How photographer Jeanne outoussamy-Ashe captured Daufuskie's heart and soul

Photographer Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe found her way to Daufuskie Island by way of Africa.

Thirty years later, that trip resulted in a warm reception at the Coastal Discovery Museum at Honey Horn on Hilton Head Island.

Ashe, with a little camera around her wrist, was the guest of honor Friday evening as an exhibit of 80 of her black-and-white images from the pre-development days on Daufuskie opened to the public. They will grace the walls of the museum through February.

The photographs give a rare peek inside the Gullah way of life. They show an important facet of America's story that slowly is fading from the Sea Islands, like a silent praise house swallowed by kudzu.

Ashe lets us see a wedding, the bride in white dress, veil and bouquet arriving at First Union Baptist Church in a pickup, seated between her uncle in a baseball cap and the maid of honor.

"Did you notice her bouquet," Ashe asked. "It was daisies. So simple. So beautiful. That's typical of the beauty in the simplicity I found on Daufuskie."

Ashe shows us a little girl sitting on an overturned washtub, picking crabs.

"Her shirt is perfectly white, perfectly clean," Ashe said. "You can hear her mother telling her to keep it that way. You can see structure and family and feeling and caring."

Ashe takes us right up to the grave as Lavinia "Blossum" Robinson is lowered into the Daufuskie soil, her coffin not yet closed.

She shows Carol Alberto teaching Tonya Robinson in a two-room schoolhouse.

The exhibit is making its way around the nation to mark the University of South Carolina Press' release last year of the 25th Anniversary Edition of Ashe's book of photos: "Daufuskie Island." It includes the original foreword by Alex Haley, but many photographs that were not in the 1982 edition.

"Daufuskie has changed, the world has changed. I have changed, too," Ashe said. "That is why there are 114 photographs in this edition, not 68. I was 25 when these pictures were taken (in the late 1970s). I was not a mother when I took these photographs. When I revisited the negatives, I saw life differently."

A RARE VIEW

She also was not a widow. In fact, she was a newlywed when she and her famous husband, tennis great Arthur Ashe, first arrived on Daufuskie in 1977. They were introduced to the late Susie Smith by Hilton Head Islanders Emory and Emma Campbell.

Arthur Ashe died 15 years ago at the age of 49, the victim of AIDS reportedly contracted from a blood transfusion during heart surgery.

He left Jeanne and their daughter, Camera, to cherish a legacy that transcended sports, and now is kept alive in a virtual museum that Jeanne created at www.ArthurAshe.org.

Arthur Ashe won three Grand Slam tournaments. He was the first African-American male to win the U.S. Open, and the first American of any type to win it in 13 years when he claimed the title in five sets for a nation plagued by race, war and street violence in 1968.

But along the sandy roads of Daufuskie, the island that still has no bridge, the 80 or so natives who were descendants of slaves didn't give a fig about the tennis star.

Instead, the beautiful young photographer, the only child of an architect and interior designer in far away Chicago, did something very few have ever done.

She earned the trust and respect of a notoriously independent and shy people who, above all else, always have loudly resisted being photographed.

In college, when all the other juniors headed for Europe for a 6-month independent study, Jeanne Moutoussamy opted for the west coast of Africa.

She saw fishing villages, and the buildings where the transatlantic slave trade took place.

"I knew then that I wanted to come to the Southeast coast," Ashe said. "The idea for this visit started in Africa."

Emory Campbell said at the exhibit opening: "That Africa will change you."

'HAVE YOU SEEN MY COW?'

The Ashes flew from New York City to Charleston and rented a car. They visited Johns Island, Wadmalaw Island and Edisto Island. Jeanne told her friend, Verta Mae Grosvenor, who responded: "Have you been to Daufuskie?" Grosvenor's 1970 paperback "Vibration Cooking, or the Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl" started opening the world's eyes to the contributions of the overlooked Gullah subculture. "You've got to call Emory Campbell," she told Ashe.

Campell, now 66, can look at the photographs and see his own story.

"'Fuskie people were known for bringing a lot of fruits," he said. "I remember Johnny Hamilton there bringing pears to our house."

Susie Smith's daughter Ernestine Smith thrilled Ashe by attending the event. Ernestine was pictured with her then-young daughter, Alana Robinson.

Ashe lived with the Smiths on her trips to Daufuskie and Susie kept up with Ashe all her life.

Ernestine still lives on Daufuskie, but she said only seven of the original Gullah families are left. She works at one of the developments that have sprouted since Ashe came with her camera, but work in the off-season is hard to find.

Charles and Frances Sampson were there, telling Ernestine her mother made the best fried chicken in the world. Charles got to know Susie when he was selling real estate on Daufuskie for Melrose.

He remembers the day she waved him down to ask: "Have you seen my cow?" And he remembers Susie's chicken closing some deals.

Today, Ernestine cooks for new residents who want the Lowcountry food her mother taught her to cook: Fried chicken, okra soup, cornbread and deviled crab.

Despite all Daufuskie's changes, Ernestine said, "It's home."

Ashe said that her trip that started in Africa ended up teaching her a lot about elegance and dignity.

She said what she found on Daufuskie was "a wealth of humanity unlike anything else I've seen. It was like a family, bonded close, but welcoming."