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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.
Archival Audio
Miss Mary Moran: Rayfield's my oldest son.
Michelle McCrary: I knew we were all related somehow.
Margaret Baisden White: You know, that's another thing I never, cause I really
didn't, haven't found out on whose side that Bob and I are related. Whether it
was my grandmother or the Baisdens, you know. Or, or how the, you know, the
Proctors, or Eliza Baisden, Baisden, Uh huh. Okay, so it comes, so I'm related to
the thoughts from the Baisden side then?
Miss Mary Moran: From the Baisdens.
Margaret Baisden White: Okay. Cause I didn't know, I knew it had to be either
Baisdens or Proctors. That's right. And, and Chester? Chester Dunham. Baisden.
I thought, but just seemed like I was leaning towards my mother. My grandma
dad said, which did I come in with? But everybody on Harris neck wasn't really
here. Everybody, everybody was everybody else, you know, because, and
everybody, you know, people are dumbfounded when I said, and Aunt Gladys
was a blood relative.
Yeah. And Uncle Richard was a blood relative. And they said, what did they do?
Married? I said no. And Gladys was my aunt from my father's side. And Uncle
Richard is my uncle from my grandfather's side. Right. So Uncle Richard was
my grandfather, and Gladys was my aunt. That's right. So, I mean, and they look
at me like, um.
I would say it was something else. Yeah, I don't think there was a person out
here that wasn't related to the other person in some way or fashion. But, uh, it
was just. But there was just a whole bunch of, and everybody's a cousin. Yeah,
and everybody was out here together. It was just, there wasn't any outsiders.
Miss Mary Moran: Right. They were among themselves.
Michelle McCrary: Do you remember when the government first came in
here?
Miss Mary Moran: Oh yeah, back in 1942. What'd they tell you? I was 19
years old. What'd they tell you when they first got out here? Well, I remember
this man came by our house, and his name was Bado Dean He was a white
man.
And he had a big paper, and he said that, uh, we had to be out there by, we had
two weeks notice. And we had to be out there by the 27th of, uh, July. Because
they were gonna burn us out. They did burn Evelyn and her mother’s house. By,
you know, by being slow. He just was dumbfounded and didn't give him but two
weeks.
And people had to get all them things together. Evelyn's the one she got, ran on
her mother. Went back in there to get some more things. The chicken was flying
all in the woods, falling from the fire. Yes, they did. Government will offer
nothing and what they did offer was nothing. But they didn't give you time to
leave.
That's right. They didn't give us for seven dollars an acre. Those who got paid.
Those who got paid. Some of them people, like, um, Who was it? Uh, Some of
them were Dunhams. They didn't get no money for it. They lived away. and they
just took it more close. The governor just take it.
Margaret Baisden White:, I know my grandmother, I remember one day she
came over to the house and she said she had to go, come out here. Because she
had to sign some papers to get the few dollars that they were gonna give her for
her mother, her her mother and, and, and father. Yeah. Right. And, and she, um,
she came, I think she came back with a deed. I don't, I don't know, uh, what
happened. But she had, uh, a deed. Because it had, um, her name, and it had my
mother's name.
That was the only place, I think, besides my mother's, um, marriage license and
birth certificate, that had her real name on it. And it had Little Willie's name on
it and I was coming to meet little Willie.
Miss Mary Moran:,He's dead too. Yeah. That was the day of his son. Yeah. Did
you know Cleophus? Cleophus Spencer? Did he live down there? Yeah, yeah,
he lived down there. Yeah, he died a real long time ago.
Michelle McCrary: Welcome to Curious Roots. I'm Michelle McCrary. Before
we hop into the final episode and the second part of our interview with Mr.
Griffin Lotson, I wanted to come back to a thread that I neglected in the
previous episode. When Mr. Lotson was speaking about Kumbaya and the way
that he made the connection to that song, and a man named Henry Wiley, who is
from Darien, Georgia, he mentioned that he listened to the song in a home that
he purchased, which formerly belonged to a Miss Jane.
He said a Miss Jane from Drums and Shadows. Now, Drums and Shadows, if
you don't know, is a book that was done by the Georgia Federal Writers Project
and the full name is Drums and Shadows Survival Studies Among the Georgia
Coastal Negroes. And this book was a huge source for so many researchers and
also many, many writers, specifically Black women writers like Toni Morrison,
um, Polly Marshall.
