♪♪ ♪♪ [ Water lapping ] -There's a birth place and there's a home place.

Your birth place is Hartford, Connecticut.

Your home is Georgetown, South Carolina.

-Yeah, but what makes it home?

[ Water lapping ] ♪♪ [ Wind chimes tinkling ] How is this home when hundreds of thousands of Africans arriving at these shores were separated from their homes by this water?

♪♪ Sea grass, oysters, pecans, potato pone, houses built on stilts, Cadillacs, rice.

-♪ In that Red Sea ♪ ♪ Lay your rod ♪ ♪ Let the children cross ♪ ♪ In that Red Sea ♪ ♪ Moses, Moses, lay your rod ♪ ♪ In that Red Sea ♪ ♪ Lay your rod ♪ ♪ Let the children cross ♪ ♪ In that Red Sea ♪ [ Projector clicking ] -I'm Gullah.

Born in exile.

People have fled our home for much of the 20th century.

My father still insists that this place is still my home.

-Behind the property, water runs deep, just like your inheritance.

The water that runs behind the property not only runs in North Santee, but leads out to the Atlantic, that runs beyond.

Runs as far as back to Africa.

So water has a meaning.

The Middle Passage, slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation, the civil rights movement.

The water still runs deep, just like your family tree.

♪♪ The people here came by water.

They live by the water and eat from the water.

We are water people.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Well, let me say this.

This is what your mother and father taught you and J.R.

I still believe that there is a cloud of witnesses that who is cheering us on, those of us who are still on this side of the Jordan.

And all of us would like to live as long as we can.

But realizing that when this particular life is over as we know it, there's another building that is not built by hands.

And that we must believe that, that we will see our loved ones again, as long as you can remember in your heart.

-"Good news.

Charleston in our possession."

[ Crickets chirping ] [ Bells tolling ] -On the eve of January 12, 1865, 20 Black ministers met with William Sherman at his headquarters in Savannah, Georgia.

"Special Field Orders number 15, Headquarters Military Division of Mississippi in the Field, Savannah, Georgia, January 16, 1865."

♪♪ -"Number one.

The islands from Charleston south, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for 30 miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the Saint John River, Florida, are reserved and set apart for the settlement of the Blacks now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the President of the United States.

Number two.

At Beaufort, Hilton Head, Savannah, Fernandina, St. Augustine, and Jacksonville, the Blacks may remain in their chosen or accustomed vocations, but on the islands and in the settlements hereafter to be established, no white person whatever, unless military officers and soldiers detailed for duty, will be permitted to reside, and sole and exclusive management of affairs will be left to the freed people themselves."

♪♪ ♪♪ -"By the laws of war and orders of the President of the United States, the negro is free and must be dealt with as such."

-We didn't get any of that land.

-We didn't get any of that land.

-We didn't get any of that land.

-There are families that I know in Georgetown County have owned the land, but they bought that land.

♪♪ ♪♪ -My first memory of what we call the country was going 11 miles outside of Georgetown and learning how to pick beans and to plant and to cook.

It's a place that we were always able to go, long before we built these homes.

This did not start with your mother and father, but it also starts with your great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents who were slaves but yet still found a way.

That's the legacy.

It's an inheritance.

-We were born and raised right here.

This is where I bought my house where I was born and raised in.

And this is now the Pinckney property that I'm on.

'Cause it started all the way over at the area you can't even see from here.

But it started with the Pinckneys, the Palmers, the Coakleys.

-Lord, this has been in our family...

I would say pretty close to 90 years.

-I think my grandparents bought the property in the 1870s.

1870s.

At that time, you know, they didn't have the bridge to go to Charleston and they was going to Charleston on a boat.

A guy who was trying to buy the property, somehow, he lost his money in the water and couldn't get the money, so my parents had a chance to buy the 11 acres.

And that's what they did.

But now, you know, people come from all over, up north, Midwest, wherever, and buy property and build houses on it.

So there's very little land left to farm on Johns Island.

And we gotta hold onto this property 'cause the Black people are losing their property every day for some reason with the family or with the taxman.

They're losing the property.

-My family's been here since the 1800s.

This land needs to pass to your generation to come because... [ Speaks Gullah ] [ Laughter ] When this is gone, it's gone.

-Georgetown used to be a plantation itself.

Over the years, they broke it down.

Lot of people came right off of Acadia Plantation.

Their family before them, they were all slaves on that plantation.

The older ones stayed, and they had houses for them to stay in.

They weren't supposed to have to pay for nothin' as long as they lived.

As long as they had lineage, the people could come in and stay in the house.

And that went on for -- since all of my life.

Growing up, it was a fishing village.

It was a village.

If you got a crab, I got a piece of that crab.

-Everybody in the neighborhood was welcome at the table in the homes that were lined in that community.

So when one eats, everybody eats.

If you had something to share, you shared it.

-And so the land itself was not a commodity.

It was a family resource used for producing food and for residential use.

By the late 1950s, early 1960s, everybody was coming into Hilton Head wanting to buy land from families who had land and had stopped farming certain parts of them.

The whole coast has been impacted by modern resort development.

