Gullah Redemption: An American Heritage Revisited

By R.H. Brown

Gullah Redemption presents a vivid description of a unique group within the African American Culture. The author who is Gullah gives a spell binding account of his miraculous conversion to Christ. Unlike his ancestors who were forced to listen to slave masters as they read the holy scriptures to justify use of free labor while maintaining the obedience of many docile captives. Brown suggests that some 75% of Blacks living in the United States remain unaware of his one of a kind group. The Gullah living on seacoast islands bordering mainly South Carolina and Georgia represent a people having the purest bloodline of all African slaves brought to North America in wooden ships. While proud knowledge of the blood of a people is very important, most important is theological knowledge that the blood of Jesus links and binds together every born-again human for time and eternity. In our present age of hate mongering, division, lawlessness, and fear, we would do well to acknowledge words Holy Spirit gave to Apostle Paul in his letter written around A. D. 40-60 to the Church in Galatians 3:28-29. There is neither Jew, Greek, Gullah, Russian, Italian, or Hispanic in Christ. We are “all” by faith Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise. Sandwiched between Chapters 3 and 11 is the book written in 2006, “Call Me Gullah: An American Heritage”. Included at the end of this work are Pastor Brown’s sermon notes from a message delivered October 6, 2019 entitled: “A Universal Gospel of Inclusion”.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781532087141

R.H. Brown

R. H. Brown is a veteran radio/television journalist. A graduate of Roxbury Community College and Gordon-Conwell Seminary Boston, raised on a seacoast island of South Carolina he lives in Mississippi. Brown often boasts of having two sons that are military veterans and a former cotton picking wife. Retired in 2016, our award winning journalist was news reporter for CBS Afiliate, WCBI-TV.

Book preview

Copyright © 2020 R.H. Brown.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Scripture quotations from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible.

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-5320-8713-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-8714-1 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 01/13/2020

Contents

Preface

Introduction

A Gullah Regenerated Birth

The Qwest For That Special Jewel Pays Off

The Gullah Culture And Dialect

Historical Origins

Understanding By Comparison: Louisiana And Boston

Earlier Years On Oaks Plantation

Blending Into The Melting Pot

Gullah Land Battles

Successfully Camouflaged Identity

From Maydoz Feel To Field Reporting

Cultural Traditions Continue: Old Habits Die Hard

Kingdom of Heaven vs Kingdom of The U.S.A.

Pastor Brown’s Sermon Notes from October 6, 2019

Preface

Gullah Redemption: An American Heritage Revisited is much more than another Christian autobiographical work by a gifted author and motivational speaker. Retired Journalist/Pastor R. H. Brown is a descendant of a unique North American group. Hear his conversation with a brave Tuskegee Airmen who fought for our freedoms over the skies of Europe. It was Brown who got an exclusive interview with Iraqi Hostage Thomas Hamill on the steps of the Noxubee County Courthouse in Mississippi after his daring escape. As a teenager Brown once met with well-known prosperity preacher Reverend Ike from Richland South Carolina, and here gives his theological analysis of Rev. Ike’s ministry. Brown talks of the Gullah and their land battles with broadcast and media mogul Ted Turner. After his brief Christian testimony our author shares information on the Gullah, having the purest bloodline of all African slaves brought to America in wooden ships. Sandwiched between Chapters 3 and 11 is the book written in 2006, Call Me Gullah: An American Heritage. In an era of warring cultural divisions, lawlessness, and hate, the suggested argument is that it matters less, what cultural group we belong to.

– RHB

Introduction

We Homo sapiens on planet earth share common emotions, desires, and experiences. The uniqueness of our cultural backgrounds, however, can be as diverse as our many countries of origin. Call Me Gullah chronicles the journey of a descendant belonging to a group populating mainly the two southeastern states of South Carolina and Georgia. In this book you will see how Herman Brown, aka R. H. Brown an American citizen born on one of the low country Sea Islands of South Carolina is meshed into this society. As Brown emerges, he is representing a group who are your politicians, career professionals, and common laborers found in communities from Boston to Los Angeles and even Northern Florida. The author is a Retired Television Journalist living in the south and was a News Reporter for WCBI-TV a Golden Triangle Region CBS affiliate in Columbus, Mississippi. In that profession they are taught to write news stories so that even viewers with a 5th grade education can understand the material gathered. You will find that this work is easy reading and hard to put down until finished. You will come to know why this American, having an immediate and direct indigenous kinship with a West African tribe, is proud to say, Call Me Gullah.