They found all of this information about Gullah Geechee people from this
Federal Writers Project and they wrote amazing works, um, The most famous
I'm sure you know is Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon and she got inspiration
directly from this book. So That is what Mr. Lotson was talking about. So, of
course, I had to scootaloot over and get my copy I actually have two copies and
I Went into the book and started looking for Miss Jane.
I was like, where is Miss Jane, Miss Jane? And as I was going through the book,
I came to the chapter about Harris Neck. And funny little story about the chapter
on Harris Neck, all my people, most of my people, are in this chapter, including
Um, Isaac Basiden Jr., who is my second great grandfather, I believe, and they
have a description of him, and I'll read a little bit of that for you:
It says, Later that day, we stopped at a neat whitewash cottage and talked for a
while with Isaac Baisden, a blind basket maker about 60 years of age. The old
man had learned his trade in his youth before he had gone blind and now
supported himself comfortably in this manner.
So they talk about, um, speaking to Isaac Baisden and they also talk to, uh, Rosa
Sallins, who was Rosa Baisden, who's also another, uh, relative and ancestor.
And she talks about the fact that she is, uh, kin to Liza Baisden, and Liza
Baisden is Anna Liza Baisden, who married the Queen. Joe Baisden. Joe
Baisden was the son of Mark and Catherine Baisden. And Mark and Catherine
are my fifth great grandparents. And Annaeliza Baisden, Thorpe married Joe
Baisden, so they talked to Annaeliza, and then they also mentioned, um, a
woman called Catherine Baisden.
They refer to her as the late Catherine Baisden, and they talk about her as a
leader in the community, and that is my fifth great grandmother, Catherine
Baisden, and from this book, I found out that she was a midwife and she
brought over a lot of traditional knowledge from West Africa about midwifery
and medicine.
And so. That was a very, very cool, uh, sidetrack to come back to because I, I
haven't, I mentioned this book I think in season one, but I don't think I went into
great detail other than mentioning that Baisden’s were in it, but, um, those are
the Baisdens who are mentioned in it. And there are some other folks in here
that I found in, um, My travels when I got sidetracked, uh, because the first
person they actually talked to when they go to Harris Neck is one Ed Thorpe.
And if you remember from, uh, Our interview with Adolphus Armstrong, and
I've mentioned it many times on this podcast, that my grandmother's great
grandmother, Effie Proctor, was not a Proctor, but a Thorpe. And her dad was
allegedly old man Ed Thorpe. So I'm thinking that in this book, this is who
they're describing.
So I'll read a little bit of that. The first house we stopped at was that of Ed
Thorpe, a familiar and well liked character in the section. A small, neatly
inscribed placard placed near the gate bore the owner's name. The attractive
house was set well back from the road in a large grove of oak trees, a
whitewashed fence Did the property.
The old man who is 83 years old was working in the side yard adjoining the
house. His broad shoulders and his bright alert eyes made him appear to be
much younger than his actual age. He told us proudly that he had lived in this
particular house for 25 years. He apologized because his present circumstances
preventing him from having the house fence repainted.
So playa, playa. Ed Thorpe was a very young 83, um, a young looking 83. So
this, uh, might be Effie's father, um, described here. So, um, Getting back to
Miss Jane and getting back to, uh, the connection that, uh, Mr. Lotson made and
opened up this massive digression on my part. Um, Miss Jane turns out to be
Auntie Jane Lewis, who is in the Darien section of the book. And at the time, in
about 1940, Miss Jane says she's about 115 years old. She shares a story that
she's originally from North Carolina and a man named Robert Toodle who was
a human trafficker who enslaved her and sold her down to Georgia when she
was 21. So she's 21 years old.
She's trafficked. down to Georgia, and she is bought by another enslaver and
trafficker named Hugh, Huger Barrett, and he owned a plantation called
Picayune Plantation. So Miss Jane, uh, that Mr. Lotson refers to, in whose house
he made this connection about Kumbaya. was Miss Jane Lewis of Darien,
Georgia
So I just thought that was such a cool connection and I wanted to share it with
you. And now, since I have digressed very far down the history rabbit hole, I
want to have you enjoy The second half of our interview with Mr. Griffin
Lotson. Thank you so much for listening If you haven't listened to all of season
two, you can now listen to it on the Curious Roots website as well Curious
Roots pod.com All of the episodes for season two have a little player and you
can listen to the episodes right on my website so if you don't do the podcast
player thing or you don't do Apple or Spotify or iHeartRadio. You can listen to
Curious Roots on the website, CuriousRootsPod. com. Thank you again for
listening to Curious Roots.
