A History of James Island Slave Descendants & Plantation Owners


Book Description

James Island remains one of the few places in the United States where descendants of slaves can easily trace their roots to one of the seventeen slave plantations. For many African Americans, it is hard to imagine how far this small island has come. It has left them with a legacy of both the joy and the pain of living in a time and place wrought with hardship but somehow still intermingled with the happiness that comes from a community built on family, love, strength and honor. In this powerful collection, local resident and oral historian Eugene Frazier chronicles the stories of various James Island families and their descendants. Frazier has spent years collecting family and archival photographs and family remembrances to accompany the text. This book also pays homage to men and women of the United States military and African American pioneers from James Island and surrounding areas.




A History of James Island Slave Descendents & Plantation Owners


Book Description

James Island remains one of the few places in the United States where descendants of slaves can easily trace their roots to one of the seventeen slave plantations. For many African Americans, it is hard to imagine how far this small island on the coast of South Carolina has come. It has left them with a legacy of the pain of living in a time and place wrought with hardship but somehow still intermingled with the happiness that comes from a community built on family, love, strength and honor. In this powerful collection, local resident and oral historian Eugene Frazier chronicles the stories of various James Island families and their descendants. Frazier has spent years collecting family and archival photographs and family remembrances to accompany the text, while also paying homage to men and women of the United States military and African American pioneers from James Island and surrounding areas.




A History of James Island Slave Descendants & Plantation Owners: The Bloodline


Book Description

James Island remains one of the few places in the United States where descendants of slaves can easily trace their roots to one of the seventeen slave plantations. For many African Americans, it is hard to imagine how far this small island has come. It has left them with a legacy of both the joy and the pain of living in a time and place wrought with hardship but somehow still intermingled with the happiness that comes from a community built on family, love, strength and honor. In this powerful collection, local resident and oral historian Eugene Frazier chronicles the stories of various James Island families and their descendants. Frazier has spent years collecting family and archival photographs and family remembrances to accompany the text. This book also pays homage to men and women of the United States military and African American pioneers from James Island and surrounding areas.




James Island


Book Description

This South Carolina sea island, which once flourished and folded under the bondage of slavery, is now a place where all races live and celebrate its rich heritage. Today, James Island is a bustling community seven miles west of Charleston, South Carolina, but the island's past wasn't always something you'd see on a billboard to entice you to visit. Beginning in the 18th century, James Island was the destination for hundreds of enslaved Africans who were tortured with unimaginable hardships while crossing the Atlantic Ocean. In James Island: Stories from Slave Descendants, Eugene Frazier Sr. compiles narrative interviews from firsthand accounts with slaves and their descendants, as well as the descendants of plantation owners. The stories Frazier gathered give us a singular perspective on the lives of African Americans from 1732-1950, following the James Island community for more than 130 years of slavery to decades of sharecropping and farming while slavery's long shadow survived in segregation. An excellent resource for historians, teachers or those interested in the journey from slavery to integration, James Island: Stories from Slave Descendants will be an enlightening and meaningful addition to any library.




Sleeping with the Ancestors


Book Description

In this enlightening personal account, one man tells the story of his groundbreaking project to sleep overnight in former slave dwellings that still stand across the country—revealing the fascinating history behind these sites and shedding light on larger issues of race in America. Joseph McGill Jr., a historic preservationist and Civil War reenactor, founded the Slave Dwelling Project in 2010 based on an idea that was sparked and first developed in 1999. Since founding the project, McGill has been touring the country, spending the night in former slave dwellings—throughout the South, but also the North and the West, where people are often surprised to learn that such structures exist. Events and gatherings are arranged around these overnight stays, and it provides a unique way to understand the often otherwise obscured and distorted history of slavery. The project has inspired difficult conversations about race in communities from South Carolina to Alabama to Texas to Minnesota to New York, and all over the United States. Sleeping with the Ancestors focuses on all of the key sites McGill has visited in his ongoing project and digs deeper into the actual history of each location, using McGill’s own experience and conversations with the community to enhance those original stories. Altogether, McGill and coauthor Herb Frazier give readers an important unexpected emersion into the history of slavery, and especially the obscured and ignored aspects of that history.




A Cry For Justice


Book Description

Like the majority of institutions in America, the U.S. Postal Service policy, practice, and/or procedure appear neutral. Truthfully, it has a disproportionately negative impact on members of a racial or ethnic minority group. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, “An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere!” Inequalities, regardless of their bases should not be swept under the rug. Any discrimination is intolerable, and as citizens, we must all make a serious attempt to do away with it. If we remain docile and inactive, the disparity will continue to grow, and our great nation, no doubt, will diminish to irrelevancy. America is a great nation; however, let’s not forget that her strength is built on hope, faith, and all honesty through free labor of slaves. Today, racial disparity affects both the innocent and guilty minority. Our judicial system is in urgent need of reform. Our nation is confronted with serious moral, ethical, constitutional, and economic challenges. We have to work together for systematic changes. This book/documentary validate that as a race of people, we are still plagued with persistent racial disparities—systematic racism which causes serious physical as well as psychological consequences. It discloses judicial tyranny and the corruption of the justice system by way of consistent psychological manipulation and deception, and unconstitutional laws that infringes on minorities and pro se litigants’ rights. Like cancer, racism has the potential to destroy!




Integrating the Charleston Police Force: Stories of the Pioneers


Book Description

The civil rights era in the United States was a turbulent time of struggle and protest, with groups making history all across the nation. African American police officers in Charleston were immersed in their own battle to integrate local law enforcement agencies. These pioneers endured hatred and resentment within the department and sometimes from those they were sworn to protect. Lieutenant Eugene Frazier, Detective George Gathers and others fought the establishment while climbing the ranks to solve some of the toughest crimes that Charleston has ever seen. Join Frazier as he recounts the true stories of those who fought for equality.




James Island


Book Description

Today, James Island is a bustling community seven miles west of Charleston, South Carolina. But the island's past was not always as sunny. Beginning in the eighteenth century, James Island was the destination for hundreds of slaves who were tortured with unimaginable hardships while crossing the Atlantic Ocean. In James Island: Stories From Slave Descendants, Eugene Frazier, Sr. compiles narrative interviews with slaves, slave descendents, and descendents of plantation owners. The stories he gathered give us a singular perspective on the lives of African Americans from 1732-1950, following the James Island community from more than 130 years of slavery to decades of sharecropping and farming while slavery's long shadow survived in segregation. An excellent resource for historians, teachers or those interested in the journey from slavery to integration, James Island: Stories From Slave Descendants will be an enlightening and meaningful addition to any library.




The Isleños of Louisiana: On the Water's Edge


Book Description

Louisiana is perhaps best known for its distinctive French heritage, a legacy visible in the street names and architecture around the state. The truth is, Louisiana has one of the most culturally diverse populations in the nation, with not only French and Anglo-American settlers, but the Native Americans who lived there already, and the enslaved Africans the new colonists brought with them into Louisiana Territory. A chapter of Louisiana history that tends to be forgotten however, is when the area fell to Spanish control in the late 1700s. Coaxed by promises of new opportunity, thousands of Canary Islanders of Spanish descent relocated to Louisiana, where they established four settlements. Generations of Isleños, that is the ethnic group of descendants from the Canary Islands who have intermarried with other communities, have overcome the challenges of an evolving American society, as well as the devastation of storms that have ripped through their land. Through it all, the Isleños have preserved their unique heritage, traditions and culture for more than two centuries.