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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.
Curious Roots E6 - The Healing Path
Evelyn Greer [00:00:00] Good morning. My name is Evelyn Greer. I just want to say this afternoon to you all that I'm 84 years old. I was 15 when the government took my home and I told them, they told us, as Reverend Thorpe said. I was there, we didn't get no kind of compensation. Please believe it. None. My home bearing and everything I saw, there was no place to go, you know. So I just. I was trying to get some time, but he got it. So anyhow, I just want to say that it is time now, as he said, for justice. We are here today not as beggars. We are here to see and ask you all to let justice prevail. We need the property. God made arrangement for the birds and the bees. But he said, Son of man has no place to lay his head. And we thank you.
Winston Releford [00:01:10] I'm Winston Releford, the son of Anna Shaw Overstreet, a descendant of the original Harris Neck community. My appearance before this august body today has one goal, and that is to urge this committee to correct an obvious wrong. I appeal to you today to ensure that history correct the record and reflect the Congress that dare to do the right thing by upholding the constitutional rights of its citizens. What was done to the Harris Neck community in 1942 was an injustice. A wrong that must be righted. And this committee has within its power to move on behalf of a neglected portion of America's citizenry. Let history show that you stood up today and began the process of making right and awful wrong. As you ponder the right and wrong, please remember the humanity of it all. You've heard the testimony of an impassioned and embattled people asking a government to honor them as they honored the government by giving in to the demands that the government ask. We're just asking in closing, I would simply like to say that. Those families that have been displace for so long, return the land back to the rightful owners, and that's the descendants of the Harris Neck people.
Introduction [00:02:32] Curious Roots is a podcast that takes deep into the living earth of our personal, familial and communal lives to help us understand how we exist in the world today. This podcast is also about the lessons we can learn about creating life and community in the midst of continuous cycles of apocalyptic societal collapse. It's the story of my family and the rich cultural legacy that shaped them a culture that stretches from the continent of Africa to Turtle Island. It's also a record for my children and the families they might choose in the future. It will let them know that their ancestors are always with them, guiding them, sending them messages and instructions that they can hear when they truly listen.
Michelle McCrary [00:03:23] Welcome to Curious Roots. Last episode we heard testimony from Miss Mary Moran about July 1942, when the community of Harris Neck was forcibly removed from the land by the federal government. Decades later, her son, Mr. Wilson Moran, who was just a baby in his young mother's belly when their community was put to flames around them, grew up to become a part of a group of community members who organized a movement to return to Harris Neck in the early 1970s. According to an Ebony magazine article from 1983, quote, As the years slipped by and the patience and nerves of the former residents wore to a frazzle, a new generation came along to resume the fight in 1971. Timmons organized a group of Korean and Vietnam War veterans, himself one of the latter, and began to press anew to get the land back, end quote. The group Edgar Timmons Jr. assembled included Mr. Moran, cousin Evelyn, Chris McIntosh and Kenneth Dunham. Mr. Timmons and the rest of the Harris Neck community knew back in 1942 that the land was not suitable for the Army Corps of Engineers purposes. It was even more peculiar that Harris Neck was chosen specifically when there was available land right next door in Julianton, Prieston, Denegal, Half Moon and Southern Bluff. Even after the group went to Washington and protested, the government didn't budge. In the late 1990s and early 2000s community members came together again to form the Harris Neck Land Trust. The testimony that opened the podcast is from a December 2011 hearing before the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs of the Committee on Natural Resources. Along with Mr. Moran and Cousin Evelyn, Winston Releford and my grandmother's cousin, Reverend Robert Thorpe, testified on behalf of the community. A year later, in a July 27, 2012, op ed for the Savannah Morning News, which marked the 65th anniversary of the removal, cousin Bob wrote the following: "My father taught me to believe in the ideals of America. The very first sentence of our Constitution reads In order to form a more perfect union, establish justice. That's what this is all about. What we are asking is that justice be done and that next year's Congress take action. 70 years is a long time to wait, a long time to fight and a long time to hold on. Yet I still remain hopeful. I have faith in America, and I believe we are going home soon." Even though many people who were there for the 70s and 2000 movements for Harris Neck are now with the ancestors, with Kenneth Dunham passing in 2009, Cousin Evelyn passing in 2018 and Miss Mary passing recently in 2022, I know that the elders who are still with us continue to lead this fight and are tired. I know that their weariness does not stop them. It shouldn't stop us either. Even though America refuses to live up to her promise and refuses to honor justice, we have to keep telling our stories and we have to keep returning to the land. The loss of Harris Neck destroyed a place where descendants like me could return to sit at the feet of their elders and soak up ancestral knowledge of the land and cultural lifeways made possible by that specific land. The fight to maintain black coastal communities is a fight to maintain spiritual connection, community and culture. Hope that black communities from coast to coast who have been removed, gentrified and displaced, continue to connect with the indigenous fight for land back and truly understand that Black and indigenous fates are bound together. We will have no true home on Turtle Island until their homelands continue to be returned. These coastal lands are a place of deep spiritual power. They are places of healing and renewal. Their places of abundance. In generative wisdom. These lands helped our ancestors to survive. These lands held them in their darkest moments and their moments of the most profound joy. I hope that I can honor all of my ancestors and my elders by continuing to tell these stories and continuing to fight for these lands in my own way. I hope that everybody out there who is trying to reconnect to their coastal roots finds their way back to their relatives. I hope that we all stay connected with our indigenous relatives so that we can make this return in a good way. I think I want to leave the last word to Miss Mary and remember her call to keep fighting.
Mary Moran [00:08:51] It was sad the way they treated us like animals. I'll never forget. And I thank God we made it though. And I may not be here because I'm 92 years old now, but I want the young people to get it back. It belongs to them. Our foreparents struggled for that land and the young people they need it back and I hope the Lord I'm praying, God give it back to them because they're working so hard and they ain't giving up. Don't give up. Keep on. Thank y'all very much.
Credits [00:09:31] Curious Roots is co-produced by Converge Collaborative and Moonshadow Productions. Our theme music is courtesy of Makaih Beats. Please rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or however you listen to your podcasts. Don't forget to check out CuriousRootsPod.com if you want to learn more about what you've heard. Big thank you to our producer, Pat McMahon. My deepest gratitude to Mr. Wilson Moran and to the community of Harris Neck. Big thank you's to Terri Ward and Adolphus Armstrong of Ujima genealogy. And thank you to my relatives who are now with the ancestors, especially Miss Mary Moran and my grandmother Margaret Baisden White. Thank you all for listening to Curious Roots.