H. Wylie Singing: Somebody needs you Lord Kambaya. Somebody needs you
Lord Kambaya. Oh Lord Kambaya. I need you Lord Kambaya. And I'll need
you Lord Kambaya. And I need you lord Kambaya Oh, lord Kambaya
Kambaya, Kambaya, Kambaya my lord Kambaya Kambaya my lord Kambaya
Oh, lord Kambaya In the mornin dillard, come by ya, In the mornin mornin
come by ya, In the mornin dillard, come by ya, O Lord, come by ya.
O Lord, come by ya, In the mornin dillard, come by ya, In the mornin dillard,
come by ya.
Griffin Lotson: Come and his words was come by. Yeah. And he said his name,
the Library of Congress, and nobody in the world knew what his name was.
They said H. Wiley. They didn't know where he was from, because they said it
was recorded maybe somewhere near Darien, Georgia. At the end, Robert
Winslow Gordon, uh, the gentleman that recorded and became the folklorist of
the Library of Congress, in my closing with that, he recorded and let him talk,
as he did with some of the other Gullah Geechees and African American, and
say their name and where they're from.
I listened to it. After almost a hundred years, I listened. Ninety years for sure,
and I'm like, I know what his name is. His name is Henry Wiley. I'm Henry
Wiley. I know where he's from, Darien, Georgia. What happened, the mistake
they made, they had their interpreters, but the interpreters did not know the
dialect.
I was birthed a Gullah Geechee. All I did, my claim to fame is, I just listened to
it and I understood the words. Now, I could say things and make it sound
sophisticated, and I did all of this to impress people, but I'd rather tell the truth. I
just listened. And I'm like, his name is Henry Wiley, why they don't have that
written down anywhere?
I Library of Congress don't have it, it's nowhere in the world. They say H.
Wiley, his name is Henry Wiley. He said where he's from, there in Georgia. But
he said it in the dialect, that patois, okay? That Creole. And it was simple, any
other Gullah Geechee could have listened to it. They did not allow any other
Gullah Geechees to listen to it.
Until I got my hands on it. And as they said, arrest, arrest, arrest. is history. Uh,
you can go to Sweden and in the Sweden dialect, I'm interviewing for Sweden.
You can go to London, England. I'm interviewing about the Kumbaya. So it
went worldwide on that history. And I'm grateful that God allowed me. I'm just
hoping someone else can find more information about that song later after my
days are over with.
Michelle McCrary: Thank you. Thank you for your work on that. And, and
thank you for sharing that story. And you mentioned that when the Gullah
Geechee Ring Shouters sang that song, you went viral and got three million hits.
Can you tell folks who may not know a little bit about the tradition of the ring
shout and how you got involved as the manager of the Gullah Geechee Ring
Shouters?
Griffin Lotson: Yes. Okay. I'll start in the beginning. The year was, and I'm
only fuzzy for one reason. I was busy working in my nonprofit because I always
wanted to do humanitarian work. And, uh, we had built our, uh, apartment
complex, uh, there. And, uh, so I was busy taking care of my nonprofit work.
And one of them came, the group came to me and asked me, would I manage a
lady by the name of Miss Marjorie, uh, Washington.
Uh, another lady by the name of, uh, Joanne Wallow, uh, uh, uh, Ross and I
mentioned the Ross and Major Butler, Washington because Major Butler,
Washington is tied into the Butler plantation, which most know as one of the
largest slave trade in America's history. Uh, the Wall Tower came from Liberty
County, from a wall tower plantation, and she did her research.
So they came to me and a few of the other members and asked me would I
manage. I'm extremely busy. Uh, but I love my culture. And I said, well, you
know, I'll try. But anybody that know me, if If I get involved in something, I
kind of go kind of all out. And that's how I got involved with the ring shot is the
year was 2003, 2004.
Uh, I think it was the latter part of 2003 to be more accurate, but of course I did
not know we would go into international back in 2003. So I didn't write the date
down, but I know it was 2003, 2004, that's for sure. Now. I got involved in that.
And of course, I knew a little bit about it because the first person I ever saw
doing the shout was my grandfather, Nelson Sam.