-If I own a tract of land, and next to me someone purchases the land and builds a million-dollar home, my taxes are going to go up.

But when I sell it, you know, I'm selling the soil, I'm selling the rocks, I'm selling the trees that so many generations have farmed, walked on or lived on, and there's a really spiritual part that's being sold off.

-Never sell the land.

That's your inheritance.

♪♪ -Where your people are buried will always be home.

They are roots.

♪♪ -Youth choir on Monday.

-NAACP on Tuesday.

-Prayer meeting and bible study Wednesday.

-Choir on Thursday.

-Fish fry on Friday.

-Young people's meeting on Saturday.

-Church all day Sunday.

[ Choir sings ] -♪ It is well ♪ ♪ With my soul ♪ ♪ With my soul ♪ ♪ It is well ♪ ♪ It is well ♪ ♪ With my soul ♪ -Our Father and our God, we thank You for Your grace and mercy.

We thank You for... -So, when was your first time coming to Georgetown with Dad?

-After about a year.

I flew into Columbia, and they came and got me.

That was a scary ride, from Columbia to Georgetown at night.

Moss hanging from the trees.

I had never seen that before, 'cause I had never been this far south.

So we're driving through these dark roads, and I'm like, "Where is this man taking me?

I may never get back home.

[Laughing] I'm not sure what's gonna happen."

♪♪ -Well, you know, growing up, you hear all kinds of stories.

And most certainly when there's no lights and darkness and you had your cousins playing games on the dirt road, jumpin' out from behind trees with moss hanging down...

Most certainly, it's a scene like "Gone from the Wind," you know, in terms of riding up to the old plantation houses.

Manigault Plantation, Boone Hall Plantation, a number of other plantations that surround the property and the country.

We had an appreciation of it once we moved away from it in terms of understanding the history of where the property is.

The history about having a paper mill that is in Georgetown that at one time was the largest in the world.

The history about how slave markets on Front Street turned into a police station and now into the Rice Museum.

The history about knowing that the place that you were born and raised in most certainly had a culture of having Black people who stood up in the civil rights, Black people who also confronted the Ku Klux Klan.

We have a history of knowing who we are and whose we are.

♪♪ -What was your hope for the world I would grow up in?

That's one.

And what is your hope for me moving forward?

-Hope for the world and then for you?

-No, no, no.

What was your hope for the type of world that I would grow up in?

Prior to, like, when I was born.

Like, it's a boy... -Yeah, yeah, my hope for you and J.R. is that you would grow up in a better world than which your mother and I grew up in.

That it should be better, not worse.

That we should have made progress rather than regress.

-Uh, want the truth?

[ Laughs ] I'm just jokin'.

I'm just jokin'.

I don't care how hot it is, how cold it is, how much it's raining -- we were out there playing football every day.

But nobody had no money to buy no football.

So what we did, we got the milk carton, the half-pint milk carton.

Open the top, we put rocks in it, and that was a football.

I wanna go back -- I'll go back to the championship game and tell you what happened then.

Rev and I were the captains of the team.

That year, we had to beat Waccamaw High School.

That was actually our archrival.

They had never, ever, ever beaten us.

So we had to play them over there.

And they were beating us.

It was fourth down and 4 yards to go, and everybody knew that we were going to run the ball off tackle to the right.

But when I came up to the line, when the ball was snapped, instead of giving the ball to him, I kept the ball and went straight up the middle.

And I got 6 yards.

We got the first down.

And then we were fired up.

And they couldn't stop -- We went on to beat 'em.

[ Laughs ] So, we got back to town, and we were pumped up.

And we ran into Alfred Pinckney.

He told us to be careful because the Ku Klux Klan was riding tonight.

And the graveyard right there, that's where they were.

And they said, "And don't go in the alley," because they said those guys were on the building with shotguns and rifles, and they wanted them to come through the alley and said they were gonna kill all of 'em.

-But I say to the people that does not want the negro and does not want the socialist or the liberal element in this country running their business, I ask you now to rise up and be a white man!

-So, we -- "Ah, we ain't scared of no Ku Klux Klan."

We didn't do nothing.

We'd just won the game.

So, all of us, we start looking for each other.

And we came down the railroad track.

But remember, now, the railroad track runs right side the graveyard where the Ku Klux Klan was.

We got to Connell Street.

Cars were coming out of the graveyard.

And we acted like we weren't scared, but we were scared.

We look up and we saw the Howard [UNINTELLIGIBLE] bus coming by.

And we hollered, and he heard us and he stopped, and we told him what was going on.

And he acted like he wasn't scared either, but he was scared.

♪♪ -So, we got on the bus, and he started dropping guys off, and I went in the house and went in the back, and all night, I heard every fly move, everything.

You heard everything that moved that night.

♪♪ ♪♪ -My forefather, March Singleton, who initially purchased the land along the Santee River, was responsible for starting dozens of AME Churches in Coastal South Carolina, from Georgetown to Johns Island.

Many of them were founded while Black church gatherings in the state were illegal following the attempted insurrection by Denmark Vesey and other church leaders.

♪♪ -Every now and then, I open the newspaper and I read the obituary.

