Uh, to the whims of the, the powers that be, uh, we, we had too much independence.
Now, the thing that we, I think may have already been said, but I think it bears repeating the, the person that was there was, uh, E. M. Thorpe. He owned, uh, probably more land on Harris Neck than anybody, but he didn't live on Harris Neck. So many of the people there would either owe him money or Or they, you know, they, or if they did, they, they may have borrowed money from him.
But I was looking over some of the documents that we looked at, uh, uh, many from, it, it, it all appears that, uh, in the taking of the land in 1942, E. M. Thorpe had 3, 500 acres just up the road. which was far more suitable for an airfield than Harris Neck would have been. So, our suspicions are that E. M. Thorpe, in order to break up the independence and create a dependent society out of Harris Neck, was to lead the government officials down on the land search.
And he drove them right past his 3, 500 acres. And he took on the Harris Neck community, which consisted of 2, 687 acres. And when he, he took them down to that and the irony of it all, Michelle, is that the ground was really not suitable for what they wanted it for. So they had, they pretty soon abandoned those plans because it just, uh, the land was not suitable.
It wasn't stable enough to handle the taking off, taking off and landing of aircraft, uh, in, in that area. So it was never used for the intended purpose. E.M. Thorpe got his wishes because now he's uprooted an entire group of people and moved them off the property. And, uh, And his 3, 500 acres off is still intact.
And he got preferential treatment because he got to keep his waterfront property down there. So they managed to carve out a waterfront property for him down at Harris Neck. And, uh, and of course everybody else had to leave. So that was the irony of it all. You know, we can call it whatever we want, or we can name it and call, call different things.
But, uh, uh, at this stage of my life, you know, the reason for that may. I don't know that it's, uh, germane our situation other than to, to just identify it and not let it govern us. In other words, we can call it, uh, you know, we can call it racism, we can call it prejudice, we can call it, uh, bigotry. Uh, but that, uh, is indeed, uh, what happened, uh, to our people.
And I often listen to Wilson Moran when he talks about it and when we walk into the cemetery, you can see a number of people that died shortly after that, the taking, because, and we can only surmise that they died of a broken heart because of the promise to get the land back and we didn't get it back and those, uh, it was passed on to the, uh, So what does that do for the people?
You know, you, you expect to go back to something that you know and love. You know, my, my grand, my great grandfather, Edward Lowe had, uh, you know, he had 40 acres, uh, there. And, uh, of course my uncle Julius had, uh, had a, had a small piece of land there. And there were several other family members that lost land in that transaction.
So, yeah, it was, uh. It was, it was very, it was a very difficult time for the people of Harris Neck, and then when it comes to the struggle of getting it back, we've been met with many obstacles since, since that all, that all happened. And I guess if I had to just to, to, to leapfrog just a little bit and, and, and talk to you about the special nature of Harris Neck that I think people ought to know, and that is Harris Neck has a direct connection back to the village in Sierra Leone, the village of Senehun Ngola.
That village is the very village that brought our, uh, slave ancestor to the East coast of the United States, uh, probably through the Port of Savannah. And then onto Harris Neck at the Delegal plantation. And so that was the grandmother of Mustapha Shaw. We didn't know her name, but you know, she had a daughter by the name of Catherine and Catherine gave birth to Mustapha.
And of course, Mustapha is the father of, uh, Charles Shaw, and he's also the, uh, the, the father of Amelia, uh, Shaw, Dawley, uh, and that was the grandmother of, uh, Cousin Culey. And then of course, uh, the, the grandfather of mine is Charles Shaw. So Amelia and Charles were sisters and brothers, and, uh, of course that makes, uh, Cousin Culey and I cousins.
Michelle McCrary: I'm so glad, um, you framed it in that way. Um, when you're talking about the motivations for me, what I've come to understand about the motivations of acts like that, um, I feel like there's a, it's almost a jealousy. And then there's also like a lack of connection to land and spirit that I feel like people in Harris Neck have.
And indigenous people have and understand that the land is so much more than something that you own, buy, and sell. Like it's, it's not that. And I think. When your spirit is so corrupted and you haven't healed your own cultural wounds that you take that out on other people and I see that act against Harris Neck as, um, you know, that sort of exercise. And yeah,
Winston Relaford: I totally agree with you and the other thing that I found fascinating in, uh, in reading the, the book on, uh, some excerpts from a book on, on Mustapha Shaw and, you know, Mustapha, when he mustered out of the military, uh, and, and he, and he came back, you know, when, uh, Uh, when General Sherman, uh, gave, uh, Field Order 15, where he gave all of the land to, uh, to the blacks along the coast.