Uh, he was birthed in 18 94 and I saw him shouting in the 19 sixties when I was
young and it fascinated me. What is he doing? Jumping and shouting and
dancing. I didn't understand that. But, uh, that's what he did. And he had a praise
house and saw us on the ground and the old board slapped with the outhouse on
the outside of the church.
So that was my first experience. Then later in life, uh, I got a chance to see the
ring shout. It was only three famous ring shot groups, uh, then and still is now.
You had the Sea Island singers. Uh, they were very famous. And they're the
ones, uh, through Frankie Quimby, I believe it was, that introduced, uh, uh, very
famous, uh, individual that were doing writing and research about the Mcintosh
County Shouters, which was in Bolton area.
And, uh, and from them, members of the Mcintosh County Shouters spinned off
into what we call now the Gullah Geechee Ring Shouters. And all three groups
are well known, carrying on the tradition. My hope is that others will, because
we are getting older now and we're dying off. So I'm hoping other groups, so I
spend a lot of my time training people, New York City.
Florida, uh, can you believe it? The movie roots are trained professional dancers
there. I'm going to California, December or January and training some people
there. So the tradition of the ring shouting, I say this all the time when we
perform about 80 to 85 percent of the time, I say we're the only culture that have
his birth out of something called slavery.
Uh, the. Ring shout was conceived in Africa. And I say it that way because It
was not called ring shout in Africa. It was called by another name. Uh, in the
Caribbean, it's called the big drum dance of music. Uh, in other parts of the
world, the Easter rock, if you go to Louisiana in the Bahamas, it's called the
rush, but here in America from the plantation, it is called the ring shout, but it
was the African tradition Uh, that we turn in that counterclockwise circle, we
brought it to America, and we practice it on the plantation, along with the King's
language now, the English.
So we kept some of our traditions and mingling in with the new church that we
were in, which is the Christian religion. We never abandoned it. Uh, we kept
some of those traditions. So the ring shout was birthed on the plantation. Well,
we do that counterclockwise that special polyrhythmic beat came from Africa,
but we keep that alive and we never change it for love or money.
And that's what I told the movie Roots. I would have worked for free, but they
gave me a lot of money. And I told the director and I said, look, I'm going to be
honest. You might want to hire someone else, sir. If you're going to change that
polyrhythmic beat. And you don't want to do the counterclockwise movement.
Now, keep in mind, I really wanted this job and it was wow. Movie new movies,
right in 2016. And in my closing, I said, well, he might fire me. He didn't, but I
wanted everybody to know from then up until now. I won't sell out my culture,
not for love or money. If you want to know about the ring shout, I can teach
that.
I can give you the history, but don't change it. Once you have learned it, keep
that change. Anything else you want, keep it. If it's all possible. So that's a little
bit about the history of the ring shout again. I can talk another two or three
hours on that.
Michelle McCrary: Thank you. I know you could, and I appreciate all of this
and, and all of this work, because if it wasn't for you, um, you know, and miss
people like you and Mr. Moran, we would not even be able to hang on to this.
And I'm going to say. Let's skip over something because you bring up all of this
culture and you bring up all of these traditions and most folks know traditions,
culture, language are all always tied to um, place and there are a lot of things
happening on Sapelo and on, and St.Helena, uh, where folks Folks in the Gullah
Geechee community are having a real hard time hanging on to their land. Can
you talk a little bit about what's going on and how that connects to, um, sort of
the jeopardy of holding onto these traditions and having places where people
can go and, you know, reconnect with the land and also with these traditions?
Griffin Lotson: Yes, it's, it's a huge struggle, as you said, and right now we're at
a crossroads, uh, when it comes to cultural land, cultural traditions, grateful for
the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Commission, grateful to all of those boots
on the ground that may not be a commissioner as I am, but they're carrying on
the tradition.
Uh, I would say more than I do in certain arenas. Uh, I got my training, uh,
from a Jerome Dixon from, uh, Sapelo. We were at Geechee Gullah, uh, in
Riceboro. And Craig and a few others, uh, master, uh, basket makers. Now,
Yvonne Grosvenor from, uh, Sapelo Island, uh, area, Bolden area, master basket
making. I got her basket.
On the presidential float because I was on the commission. So I'm in a position
of power to request and get some of our art and culture on the presidential float
for president Obama, first inauguration. We did that. Uh, so, uh, the land, if we
do not have the land, we cannot carry on these traditions. Uh, and people are
moving away.