And I get happy when I don't see my name there.

[ Congregation laughs, murmurs ] Wish I had a witness there.

-Amen!

-Amen!

We serve a -- we serve a present God.

-Amen.

-Amen.

-How many of you God has blessed, not last year, not yesterday, but I'm talkin' about right now.

[ Shouts and applause ] I believe God is blessing you right now.

I want you to stand on your feet if God's blessing you right now.

I ain't talking about last year.

I ain't talkin' 'bout when we came over on some slave ship.

I'm talking about right now.

Has God done anything for you?

Oh, Lord have mercy.

Let somebody say, "God woke me up this morning!

Started me on my way!"

[ Congregation responding ] Then I want you to use this saying.

Ain't ya glad about it!

[ Congregation cheering ] Get ready for the prayer!

And I don't care if there's no room.

Find somewhere to come and tell God thank you for what he has already done.

We gonna call on Sister Corrine Childs.

-Amen!

-Amen!

Come and pray for us and with us this morning.

Come on, now.

Pray for the sinners.

-You come to a sacred space.

You worship.

You pray.

You let it all out.

You have this communal group therapy moment where individuals are processing in real time the stresses of their daily lives.

You consider the fact that this is a community where you can still feel the presence of the period of enslavement for Africans.

You can drive down the streets and see houses where folks were formerly in servitude.

You can see fields where folks worked.

And in these spaces, there's not really much hope right here.

And so you have to ask yourself, where does hope come from?

[ All singing ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Singing fades ] -Now, you can imagine how this place looked.

Somebody -- I have to call the Zion elders.

Somebody cut -- I got all upset when I came up.

They cut... -What is that?

-It was all trees.

And they cut all the trees down.

You see them?

And there's two graveyards.

That's one.

And then there's another slave graveyard in the back.

They must have sold it to somebody.

See, the only original thing on here is that steeple.

It's been here since 1858, '59.

-1859.

-1859.

Yeah.

♪♪ ♪♪ -God's people are those who come into the house of God that they would share a common bond in praising God and serving him and working out their soul salvation.

The church is not just bricks and mortars, woods and roof.

But it's the people who make up the church.

-Are they being instructed in the doctrine of the Lord and the history of our church during a given quarter?

-Yes, sir.

-Number of full members in this church?

-238.

-How many members of this church are registered voters?

-150.

-What is the number of new members in this church this quarter?

-None.

-How many have been expelled?

-None.

-How many would you like to expel?

[ Laughter ] No, that's not real.

Don't take that down in the minutes.

[ Laughter ] Is there any applications for the license to preach?

-None.

-Any license to be renewed?

-None.

-How many persons have been converted this quarter?

-17.

-Alright, let's give that a hand.

[ Applause ] Oh, my, my.

How many members have died this quarter?

-Two.

-What are their names?

-Brother Anthony Lewis and brother Andrew James.

-My grandmother used to say that our hometown folk have been spread all over the country, so there's no place we could go where we couldn't find our people.

-Hi.

We're now back in Baber African Methodist Episcopal Church, which is the home of God.

This is a warm place.

The balcony has... ...14 chairs.

And we use... which...

The rack which is behind you is the youth choir robes.

Our church looks lovely with the two wreaths and all the poinsettias that people donated and they took time to bring in here.

-All I'm saying is, paying what y'all are paying to live here, knowing what most of your friends are paying to live where they live in the South, how long do you see yourself being in New York?

-Not long.

I mean, I'mma -- I'll move to the South.

Ya know what I mean?

Like, I'm cool on all this and spending this, that to the third to see rats and all that.

Y'all buggin', know what I mean?

Y'all super buggin'.

-You don't have, like, a little bit of fear, though?

Like, here's the thing.

They're killing Black people everywhere, right?

-True.

-Some of y'all should be trying to escape to the West Coast, low-key, versus staying.

Ya know what I'm sayin'?

-But I'm from the Carolinas, though.

See, for me, it's not a...

I don't get a... -You wanna go home.

-How's the word?

Exactly.

So, new couple.

Ya know what I mean?

-Hey, congratulations to y'all, real quick.

Honestly.

Congratulations.

[ All cheering ] -You know what I mean?

-Cheers.

-You are going to stay here in New York City and spend all that money... -Somewhere around here.

Ain't gonna be nowhere down South.

[ Laughter ] -I'm gonna say...

I know.

So aggressive, right?

I'm interested in the quality of life.

And, so, do you want to go down South and stay in a big house and be alone and drive everywhere... -And breathe good air.

-And breathe good air.

But do you want to be in the city living, experiencing, meeting people?

[ Laughter ] -No one to have sex with casually!

[ Laughter ] -You tryin' to let freedom ring, ain't you?

Right.

Let it out.

Here's the thing.

But, no... [ Laughter ] -Because the biggest thing people wanna talk about the South is the racism and all that in the South and all this, that to the third.

But at the end of the day... -It's everywhere.

-It's everywhere.

-No, no, no, at the beginning of the day, it's everywhere.

-Exactly.

Exactly.

-And in the middle.

-I grew up with Jason in Upstate New York.

-In fancy New York.

