More about Charlotte Forten, Harriet Tubman and the Combahee River Raid

Those who attended in person or streamed live as Dr. Mollie Barnes's explained what she discovered about Charlotte Forten, Harriet Tubman, and the Combahee River Raid by "Reading Between the Lines and Across Rivers" on October 14, 2021 got a real treat. 

Dr. Barnes recorded her presentation so now you can view it at your leisure. The link is https://us-lti.bbcollab.com/recording/f8bb8334063a402c9994676c90cc6341. The link will be active for a few more days.

I live streamed Dr. Barnes's presentation. As you may or may not be aware, Harriet Tubman never learned to read or write. But she could tell stories - and Charlotte Forten knew Harriet Tubman and wrote about Tubman and her knack for storytelling and singing in her journal:

"Saturday, Jan. 31 ... In B[eaufort] we spent nearly all our time at Harriet Tubman's - otherwise "Moses." She is a wonderful woman - a real heroine. Has helped off a large number of slaves, after taking her own freedom...

Forten then recounts the story of Joe, an escaped slave who Tubman was taking to Canada. Throughout the trip he was silent until Tubman told him "'Now we are in Can[ada]" [at which point] he sprang to his feet with a great shout, and sand and clapped his hand [sic] in a perfect delirium of joy. So when they got out, and he first touched free soil, he shouted and hurrahed "as if he were crazy"-- she said. How exciting it was to hear her tell the story. And to hear her sing the very scraps of jubilant hymns that he sang."   

 

I suggest that you borrow a printed copy of Charlotte Forten's Journal from one of the Local History sections or access a digital copy of it to read along with Dr. Barnes at key points in her presentation. 

I learned from Dr. Barnes lecture about Forten's whereabouts in early June 1863. She was physically at Edingsville Beach in neighboring Colleton District along with some of the Union's many soldiers stationed along the lower South Carolina coast. According to Barnes, though Charlotte makes no explicit mention of the Combahee River Raid, is is clear that she knew of it. Indeed Charlotte Forten's Journal is often used by historians for her observations about military and social actions of key players in the Port Royal Experiment. 

The Library has a lot of materials about Charlotte Forten that you can borrow as this flyer indicates: 

... and about Harriet Tubman as you can see on this flyer: 

We are very grateful to have the Beaufort County Historical Society and the Institute for the Study of the Reconstruction Era as co-sponsors of this particular lecture. 

"Combee" This Saturday

As most of you know, the BDC offers programs throughout the Library system. We are very pleased to be able to offer our community an extra special lecture about the Combahee River Raid and what that meant to the enslaved people freed by Harriet Tubman and the Union forces in June of 1863. 

About five years ago now, Dr. Edda Fields-Black came to my office to ask about research that had been done about the raid. She was thinking about looking at the Raid from the perspective of those who were freed rather than the losses incurred by the planters and the Confederacy as a result of the military action - an intriguing proposal upon which she has spent considerable time and energy ever since. She is researching and writing a second book, tentatively titled ‘Combee’: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and the Civil War Transformations among the Gullah Geechee based on what she has discovered through primary sources to reveal Harriet Tubman’s Civil War activities, reconstruct the communities which were freed from enslavement on Lowcountry rice plantations in the June 1863 Combahee River Raid, and show the Civil War transformations among freed Blacks in the Lowcountry whose descendants are known today as the Gullah Geechee. For her work on the Gullah/Geechee and Creolization, Fields-Black has been awarded a Smithsonian Senior Fellow at the National Museum of American History (Spring semester 2013), an Andrew W. Mellon New Directions Fellowship (2014-2015), and a Senior Ford Fellowship from the National Academy of Sciences (2017-2018).

She's the first historian who I have met who has written a libretto for a new piece of contemporary classical music, Casop: A Requiem for Rice, a modern and African-American inspired take on a classic requiem in the spirit of Verdi, Mozart, Faure, and Britten. It mourns the souls of the enslaved who died on Lowcountry rice plantations, their bodies unburied, their suffering unmourned, and their sacrifices unmarked for future generations. The Orchestral Debut of "Casop: A Requiem for Rice" on February 1, 2019 will feature libretto which recovers the voices of the enslaved by acclaimed historian and executive producer, Dr. Edda L. Fields-Black, and original score by composer, three-time Emmy Award-winner John Wineglass.

 
When she's not working on her manuscript or performing the duties of an executive producer and writer of classical music librettos, she's consulting on permanent exhibits such as "The Power of Place: The Rice Fields of the Lowcountry" at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the International African American Museum in Charleston, and the "From Slavery to Freedom" for the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh. 

In other words, Dr. Edda Fields-Black is one impressive scholar and has a lot of knowledge and talent to share with those who attend her lecture this Saturday. The lecture is free; Everyone is welcome to attend.