How we can be a hall of fame community
Emory Campbell was, of course, gracious and unassuming last week as he was inducted into the Hilton Head Island Hall of Fame.
But it is our hope that this lifetime achievement for an elder statesman, now 75 with white in his hair, will fit very well with a new beginning for Beaufort County.
Perhaps it can be associated with a larger movement to finally recognize and capitalize on the complete story of this county.
It’s a foundational story for America. It has Beaufort County as ground zero for wholesale freedom from slavery, as well as the earliest and longest-lasting efforts of somehow, against long odds, becoming “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
In fact, that grand experiment that came to be called Reconstruction was underway here long before those words we all know by heart were written.
Campbell and the late Carolina “Beany” Newhall, an environmentalist, were inducted in the hall of fame sponsored by the Hilton Head Rotary Club because of their long-lasting impact in shaping a community.
Campbell was born into one of Hilton Head’s most prominent families “hearing African sound waves, seeing the fantastic African images,” hearing the earthy Gullah proverbs, as well as the admonition to speak the Queen’s English and go to college.
He first had to discover for himself the value of the Gullah culture, and then quietly and relentlessly teach it to others. Along the way, he was an early leader at the Beaufort Jasper Comprehensive Health Services, the executive director of Penn Center for 20 years, and the founding chairman of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission established by Congress. He was part of the team that translated the New Testament into the Gullah language. He wrote a book about the culture, established the Gullah Trail Tours on Hilton Head and served as an ambassador for an often overlooked people to newcomers, scholars, artists, journalists and politicians.
Emory Shaw Campbell is greatly appreciated, and we hope he knows it.
At the same time, we want the story of Reconstruction to be greatly appreciated, and we hope leaders locally and nationally know it.
The National Parks Service is looking at better ways to tell the story, and it is looking at Beaufort County. This is encouraging.
Hilton Head is looking at better ways to tell the story of Mitchelville, an early village for freedmen that disappeared physically but not in national significance following the Civil War.
Campbell said to the large luncheon gathering Thursday at the Sonesta Resort:
“In the coming days and years, I believe the Town of Hilton Head Island and good people like you will take on unprecedented leadership in Gullah Geechee culture and its supporting environment.”
The same can be said for the Beaufort area as we await the next move from the National Parks Service regarding Reconstruction.
For Beaufort County to be a hall of fame community, the gracious Gullah voices of Campbell and so many others need to be heard — and appreciated.
June 12, 2015 In Beaufort County after the Civil War, Southern whites felt like a conquered people, reduced to lives of poverty. Many blacks were finally free, with great expectations for a new start as people, not property. A new effort by the National Park Service seeks to tell their seemingly irreconcilable Reconstruction stories. | READ
This story was originally published November 13, 2016 at 3:33 PM with the headline "How we can be a hall of fame community."