-Right.

Rochester.

Canada.

[ Laughter ] And my neighbors used to reenact the Civil War.

Like as... -Oh, like for fun?

[ Laughter ] -Like, as kids... No, no, no.

Straight up.

As kids, as kids... -But were you a field negro or a slave slave?

-No, I was a praying negro.

[ Laughter ] I didn't want to get the gray hat.

I was like, if I get the gray hat, what does that mean?

And I'm talking, like, real life.

[ Laughter ] -Even when we lived in Hartford and Rochester, Dad always said our home was Georgetown.

And I wholeheartedly believe that now.

Maybe not when I was younger, but at this point, yeah.

You know, and I say it with pride, though.

Like, yeah, my dad's from Georgetown.

My family is from Georgetown.

You know, I know Mom is from Ohio, and you know, we grew up in Connecticut and Upstate New York and things like that, but... Where else do we have land?

Where else do we own homes?

Where else do we have a nucleus of families, like cousins and everything else, that come back on a consistent basis?

This, this is it.

[ Chuckles ] We can always go outward.

But you can always come back home.

[ Birds chirping ] [ Crickets chirping ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -What was it like living on South Island?

-Good.

Good.

-What do you remember about it?

-I remember Yorkie and all them... [ Indistinct ] All them.

-And living out here, do you get lonely 'cause it's so far?

-Mmm.

Lonely?

You got a car, you can go anywhere you wanna go.

-Are there a lot of Black people that live out this way?

-I'm the only one who lives out here.

But you got some live right over here.

[ Speaking indistinctly ] -You remember Little Bethel Church?

-Yeah.

-Yeah?

Had you ever been in there?

-Yeah, I've been to Bethel, St. Peter, Dickerson, all through up there.

-But this gives me a reason to be a little bit more optimistic living down here around people like [indistinct].

He tells me something I never had before, and that's faith.

You see that net he's making?

It'll last a lifetime if you take care of it.

He made it with his hands.

The Lord made his hands.

-[ Speaking Gullah] -I just catch enough to eat.

-Yeah.

I tell you one thing... [ Speaking Gullah ] -Yeah.

-[ Speaking Gullah ] -Doing what?

-[ Speaking Gullah ] -Pickin' what?

-[ Speaking Gullah ] -The marsh was once a vast swamp forest until it was drained and plowed.

Then slave-built canals in every direction.

Levees drawn straight line across the horizon.

-Growing up here, you grew everything, would be strictly farming or fishing.

Rice, cotton, tomato, okra.

-You know, like, hoppin' John, red rice... -Okra soup!

[ Laughter ] -Hoppin' John ain't nothin' but peas and rice.

But when that Black gal throw them thing together, them thing sure turn out nice.

♪♪ -So, the land's been in my family since 1874.

It's kind of... kind of surreal sometimes to be here 'cause, you know, I swore I'd never come back.

And you know, when you say you're never coming back somewhere, be careful what you tell people.

But, yeah, I left when I was 18.

I came back.

I was probably 45 years old when I came back.

I came out here thinking I just knew how to grow a little bit, you know.

I went back to school for farming and all that kind of stuff.

But our family's farmer's almanac actually is built upon letters that my grandmother, my great-grandmother wrote to my grandmother about what they were planting and what they were harvesting.

Um, onions, watermelons, peppers, greens.

All that kind of stuff has made me actually want to grow those exact same things here on the farm.

So, we use two forms of farmer almanac here.

We use the technology that we have now that was nonexistent in 1940s or 1900s or even the 1800s, and then we use those letters.

That's what we do.

[ Indistinct conversations ] [ Indistinct conversation ] [ Laughter ] [ Indistinct conversations ] -So, this happened between 7:30 last night when we left and this morning when I got the call.

[ Speaking indistinctly ] -Most certainly have fond memories of my father building the house, scraping out old nails, and how the front porch was built in terms of throwing dirt and old cans and bottles, anything to fill out the inner portion of the porch before the concrete was poured.

This is the place where you can come back and eventually raise your own family and let them understand how did this all come about.

♪♪ ♪♪ -When we would go out here, it was always like we going in the country 'cause we going to see Mamma.

I remember the house as a, you know, small child going out there.

♪♪ Very large piece of property.

And of course when you're small, anything looks large to you.

But I know now that it really was large, because you're looking at about a 25-acre tract.

But I do remember the house that my grandmother lived in.

I do remember a fig tree that she used to have out there in the yard.

♪♪ What happened, as best as I can recollect... Let me say this.

As Mamma got older, you're looking at, you know, these five siblings and you're also looking at only two that were still here.

The others, they did what all other African Americans did in the '30s, the '40s, the '50s, the '60s if they could find a way to leave the South and go north for better opportunities as opposed to staying here and picking cotton or cropping tobacco.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Now, that term during that time was somewhat offensive.

Gullah Geechee.

"Oh, you a... You talk like a Geechee."

Until we started to learn the history behind it.

-When I go to different places, people say I speak -- I speak funny, I speak different.

But they say I'm Geechee.

And if I go to Jamaica or Bahamas or whatever, the first thing people ask me is if I'm one of them, you know, the way I speak.

