Martin Luther King, and filling in the blanks for SC Lowcountry Gullah

Martin Luther King Jr. had a lot on his mind when he visited Beaufort County in May of 1967.

It was his fourth trip to the secluded campus of the Penn Center on St. Helena Island, where he and his top aides in the civil rights movement could regroup, recharge, argue, sing and plan.

King knew at that time – about a year before he was murdered – that the road to what he called a beloved community would be a long slog.

“It is necessary for us to realize that we have moved from the era of civil rights to the era of human rights,” he said, as quoted by Orville Vernon Burton in the book, “Penn Center: A History Preserved.”

And, King said, “… when you deal with human rights, you are not dealing with something clearly defined in the Constitution.”

He was speaking of rights defined by “the mandates of humanitarian concern,” like a solid job, a sanitary home and a high-quality education.

But I think it could also mean simply being seen, and appreciated.

The community that once sheltered Martin Luther King Jr. will pause this weekend to mark the date of his birth.

And we’ll talk a lot about what needs to be done to fulfil his dream of a beloved community.

Maybe we can also celebrate important steps that have been made to get there, just as King could look to the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in his last visit here.

It is an advance to human rights that the story of the Gullah-Geechee people of South Carolina is today being told more often and better than ever.

Beaufort is now home to the National Park Service’s Reconstruction Era National Park, and a new privately-funded statue of Harriet Tubman celebrating her work in this region during the Civil War.

The Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park on Hilton Head Island recently broke ground for an Archaeological Research Facility and Auditorium to help it document and share the story of America’s first self-governed town of formerly enslaved people.

The International African American Museum has opened in Charleston.

The non-profit Heritage Library on Hilton Head, and its teams of volunteers, have helped island natives and people like Keith Rushing to find their roots and deal with land ownership issues.

The Town of Hilton Head Island has erected signs to identify the historic Gullah neighborhoods, and established the Gullah-Geechee Historic Neighborhoods Community Development Corporation and a cultural preservation task force.

And it has enhanced the community park on Squire Pope Road to tell the story of the Hilton Head Fishing Cooperative that was located there, and the key role those Gullah fishermen played in keeping a petrochemical plant from locating on the Colleton River around 1970. The move that would have been an environmental disaster.

U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn has a new book, “The First Eight,” telling the stories of the first Blacks from South Carolina to serve in Congress.

Emory Campbell, Tom Barnwell and Carolyn Grant filled in a lot of blanks with their book, “Gullah Days: Hilton Head Islanders Before the Bridge 1861-1956.”

And a new book from the University of South Carolina Press adds the perspective of another great challenge to the Gullah people – the loss of cultural roots due to the “Great Migration” of the 20th century when many Black people left the Lowcountry for better opportunities in the North.

Keith Rushing, who was reared in New York City, takes it on in chapter and verse as he tells of finding his missing family on Hilton Head in his book, “Descended: Searching For My Gullah-Geechee Roots.”

After years of research, Rushing was taken by a kinsman to the grave of his great-great-grandfather, Sancho Christopher, in the Drayton Cemetery by the banks of Port Royal Sound. There, Sancho had been enslaved and enlisted in the U.S. Army to fight for his own freedom.

Rushing, now a communications professional in Washington, D.C., will tell this personal story that began with a seventh-grade school assignment and resulted in a book at First Presbyterian Church on Hilton Head at 7 p.m. on Feb. 10. His appearance is co-sponsored by the Bridge Builders of St. Andrew By-the-Sea United Methodist Church.

“I sought to fill a void, a void that many African Americans feel — a longing, a missing sense of connectedness to the past,” he writes.

It’s a complex tale, dissecting topics that people of both races have been hesitant to talk about.

Besides filling in blanks in his own story, Rushing says, “Moreover, I hope to promote the value of facing the past honestly and delving into the past as an antidote for the nationwide attempts to erase or whitewash the truth about its slave past.

“My ultimate goal is to help bring about national and community healing.”

Which could help build Martin Luther King Jr.’s hope for human rights, and a beloved community.

David Lauderdale may be reached at lauderdalecolumn@gmail.com.