Uh, I moved away because you couldn't get jobs. And of course, if I move the
way, uh, even if my parents had land, they want to give most people, once they
move away, a lot of them don't want to come back. I'm a little above average. I
came back long before retirement age. Thank God I survived. So you have a lot
of that.
And a lot of those individuals that live in these communities and on these
islands, they move away because of lack of, uh, income. And, uh, once they
move on after so many decades. difficult. I'll start from within and then I'll go to
the without. Um, I used this phrase and did not know a opera would come out of
it.
I met with some individuals. I didn't even know they were that important. Uh,
one was a, uh, Pulitzer Prize poet. Uh, also wind up being the, um, poet Lord of
the United States of America. Uh, Tracy K Smith, uh, and orchestra director, uh,
the president of the Ohio. Uh, uh, symphony, uh, uh, uh, where they, where they
have these things at.
Uh, and, uh, I just talked with them and I gave this scenario and I'm going to
say it to you. Uh, what are you going to do? You live in New York city. You're
four months behind in your house notes. How's no so expensive up there. Okay.
Uh, it's tens of thousands of dollars. Uh, your child's been in school for four
years, getting ready and more because they're getting ready to get their
doctorate.
You'll spend most of your money trying to help your child to graduate from
college because a lot of parents did not graduate from college, but they want
their children to graduate. So you did all the right things. And they are 80, 000
behind in their tuition. You have 15, 000 behind in your house. Note, you have
four acres of land on Sapelo or where I live in Darien, Georgia, that's worth a
King's ransom.
What are you going to do? We all know the answer to that. You have four acres.
You don't live there. You don't need it immediately right now. All four acres.
You're going to sell at least one acre so your child can graduate with their
doctorate to go to be successful. You're going to save your house in New York
because you've got about a quarter of a million dollars plus in equity in that
house.
Now the reason why it's easy for you to sell it now, I talk too emotional with
this, that land that one acre is, you didn't buy it in the first place. You're Your
parents didn't buy it. Your great grandparents or your great grandparents
purchased it. So you don't have the same thought there. He didn't pay anything
for it.
Why am I keeping this? And I'm about to be evicted and my child would not
graduate. Those are tough decisions, tough decisions. And from that phrase,
they actually did an opera. And my mind went blank a little bit, but it was the
Cincinnati Opera House, the director. And they took that story. and made an
opera out of it.
I traveled there to see that opera and wow, did not know it was going to turn
into a life changing thing where other people outside of the Gullah Geechee
culture were saying, wow, we never knew about this culture. We never knew
about things like this, this happening. So we're broadening it. So yes, it is tough.
Now the other half of that, and I'd say a little bit quicker, cause I'm too
emotional with this is the fact that, Hey. Most people in America wants to make
money. That's why we went to college. That's why we, uh, train. Uh, that's why
we get up and go to work every day. We do it for the money. Uh, yes, you and I,
we doing this podcast for the love of it.
You know, we don't get rich off of it. We're doing it for the love of it. And the
last time I checked my salary for doing this podcast is zero dollars because I
love it. As a consultant, I get paid $200 an hour plus. Okay. Sometime it's a
thousand dollars or $2,000 a day, that's what I get paid. But this is love.
So, uh, doing this cast, but people work for money. So the land people that
wants to buy the land, they want a beautiful place to live and they also want to
buy a place that they can make money off of. And then you have the developers,
they're in it to do the same thing we want to do, which is make a lot of money.
And then be able to either keep the land we got a buy more or leave it as I do for
my children and grandchildren. So there's the dilemma. There's the pool and the
pool is tremendous. It is tremendous. You want to hold on to it, but you hadn't
been taught how to keep it. The other guy just want to get it so he can make
money.
He wants to develop. It's tough. We don't have all of the answers. Uh, but we are
working on those answers, how the taxation won't be so high, like Sapelo and
where I live, uh, taxation have went up 100, 200, 300. I know on Sapelo, I've
seen it went up 800%. Who can afford to do that? 100%. So it is a dilemma. We
have to keep fighting.
We have to come up with new solutions. And I think some of those new
solutions are. On the horizon, changing some of the laws. Of course, it's one of
the things that need to be done in my legislative position. We can raise taxes in
the city of Darren and hear me out and I close on it to let you know legislators
could do things.
People of power can do things right now where I sit. All I need is two more
votes on City Council and I can raise the taxes 500%. But guess what? I can
reduce the taxes 500%. And what I mean, reduce it 500%, whatever you're
paying now, uh, we can even eliminate taxes if we choose to. That sounds
fascinating.