-I can't wait until I get back home to hear somebody say... [ Speaking Gullah ] Or someone tell you in the morning... [ Speaking Gullah ] I feel comfortable speaking Gullah.

It's the first language that our ancestors put together.

And when people made fun of us, call us saltwater Geechee, rice-eating Geechee people... "Oh, they don't know how to pronounce words" and blah blah blah.

But this is the first language that they put together and made it possible for us to be here today.

I think it's a legacy.

It's a legacy that they left us.

They left us this ting that you call Gullah Geechee culture.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Gullah foods, medicine, stuff that we still use for healing, you know.

What, Julia Child?

We going to make some Life Everlasting today to heal all you sick children.

Okay.

And start up.

Put it on high.

That's high, there we go.

Then we take our Life Everlasting that I harvest.

This one I harvested and I got from Sapelo Island.

It's all over the place.

It has to boil.

It's changing color.

See that, change color now.

I'll let you drop a...

Here you go.

Get a spoon.

Get a spoon, and we both can sample it.

-Hey, that's good.

-Ohh!

-That's good.

I feel better already.

-[ Laughs ] You crazy.

-Oh, thank you.

Thank you.

-I don't have enough of this in it.

-[ Laughs ] -'Cause you're really supposed to taste that.

This is what knock the fever out.

-Yeah.

-But see how bitter it is?

So what we do, put rock candy in it and sweeten it.

I can sweeten it.

It doesn't matter.

You just don't want to take a lot of the real effect of what it is designed to do away from it.

-Mm-hmm.

-That's what it is.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Rhythmic clapping ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Choir singing in distance ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Singing continues ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Cheers and applause ] -I wasn't quite sure I wanted to join any church when I came to Charleston because I was a little disillusioned with churches, as it goes.

I started to look around and decided that I was going to join this church because of its history, the AME church being a church designed specifically for Black people.

And I told people if I'm no longer at this church, I'll be at no church.

This is my last church.

-[ Speaking indistinctly ] -[ Congregation cheering ] -Whoo, whoo!

-Hallelujah!

Praise the Lord!

Jesus!

-Someone in the house is thirsty.

[ Congregation responding ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -Just a quick reflection on where I came from.

I came from the part of South Carolina that's down on the coast, right between... actually between Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina.

Okay.

-I kept looking at this map on the back of here, and I don't see my home on there.

[ Laughter ] Does that mean we're too small or we're off the scale?

Well, I'm from a little place in South Carolina called Spring Valley.

-I'm from Barnwell, South Carolina.

Now, it's on the map, if you look on your map, on your bulletin, you will find Barnwell.

See that, Reverend Goff?

Barnwell, near Columbia, Orangeburg, and Bamberg.

We are known.

[ Laughs ] -Even the dog on the Greyhound bus don't get off in Barnwell.

[ Laughter ] -We are from the Greentown.

They have Cooperstown, Dorseytown, Morrisville, Dickerson Town, Dorseytown, [indistinct].

Then we go back up to King Street, on up to Columbia, South Carolina.

Comin' back the other way, it's Graves, Georgetown, goin' on back to Myrtle Beach.

-I'm proud to be from South Carolina.

Thank God for that.

A lot of people come up north and then they say, "I'm from Georgia" or whatever.

I'm from South Carolina.

-The reason I came to Charleston, I got tired of the cold weather.

I moved to Charleston in 1978, from Connecticut.

I've found no real difference in race religion -- race relations in Hartford, in Charleston, anyplace else.

I usually take the position that Malcolm took -- the South is anyplace below the Canadian border.

♪♪ -In Rochester at that time, Kodak was the major employer, and they had been there for a long time.

People had been working there for 20 years for little or nothing.

A lot of discrimination.

A lot of hateful things happened.

People would put messages on the Blacks' lockers, pictures of people being hung.

-He needs to send a clear message to the entire workforce, from top to bottom, that this kind of material will not be tolerated in Kodak.

-We found, in a few job categories, in a few organizations, that there were discrepancies based on race and gender.

-In fact, Kodak found nearly 7% of its entire US workforce, most of it right here in Rochester, has suffered pay discrimination.

-Of the 2,000 US Kodak employees affected by today's announcement, 33% are African-American, 12% are women.

-Well, it's good news, and I think there's more to come.

-Reverend Norvel Goff, president of the NAACP in Rochester, was a key figure in reaching this agreement.

-I think it's the formula for other corporate citizens to follow and that is the model in which Kodak and the NAACP and its employees have put together thus far.

-Workers will receive increases ranging from 3% to 6%, including retroactive pay going back to 1996.

Total cost to the company -- about $10 million.

-Well, my experience in Hartford, I got involved in the community of Hartford through the NAACP, which I served as its president for a number of years.

There were still the same issues.

And in some cases, there was more racism in northern cities where they had problems with desegregation of schools in the early '70s there, where we marched to challenge their treatment of Blacks in the school system.

