From Barrier Island To A National Pattern
From humble beginnings, one never knows the depth of how high it may reach. Johns Island, South Carolina a barrier island off the coast of Charleston, S.C.was a hot bed of American apartheid but because of spirituality, the callings of a higher source and strong African cultural influences a community came together for a common cause, that cause was praising the one who is a higher source than all of us. This came in the form of a praise house built by for and of the people. The Moving Star Hall Praise House, built in 1910 satisfied that need with worship, preaching, singing and shouting.
The Moving Star Hall singers a derivative of the Moving Star Hall Praise House would go on to be nationally and internationally known folk singers that assisted the mutual aid to the community in the form of monies to help pay bills, taxes and funerals.
Then in 1938, at the height and brutality of segregationist Jim Crow laws a culture of people struggled to carve out a way of life and survival, despite all of the visceral hate then an act of hate and racism occurred when in September of 1938 a negro was killed,shot dead by a white man over the accidental killing of a dog, then two years later in 1940 the same kind of scenario when a negro is attacked by a dog and fends the dog off, the dog owner, a white man shoots the man and if not for the efforts of the black passenger in the truck and the community at large to give blood to the victim he would not have survived. Only a fine was levied against one man and to no avail the other man was never bought to justice. Something had to be done. but who and what form would that come in?
It was not until 1948, ten years after the 1938 killings two young black men Esau Jenkins and Joe Williams were motivated to organize a progressive movement in the pattern of the Moving Star Society that would help people to be better citizens, give them a chance to get a better education and to take more part in political action. These men became two of the most effective grass roots leaders in the south.it was Esau Jenkins who first conceived the Citizenship School Program, which the Reverend Martin Luther King's organization later administered throughout the south.Initially it was not so clear how important the spread of the Citizenship School Program across the south would be, but as we chase the history of the program in the 1950s it's subsequent impact on the civil rights movement was profound. From a barrier island to a national pattern to follow.
We as a just society must at all cost move forward while looking back to the future to catapult them to higher heights.
As the great Esau Jenkins proudly displayed it on his bus"Love is progress,Hate is expensive". Imagine the stories this bus can tell us. The Progressive Club.