That sounds like that's unreal. Of course, either one you do, you'll probably be
voted out of office, but sometime you might have to make some sacrifices as
presidents have done, as legislators have done, And just good people make the
sacrifice. You are making a sacrifice for this podcast that we hope that many
people will view and help change their mind to support the Gullah Geechee
culture and other people that say, look, I'm a judge, I'm a lawyer.
You guys need to make this phone call. And that's what happened to me in my
life for doing interviews like this. Somebody would say, you have your, I'll try
this out. Not to know. We didn't know about it. This is what you can do. And
that's what I have done. They help a lot of communities. They didn't have the
knowledge.
I use my consultant skills and they say, wow, that's a miracle. No, I just gained
the knowledge and I'm passing it on to you. And I'm not charging you a
gazillion dollars. I charged the next person that's trying to disuse me to get what
they want. I charged them the real fee. So I say that to say this, it is a struggle.
But there are solutions. And right now there are some court hearings that's
coming up. There are some petitions to reverse some of the laws. And there's a
lot of people crying up, standing up. And a lot of celebrities are stepping in now
and giving some of those millions that they have, which most foundations, most
people don't know.
And I'm hoping the foundation person will listen in every foundation have to
give away 5 percent of their money. Doesn't matter who they give it to, but they
have to give away 5 percent to a legitimate cause. So when you see people
giving things away, they're actually saving themselves money too with those
foundations because you have to spend 35 percent of your, uh, uh, 100 million.
Uh, so you got to give away about 30 million out of the 100 million. So you put
it in a foundation and a miracle happened. Now that same 100 million, and
there's plenty of rich folks out there today, It's over a billion dollar lottery out
there. Somebody's going to win it. Uh, if you do a foundation, you only have to
give away 5 percent and you can take that other 30 percent and do for yourself.
Or maybe help somebody out on Sapelo or Darien that's about to lose their land.
Thank you. And thank you for that compassionate framing, um, of the choices
that people have. Um, it's a miracle that all of us are here. But I think it's a
special miracle that Black folks and Indigenous folks are here. And there's a lot.
That our culture has had to, you know, survive and holding on to the land, in my
opinion, is just a continuation of that, um,
push to survive and thrive, and I think without the land, that gets really hard to
do. Can I add one thing, just one thing now? No, and it's, I know of some
developers where I used to go, uh, fishing and and crabbing and uh, we would
walk a mile or two just on the banks of the shores and I think it's called a
thicket.
And I was like, wow, there's a multimillion dollar development now. And I said,
I never knew some of these things were back there. And, uh, now they've got
houses all up in there. I used to come back as a boy, it was all woods, but guess
what? Some of the developers do have a heart about culture. Most of them
don't, but there is one structure in McIntosh County where I used to run as a boy
and the former enslaved buildings.
That they used to make the sugar cane where they lived is still there. Now it's
their land. They purchased it outright. They could have came in and just
bulldoze it down and build about three or 4 million homes. Guess what? It's
been there now for over a decade since the development was there two or three
decades now, because I remember when they started building, uh, the latter half
of the last century.
Now we're 23 years in a new century. Wow. And guess what? Those structures
are still there. Family and friends. I take them by to see the tabby buildings that
they're there. So I say that to say this, cause I don't know who I was going to be
viewing your podcast. They may not all be rich, but they may have rich friends.
Uh, my position I'm in now, I've got friends that are rich. Okay. They, they have
millions of dollars. I also have friends that are dirt poor, and I'm glad that my
culture have not changed me in my position that only deal with the aristocrats. I
deal with every spectrum from high to low, the government officials, that's
where I'll be going next week to their parliament and be before them then I
come back and be there with individuals just making sweetgrass basket for the
culture.
Uh, the total spectrum. So, uh, whoever's on this podcast, uh, you might be of
some wealth, help these cultures get to their next level. I'm doing it at my level.
Perhaps you can do it at your level also. Thank you.
Michelle McCrary: And just to, you know, keep pushing a little on that point,
what would be lost if, you know, God forbid. Everybody lost their land and they
just started throwing up, you know, fancy golf communities and expensive
mansions. And, you know, just completely erased all traces of Gullah Geechee
folk from these areas. And I know it's happened. It happened to my family in
Harrison. Um, and it's happened to a lot of communities.