-♪ Your nose ♪ ♪ And Jack Frost nipping your toes ♪ [ Singing indistinctly ] ♪ We've never felt so nice and icy cold ♪ ♪ So dig out your ice skates 'cause winter is here ♪ ♪ And be sure to unpack your sleigh ♪ ♪ When the wind is whipping outside your door ♪ -You remember how I used to tell you that the kids in my class would come deliver messages from their parents?

[ Laughs ] Saying, "My dad said tell your dad he don't know what he talkin' about and to mind his own business."

People knew who you were.

You know, so, it's like everybody had a different opinion around your engagement, and sometimes...

It didn't make me feel necessarily unsafe, you know, but it made me feel, you know, like a little...ups-- not annoyed that, you know, that, like, I had to deal with this because of what you were doing.

But then, um, there's this one time, I don't know if you remember, but somebody called the house.

I answered the phone, and they started going off, making some sort of threats or whatever.

Like, as a kid that was... 'Cause I read books and I had an active imagination.

It's like Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, you know, and their lives were cut short.

You never feared that... that, you know, something could happen to you or that something could happen to your family?

-Yeah, that's always in the back of your mind, but you just try to stay positive, keep your prayer life strength and trust in God.

Making sure that you monitor behaviors of others when you're in a public space and press on.

♪♪ ♪♪ -In the old community, when someone dies, they would hand those persons, like your father, across the casket.

And that is to let them know how much this person who passed away loved those who were crossing over the casket.

-♪ I done done what you told me to do ♪ ♪ Told me to sing and I done that too ♪ ♪ I done done what you told me to do ♪ ♪ Ohh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ I done done ♪ ♪ Ohh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ I done done ♪ ♪ Ohh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ I done done ♪ ♪ I done done what you told me to do ♪ -We did every single thing you told us to do.

And it was never enough.

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Crickets chirping ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -Our tormentors demanded songs of joy.

They said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion."

How can we sing the songs of Zion, the songs of the Lord, while in a foreign land?

If I forget you or Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill, may my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.

I want to talk for the next little while from the theme, singing in a strange land.

[ Congregation murmurs ] Singing in a strange land.

♪♪ -It was the beginning of the end, ending in a beginning again.

Forced into darkness, it is those who can see without looking who can truly conquer the night.

-Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And led us not into temptation but deliverance from evil... -I don't usually stay till Bible study.

And when I got outside, I talked to Reverend Pinckney, and he sort of helped me down because my knee, and even then it was very hard.

And he said to me, "Go home and get something to eat and get out this heat."

And I did.

And by the time I was home maybe 30 minutes, I got the call.

So, immediately, we turned around and went back to Mother Emanuel.

And by then, we couldn't get anywhere near the church, because by then it was totally surrounded by the police.

-I could not believe it.

I couldn't.

And then I turned on Channel 5.

-We want the entire community to pray for safety for our people.

And that we would hope that this person who has committed this heinous crime, which is a hate crime, be brought to justice.

So we stand in solidarity, but we also solicit your prayers for the family members who have lost loved ones here tonight.

Thank you so much.

-Do you have a sense of how many people were in the church at the time of the shooting?

-I can't answer that.

The police chief will have to do that.

-We're finished.

[ Reporters clamoring ] We're finished right now.

We'll be back in a couple of hours.

We'll notify you when we're coming back.

-And I'm thinking, if Reverend Pinckney is in the church, he would come out to, you know, pacify us.

And then the news commentator let it slip, "a coroner," and right away the word "coroner," I said, "Oh, my goodness."

I simply lost it.

-They took my husband and gave him a... a rundown of what was going on.

He just let us know that, you know, nine people had been killed.

-We'll never be the same because of June 17th.

The freshness of death is always around, but we also saw it up close and personal how quickly a life can end.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Bear right and then turn left onto SC... -There's Henrietta now.

-Henrietta is after the yellow church, right?

-No, right here.

-No, this is Charlotte.

-Okay.

-They cleared you up here?

-Yes, they did.

I'm Reverend Goff.

I'm the pastor of Mother Emanuel.

-Yes, sir.

I apologize.

-That's alright.

Henrietta's one more block down to my left, right?

-Uh, yes, sir.

That's Charlotte Street.

I guess Henrietta's the next one down.

-That's right.

Thank you.

-Yes, sir.

-And this is a church of longevity, of peace.

And so we just grab each other.

Just hold on.

And that's what we're doing now.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -I've always been, I guess, a partner in ministry, so I was always around.

He had to plan, basically, nine funerals.

That was a very difficult time for him.

Very difficult.

-Around a quarter to nine, we'd like to start organizing ourselves.

Security will walk you over so you can go through the metal detector.

So just hold tight, continue the fellowship.

♪♪ ♪♪ -I'm reminded by some news media persons, said, "Wonder why the nine families all spoke of forgiveness and didn't have malice in their heart."

[ Congregation responds ] Well, on this Father's Day, you ought to know the nine families' daddy.

[ Cheers and applause ] If you knew the nine families' daddy, you would know how the children are behaving.

[ Cheers and applause continue ] ♪♪ -They can't believe this.

But then you look at the news.

Same thing.

It's just a cycle.

Remember how the Bible teaches us to forgive.

And if you're not -- or if you haven't learned the Bible, you need to go study.

It's not easy to forgive.