Well, uh, Mustapha had his 40 acres and everything out on Asaba Island, and so that, uh, Within itself created a certain aAunt of independence, but even before that, I think the independent spirit, [00:31:00] uh, for the, uh, for the black slaves and, uh, that grew the rice and lived in the barrier islands of the United States.
Uh, it, it fostered a certain aAunt of, uh, independence and entrepreneurship, uh, that, uh, that others did not have because of the, the malaria, the, the threat for the white population of malaria, and they didn't have a resistance and the people coming from Africa did have the resistance to malaria. And so they were left.
Pretty much, uh, uh, to run their own lives. They had a certain quota to make in terms of, uh, the work that they did. And then afterwards they would, uh, plant their own gardens. They could plant, they sell their own stuff and that they were pretty much left alone. And then when you start reading the accounts of, uh, Mustapha Shaw, when they came after him, uh, they did not like him, but.
And he, he resisted. He fought against them when they came to, uh, uh, to arrest him. And I'm reminded of the letter that I'm looking at that looked at that, uh, the, the arrest warrant and the, uh, uh, uh, The guy from the Freedmen's Bureau, uh, gave the overseer, you know, who would come in at certain times and, and kind of police things and gave him the order to, uh, arrest Mustapha Shaw.
And I told him, he says, and this time failure is not an option. So you either bring him in or we, we're going to do something else. So, and Mustapha was bound to determine that he was not going to go away peacefully. And of course, uh, as, uh, as stories would have it, he had to leave Ossabaw Island in the, in the dark of night in order to get away from the vigilante that this vigilante that they sent after him.
So fiercely independent, yes. Uh, bold, yes. determined, yes, all of those things, uh, depicts the character of the people of Harris Neck. And of course, since that time, we, you know, uh, people in Harris Neck, there've been many, many things that have been done through the people of Harris Neck, you know, and they've made a great contribution to this, uh, to this country.
Michelle McCrary: Oh, for. Uh, coming back to Mustapha Shaw, I just posted a special bonus episode with Terri Ward and we talk about him in a little more detail because a lot of people are fascinated by him and he is fascinating and that fighting spirit and that spirit of Never giving up. I really, really, you know, see that in my own family and I see, I wish I had more of it in myself, but I do, I do see it.
Um, and just the way that I live my life. Now, I don't like being dependent on anything or anyone. I don't like People telling me what to do and I certainly don't like, um, toiling for other people and not making, you know, The, the, you know, not being able to bear the fruits of my own labor.
Winston Relaford: That's exactly right.And, and I think we were kindred spirits in that because all of my, my entire career. In fact, since 1981 I've never had, I never punched a time clock for anybody I've been self employed. And part of that was in commission selling for, uh, Since 1981, I've just not touched a clock. I've just, I've worked and, and, and my attitude was that, uh, if I'm to eat, then, uh, I'm gonna, I'll, I'll get it done.
I didn't depend on anybody else, didn't want to depend on anybody else, and didn't need to depend on anybody else. So yeah, that's, and you've got enough of that in you, you just have to be determined that you're not going to, you know, you may go into a fight, not sure that you're going to win, but you can just go in and determine not to lose.
And that, that's my attitude toward it and, and, and my history. And with my, with my family when I look at the people in our family, they lived off, they lived off the land, and they made a living off the land. Many of them put kids through school, uh, or what seemed to be a meager, uh, uh, existence. It would turn out to be a very rich existence.
Michelle McCrary: Thank you so much for listening to Curious Roots. Part two of my interview with Winston Relaford will be up next. Next week, learn more about Harris Neck at harrisnecklandtrust.org and find out more about their work with the African American Redress network at redress network. org. Learn more about black coastal communities from North Carolina to Florida at Gullah Geechee Corridor dot org. You can support Gullah Geechee communities on St. Helena and Sapelo Islands by following Protect St. Helena at Protect St. Helena dot com and Saving Our Legacy Ourself Solo at Saving Our Legacy Ourself dot org. All links are in our show notes. Thanks to Mr. Winston Relaford for his generosity and his dedication to the Harris Neck movement.
Thank you to my relatives who are now with the ancestors, Ms. Mary Moran, Cousin Evelyn Greer, Cousin Bob Thorpe, Cousin Chester Dunham, my father, Rodney Clark, my grandfather, Rufus White, and my grandmother, Margaret Baisden White. You can rate, Review and subscribe to Curious Roots on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
You can also listen to episodes on our website, CuriousRootsPod. com. Season 2 of Curious Roots is produced by Moonshadow Productions and with the generous support of Converge Collaborative. Thank you so much for listening.
music: Africa, Africa, Africa.[00:38:00]
Transcription by ESO.