Charleston, South Carolina and another tragedy. Charleston is a beautiful city with such an
interesting history. My family and I
lived there in 1974 – 75 on military exchange duty. You could still see so much of that history
in the city and surroundings.
Charleston was one of the prizes that instigated the
southern portion of the American Revolutionary war. The eventual success of the revolutionists in
this theatre led directly to the final defeat of the British at Yorktown. Charleston was also the site of the first
shots of the Civil War, that most tragic event of American history. The Union forces had been forced out of all
of the other military facilities throughout the seceding states, but still hung
on to Fort Sumpter, an island fortress in the middle of Charleston harbour. The new Confederacy had decided that this was
as good a place as any to start the fight for secession. The fort was surrendered after two days of
bombardment and Charleston had a couple of years free of warfare except for its
place as one of the South’s principal ports for import and export, and for the
dispatch of Confederate raiders to the high seas. The Union Army returned in 1864 and after
capturing some of the coastal forts around Charleston, began a long, slow
advance that culminated in the capture of the city near war’s end. When we drove from our house on the south
shore of the Ashley River down to the beach on Folly Island, you could look off
to the side of the road and still see the indentations from the trenches as
they advanced inland.
The other tragic part of Charleston history was the slave
trade. Charleston was a major port of
entry for African slaves and you can still see the two block long three story
high stone building which was the slave market.
It stands in the middle of the city.
Or you can visit one of the old plantations such as Middleton Gardens
which showed up in the early scenes from the movie, Gone with the Wind. As you
drive up the front road to the estate you see the famous twelve oaks lining the
way, and behind them the small, brick slave houses. Plantation owners didn’t hide their slaves
from view; they showed them off to indicate their wealth.
After the Civil War and the 13th amendment, their
came the inevitable racial tension which is obviously alive and well to this
day. Three incidents while we lived
there illustrate the way things were in the 1970’s and may still be today. In the summer of 1974, the command where I
worked had been moved from Newport, Rhode Island to Charleston. One our members was an African American Petty
Officer. I asked him how he felt about
moving to the south from New England.
His answer was that at least in Charleston he knew what kind of
prejudice to expect. This was probably
also true for our commanding officer, then Rear Admiral Sam Gravely, the first
black admiral in the US Navy, who refused to move his wife and son the
Charleston. The second incident involved a US Navy Chief Petty Officer who was
retiring and wanted to move to a house he had built in another state and was
therefore trying to sell his house in Charleston. The buyer was an African American doctor and
his family. When the neighbours found
out, they did everything they could to persuade the Navy man not to sell his
house to these people, including harassment and vandalism. The Navy man held out saying that he fully
intended to sell the house to this perfectly respectable couple. One weekend
before the sale went through and while the Navy person was out of town, the
house was mysteriously burned down. And
the final incident, which may have indicated a slight change in mood, happened
one weekend when the Klu Klux Klan decided to hold a rally in a field on the
outskirts of town. It was undoubtedly a
fine affair complete with the burning of a large cross. But the next day, in the Charleston
newspaper, there was an article by a regular columnist who called himself
Ashley Cooper (a play on the fact that Charleston stands between the Ashley and
Cooper Rivers) making fun of the Klan gathering, pointing out how archaic it
all seemed in that day and age. And the
newspaper was not even burned down the next day.
But the racial tension was still there and appears to be to
this day. The shooting at a famous old
African American church this past week clearly illustrates that fact. And this only a few weeks after a white
policeman gunned down and killed a black man in North Charleston. People may ask how a 21 year old man can pick
up such violently racial ideas. But
there was a line from a show tune from many years ago that hate had to be
taught . . . carefully taught. So maybe
the young man’s father should be standing trial too. Prejudices are too often picked up as we grow
up from the words and examples shown by our parents and their friends. Nobody is born with prejudices.