It's something you have to work at, but that's what he said.

And if you say your prayers, it's forgiveness.

And if you hold bitterness, you become almost a puppet.

You become the slave, you know?

You're just carrying a cross.

So you have to forgive in order to move on with your life.

-When you forgive, it does not mean that I and others are void of anger, tears, and outright madness.

But it has to be managed and that has to be harnessed and that energy has to be used in a positive way.

So when I talk about forgiveness about the racist terrorist who entered Mother Emanuel Church at a Bible study where your mother and I just left 20 minutes earlier, the fact of the matter is I refuse to give that person or any other person that kind of control over my life.

To have me held hostage by hatred.

I decide to make a choice to help make things different because there are some good people in the world.

-But they said that in 1968, and here we are 50 years later still dealing with the same type of triflin'... -Well... Yeah, but they not only said it in '68.

They said it when they crucified Jesus, that there was some good in the world.

Which there was, you know.

Joseph of Arimathea begged for his body, placed him in a burial tomb.

I mean, there's always evil in the world.

But the good news is that I believe that love and goodness outflanks hatred and fear.

I believe that.

That's a belief.

-Through the arc of history?

-Oh, no.

Not only the arc of history, but also through reflection of one's life and what has already been done.

-Well...

It's very...

It's very Christian of them the way they expressed themselves.

I consider myself a strong Christian.

I think I'll lose some of my Christianity when it gets to that point, 'cause I don't think I'm gonna... [ Chuckles ] I'd wanna really injure somebody.

I don't know, I don't know if I would feel like...

I don't know if I would be in a position to say, "I'm going to forgive you."

I would wanna hit somebody with a basket first.

You know, I consider myself a strong Christian, and I know I should adhere to my good Christian belief in tradition and everything, what I've been taught, what God has taught us to do.

But you know, God also made us human, and... -Now, what happened at the church, that's, like, in your face.

That's direct violence.

On the daily, it's like the air we breathe.

But it's there.

You know?

It's the air we breathe.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -There are still people out here that talk about how Dad saved the city of Charleston.

Like, Black folk, they'll talk to me like, you know, "We was gonna burn this down.

Like, your father saved this city."

Like, nobody talks about it, but the Black folk know.

Like, the people in the city know.

Like, they know what was really happening.

Everybody else can be out here talking and grandstanding and what they did and how they did it.

There's only one person that kept that city from getting burnt to the ground.

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Indistinct conversations ] -On our right, Fort Sumter, where the first shot of the Civil War was fired on the federal ship bringing supplies to the federal soldiers at Fort Sumter.

Look now to the left of Fort Sumter, Sullivan's Island.

That is where many Blacks in Charleston and South Carolina in the Southeast symbolically refer to as their Ellis Island.

Over 40% of Africans entering America came in through Sullivan's Island, more than any other slave port in America.

You're looking at close to half a million people.

After the Civil War was over, they told the Black to go to the Freedman's Bank and pick up your mule and 40 acres of land.

We did!

We did!

We came to the bank on our very left, to the gallery with the American flag right there.

That building housed one of the banks.

It must have been disguised as a gallery at that same time, 'cause we sure didn't get no mule and 40 acres of land!

I'm still waitin' on mine.

They're gonna tell me somethin'.

I want my land.

I need that land.

I don't want no mule.

Give me -- I don't want a mule.

Give me a truck or a car.

[indistinct] College of Charleston has been trying to buy out nearly everything in this area.

The church that I'm a member of is Mount Zion AME Church, African Methodist Episcopal, located dead smack in the heart of the campus.

They've been trying to buy us out for the last 90,000 years.

But we ain't gonna sell.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -We're from a group of people that have been broken up, you know.

We've been split apart from slavery.

So, from Africa to here, we were already separated from family.

We get here and then the family is broken up again.

Then with the migration...

I mean, think about how many people have left the South, went up north.

They know they have people down here, but they don't know who those people are.

People are trying to figure out where their roots are, you know, who they're connected to.

And I'm not talking about some euphemistic, "I wanna just know what my African DNA is," you know, kinda thing.

And not that that's a bad thing.

But people are really trying to connect back to people that are literally their people.

And I think that being here on this land has allowed me to come back and connect with my people that are here.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Your property, right here.

See what you're looking at right here now?

Right, that's the piece on the side of the road, and that little creek run right there.

-Right.

-Right in the front, when you come that road down, 50 foot right off.

-Mm-hmm.

-See what I'm saying?

Where That tree with that little river going, I'm willing to bet you I find the stake is right there.

This is this big development property right here.

And this lot right here, right here where my hand at now, I'll show you that rod right there in the ground right here.

-Okay.

-Right there.

-Okay.

-Okay?

That's on the line.

-I see the hollow tree, yeah.

-And right here, where I'm astanding at right now, it comes just like this right here.

From where the wagon axle is to the road, right here, and it's straight down like that to the river.

Okay, look right here.

Right here.

This is it right here.

This right here is where your property starts, and his starts, right here.

Turn your back around and look right here where my hand's at.

Extend your arm out to the right.

That's on your property line.

See?

-Mm-hmm, okay.