If it continues to happen and people. are not able and they don't have the help to
hold onto their land. Can you just explain the loss for people so they just
understand a little bit?
Griffin Lotson: Uh, yes. I think the most famous one in America was the
Native Americans. They had it. They owned it all. And because of Europeans, as
we call them in our culture, as you say, Harris, Nick area, and where I'm from
Darien, McInnes County, Crescent area, we call them the buckras, which is
white individuals, a term that's used as, uh, uh, yeah, you made the money, but
what have you lost?
I'll use some names and I've never met the gentleman don't know him
personally, but they're a person of wealth. Uh, Ted Turner, he took his millions
and millions and millions. and decide to preserve land his money. But he
decided, I don't want a resort where I can make millions and millions more. Uh,
we need to preserve some of the culture, some of the land, some of the history.
And I'm so glad that we do have the preservationists. I'm one of them. But I'm
also believe in economic development because If you don't have, uh, the
economics, if you don't have the money, uh, you won't be able to keep the land.
Uh, you won't be able to do things you need to do to keep it alive, setting up a
tourist attraction that's owned by the Gullah Geechee's African American.
My wish and hope for Harris neck when they get that land back, uh, that they're
going to have to set up revenue, uh, uh, uh, efforts. I have proven that I've had
more workshop, national workshop. We started with, I didn't even know what a
501 C3 was, and I've raised millions of dollars, built two multimillion dollar
development.
Can you believe that a funny talking? Come you had this show that day, have
our own management company. One of the few that's owned by Gullah beaches
in Southeast Georgia. You make the sacrifices, but it's a cash cow. It produces
money. It produces the milk. Uh, you can't kill all the cows and expect to have a
cow farm.
Okay. And that's what we have to do on our end. And sometime you're going to
need. People don't know in certain communities. They call it redlining. I had to
learn that from hanging out with some of my banker friends and folks that don't
look like me to learn the techniques that are being used. Redlining is simply that
anybody in certain communities will not get money from the bank.
And if you don't get money from the bank, and your cousins don't have can't
lend you any money. Then pretty soon you're going to have to do what? Sell
some land. People have gotten their children out of jail by selling land because
they didn't have the income. So we have to train our children, uh, individuals.
We have to train our grandchildren. In my case, in my, my children to hold on to
a dollar. And I have to set the example first. And I've done that so they can
know you don't have to spend it all. I don't need a Lamborghini. Okay, but I can
do this and I don't have to sell the ancestral land. Okay, I can hold on to it.
I've got ancestral land. I get a letter almost every month for somebody wanting
to buy. I'd like to have that money too. But I'm in a position. I don't have to sell.
Okay, I'm not four months behind in my mortgage. I don't have any Children
that's going to get kicked out of college because they can't pay their tuition.
So we have to start training now this generation and the next generation how to
do our part. Uh, well, once was a guy, Kevin Rolock. I think they said in D. C.
No one can save us for us. But us I just like to add on to that. Uh, my uncle used
to tell me it's good to know poor folks, but for God's sakes, don't know all poor
folks.
Now, most people think that's my phrase. Uh, but I got it from him and they
said, I like what you're saying, man. It's good to know poor folks, but don't
know all poor folks. I'm on almost first name basis with legislators. I've met
personally, at least three to four presidents. I put myself in those circles.
Okay. Bankers that know me by face and name, you have to learn these traits to
get to the next level. And people like you and I, we just need to train them and
let them know that these are the ways that you get to the next level, not just for
yourself, but for your community, your community.
Michelle McCrary: for sharing that and thank you again for your work. Um,
and everything that you've done for the culture and for the community. And
before I let you go, I want you to tell us, um, where you'll be next. I know you
mentioned you're going to Barbados. So if you want to talk a little bit about that,
um, if you are on social media or anything like that, let the people know where
they can find you.
Griffin Lotson: Okay. Yes. Right now. Uh, wow. Uh, we just did a production,
uh, with the discovery channel, their producers out of London, England. Uh, if
you go to discovery channel and look up hidden America, uh, Butler Island, uh,
some people have already found it. They have over 400, um, million possible
viewers worldwide. So we feel very proud that they did a full production on
that.
So you should be able to find that there. And when we open the museum,
hopefully on the Butler plantation, we're going to make sure, hopefully we'll
make sure that that's one of the sit downs that people can view because they did
hire professionals in and put it together and took them about a year. And they
just released that.