-Right there, you see what I'm saying?

-Right.

-This was the pine tree here.

That was so big.

All that right there came from that pine tree.

This pine tree was huge.

And the erosion washed the dirt from this side, and this tree was huge.

-Now to be honest with you, my brother Henry didn't...

He didn't like the idea of the property being divided.

Because he thought that the property, the value of it was better as a whole.

But you cannot... You couldn't do that when there's five people there.

The only option you would have if you could keep it as a whole is you sell it.

-It's been in the family for about at least 100 years.

And I guess that's five generations of people, of our family living here.

When I grew up, everybody in my community was Black.

Now, the community that we live in, we can count the Black folks probably on one hand or maybe two hands.

♪♪ ♪♪ Most Black folks around here have been losing their properties to the white folks.

And it's a shame because once it's gone, it's over and you have no place else to go.

I mean, where's your legacy?

♪♪ [ Indistinct conversations ] -Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for being here today, the 2016 Beaufort County tax sale.

I just want to welcome the Penn Center here and Mr. -- Dr. Lawrence, who is going to be joining us in a moment.

He's going to talk to you a little bit about heirs' property in Beaufort County and the significance to our community and the families that own these property.

And he is going to discuss that with you, so I hope that you will welcome him with me.

-Good morning.

-Good morning.

I'm Dr. Rodell Lawrence.

I'm the executive director of the historic Penn Center.

I'd like to first acknowledge and thank the Beaufort County and the treasurer's office for continuing to allow us to come and represent the underserved.

As you are aware, or you might be aware, Penn Center has a long-standing relationship helping to preserve the heirs' property in this county.

So that, so that I can preserve the heritage of these families.

Heirs' property is important not only to these families, but also serves to preserve the heritage and culture that so many have come to admire and love in this county.

As such, each year, we come to advocate on behalf and ask -- and ask... We ask that you extend the courtesy and not bid on property identified as heirs' property, so that these families are given the opportunity to redeem and preserve their land.

Thank you again, on behalf of Penn Center, for having us today and recognizing us at Penn Center.

Thank you.

-Thank you, Dr. Lawrence.

So, if there are any bidders here today wishing to bid on heirs' property, please know that the Penn Center is here to assist you should you have any questions and also if you just want to learn more information about heirs' property.

So, with that I'm going to hand this over to Mr. Darren, who will get our auction started.

-Number three.

This is one fifty-nine dash four zero.

How 'bout $4,000?

How about 4?

Anybody, anywhere, $4,000.

How about a $4,000 start.

Right here.

4, 5, $6,000.

$6,000.

Anybody 8?

8, 8, 8.

Anybody?

8, 9, 10, 11, 12, $13,000.

13 over here, now 14.

Anybody, anywhere, 14?

Anybody 14?

Anybody 14?

14 here.

15 in the back?

15?

I'm 14 right here.

Now 15 there, 16 here.

16, anybody 16?

Anybody 16?

You want back in?

Sold at $15,000 in the back.

$15,000, bidder number six.

Ma'am, this one's listed as a bank.

-That's because our money was borrowed on it.

-Okay, um...

I, um...

Okay, we can't dictate who stands up, so, um, ma'am, I need, uh, 30... Let's see.

$3,075.

We good?

$3,000.

$4,000.

$5,000.

$5,000.

I need you to bid again, ma'am.

5, 6, 7.

$7,000.

$8,000, $9,000.

Are you bidding?

$9,000.

$10,000, $11,000.

$11,000.

-Heirs' property.

-It's heirs' property.

-It's heirs' property.

-Ma'am, I can't do anything about it.

This is a public auction.

We have given the opportunity to describe heirs' property.

That's all we can do.

I've got $11,000, $12,000.

13.

14?

14?

-Heirs' property.

-Keep bidding, lady.

-Sold at $13,000, number 174.

We cannot regulate who stands up.

We can't regulate anything.

All I'm doing is a public auction.

I understand the heirs, I understand that.

But this is a public auction, and the heirs are representing their properties.

First page is done.

-There are times in this life when we find ourselves in a place that we do not understand.

We know that God loves us, and yet we seem to be behind the eight-ball.

We know God told us to be not discouraged, but all around us there seems to be chaos.

It makes us cry out to God, why?

Why is my enemy reigning over me when I am, God, a believer?

[ All singing, clapping ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Again he measured a thousand and brought me through.

The waters were to the loins.

And it was a river that I could not pass over, for the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over.

Amen.

Bear with me for a little while, from the subject, how deep is your religion?

How deep is your religion?

There are some things in this life you can't even talk over with your wife, your husband, or your children.

The only person who would understand would be God.

We come in the midst of a new year and begin to set new goals.

I'm going to make sure that I'm going to change some things that I did wrong, only to find out that we can't seem to change by ourselves.

The question comes to mind, how deep is your religion?

Never mind somebody else's.

What about yours?

I ain't worried about Mama and Daddy.

I ain't worried about husband and wife.

I'm not worried about my children.

I'm asking the question of myself and of you.

How deep?

How deep, how deep, how deep, how deep?

How deep is your religion?

[ Wind chimes tinkling ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