Uh, yes, we will be at the headquarters, believe it or not, of the Gullah Geechee
Cultural Heritage Commission in, uh, Beaufort, South Carolina. This Saturday,
they have a full day of event, I think starting at about 10 that morning to 3 or 4
that afternoon. So not only will the Gullah Geechee Ring Charters be there, A
host of other individuals as carrying on the culture, some of the commissioners,
the full staff will be there.
And if you want to learn more about it, uh, help the commission or the
commission can help you will be in rare form there in Buford, uh, South
Carolina. Just remember Gullah Geechee cultural heritage commission, Buford,
South Carolina, and you punch that in on the internet, you should be able to, uh,
pull.
That up the Barbados is something I've personally been working on since 2011.
When I got elected and then appointed by the president at the time, uh, president
Barack Obama, and just for knowledge, every president have to okay, each
commissioner, I really don't know why I'm still on it because all the
commissioners that were on it, uh, 10 years ago, 12 years ago, when it got
started in 2006, all of them are gone.
I've got 10 consecutive years in. Uh, this make my 11th consecutive years as a
full, um, commissioner. So why I can't figure it out. I think it's because I talk
funny of something, but they kept me on through three presidents. So. First
Barack Obama, then President Donald Trump, and now President, uh uh, Joe
Biden.
I've served under all three of them, and they can put you on and take you off all
of 'em. Okay, me. So come down to the commission. That's, that's on this
Saturday. And then hopefully December, well, I'll be in Atlanta, Georgia.
Atlanta, Georgia, Emory University, uh, Charmaine Manfield. Remember that?
Emory University, Charmaine Manfield will be teaching and lecturing there,
teaching the ring shout and what it's the soul of the ring shot.
Anybody can jump around, but the soul and the meaning and how it got started,
uh, we teach that as we did with the movie Roots. They're professional dancers,
but I had to tell him you can never do the ring shot if you don't know the soul of
it. So we teach that as much as we can to get in the hearts of mind about that.
And that'll be at the Emory University. There's a Praise House there. And I had
it built and Shami and Manfield doing a magnificent job. This month, also, we
have an article coming out in the New York Times. Can you believe that?
Working with the Praise House and the Ring Shout. And I think Atlanta
Constitution is doing something now too with the ring shout.
I just received a call from a friend of mine, um, uh, from Atlanta Constitution,
Ms. Poole. Uh, she just called today, uh, just before I got on this podcast. So
there's a lot more. I don't have time to say them all, but that's just some right off
Of the top that I can mention. Thank you so much again.
Michelle McCrary: And, uh, some of this, because like I said, it's timely, I'm
going to post it on my Instagram, these dates that are coming up. And, um, like I
told you, this will be up in the new year, but. Thank you again. Thank you for
all your work. Thank you for this time. I hope that I can grab you again for
some time. I hope I get to see you in person. Uh, I need to make my way back
down to Georgia to see family.
Um, I'm overdue for a trip. Uh, we haven't been there since, uh, last year, last
April was the last time we were there.
Griffin Lotson: So where are you from? Where do you live?
Michelle McCrary: I live in the Pacific Northwest now. But, uh, I'm originally
from Queens, New York, because my mom moved up from Savannah to
Brooklyn, and I was born in New York, where she met my dad.
Griffin Lotson: Okay. Yeah. I just, I just did the Apollo, but that was last year
and I'm doing another trip there, and we taught. Uh, them, the ring shout also,
and we had a chance to grandstand a little bit at the Apollo theater. That was
wonderful. They did a tribute to the ring shout, the sonic of the ring shout. And
it was marvelous and invited me, uh, on stage.
And that was, that was a treat also. So New York, I'm looking to be back there
real soon.
Michelle McCrary: Yeah. That's my old neighborhood. Yes. Well, thank you
again, Mr. Lotson.
Thank you so much for listening to Curious Roots. Learn more about Harris
neck at Harris net land trust. org. And find out more about their work with the
African American Redress Network at redressnetwork. org. Learn more about
Black coastal communities from North Carolina to Florida at
gullahgeecheecorridor.org. You can support Gullah Geechee communities on St.
Helena and Sapelo Islands by following Protect St. Helena at protectstnhelena.
com. And saving our legacy ourselves, solo at saving our legacy ourself.org. All
links are in our show notes. 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.
Season 2 of Curious Roots is produced by Moonshadow Productions, and with
the generous support of Converge Collaborative. Thank you so much for
listening.