I dedicate this book in memory of my dear deceased Gullah mother Sadie Jefferson Brown. It was the delightful suggestion of my wife Bettye that I do so. I hardly got to know mom who died at such an early age in her thirties when I was only eight. I really don’t even remember how she looked physically. Time can cause memories to become eroded over the decades of one’s life span. I do remember she was a soft-spoken woman. Sadie loved listening to inspirational radio as I would sit behind the wood stove in the kitchen of our little tin roof house as she cooked supper. If anyone growing up in my neck of the woods having a photograph of this Geechee matriarch, please let me have it. This book is also dedicated to Bettye, the mother of my Gullah sons Dameion and Adrian. Bettye is literally my cotton pickin wife from Mississippi who married me on Valentines Day of 1976. She is praying with me that, Call Me Gullah becomes the next best seller. Help me not to disappoint her. And who could forget all the precious members of Living Manna Church of West Point, Mississippi.

A GULLAH REGENERATED BIRTH

40700.png

S ometimes the questions people may ask forces us to respond in the only way humanly possible at the time. Legitimate questions often deserve answers, but Jehovah God is the only being that always has the correct answer. Omniscience is a characteristic only enjoyed by our Divine Father. God knows what will be, because He was, is, and forever will be. It was my senior year at St. Helena High School in Beaufort County, South Carolina. Most of the students at the segregated public school were assembled in the gym one day for a rival basketball game. As I sat in the bleachers enjoying the game, fellow student Carolyn J. Brown [not related to the author] leaned back in my lap and asked, are you sanctified? The term sanctified was understood to mean, are you a charismatic type Holy Ghost filled Christian? A lot of my family members were pseudo Pentecostals, and therefore, my mulatto classmate was only using a term I would be familiar with. I looked into her large eyes and replied, no, not yet". I went on to tell her, while I knew it was the right way to live, I would avoid a commitment to Christ until I was 30 or 40 years old.

How was I to know that I would accept Jesus Christ into my heart by faith, the following year after high school graduation. One online research study based on interviews with about 1,000 born again Christians nationwide indicated that most accepted Christ before reaching their 18th birthday. Having lost both parents prior to the Vietnam Era military crisis was a trying time of inner reflection and conflict. I had migrated to Stamford, Connecticut and had been staying with my sister Helen and her husband Cleveland. One day in the wee hours of the morning, I had a talk with God, and He talked back to me. We should think it not strange that a God would converse with a creature He made, and there was a lot of divine intervention occurring between the hours of 2 and five each day in the morning hours. In the midst of famine and ostracism four lepers facing a real life and death decision chose not to just sit and die. The bible declares in 2 Kings7:5 that in the twilight they headed towards the camp of the Syrians. A miracle happened just before the dawning of a new day. Both the Hebrews in the city and the lepers ate well and even had enough clothing to wear, livestock, silver, and gold. The darkness only confused the warring Syrians.

Just prior to the dawning of a new day, with no clergy or congregation in my Connecticut room, I experienced a divine open-eyed vision. I remember seeing the huge yellow colored words; Great, Great, Great! What does this mean, I asked the invisible divine being in my room? A voice seemed as if to come from the space in the room and from my entire being, if you give your heart and life to me, you will do great things as you stand before thousands. After submitting to God, the next morning it was as if the birds outside were singing just to me. Both my hands, feet, and my surroundings looked new. I would later come to know the scripture that declares, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away and all things become new. With redemption by faith in Christ becoming a reality to one his mother named Herman, a generational curse would be lifted from this linage of the Brown household. Towards the end of his life at age 45 Henry Slim Brown would accept Christ in his heart by faith. His son would take up the torch then passing it on to another generation. A biblical reality has the sins of a father being realized and affecting the health, wealth, and overall prosperity of generations to follow, in this case the curse spoken of in Deuteronomy 5:9 and Exodus 34:7 had been lifted.

THE QWEST FOR THAT SPECIAL JEWEL PAYS OFF

40698.png

T he first commandment of the Hebrew Talmud suggests having loyalty and the utmost love solely for Jehovah God. Jesus mentions the second commandment in Mark 12:31 asking us to love our neighbor as we do ourselves. The closest neighbor would be a man’s wife, for the bible declares in Mark 10:8, they two will become one flesh. So, therefore, the next work of grace for me would be allowing God to give me a wife, much like he did with Adam in the Book of Genesis. Much searching is involved with locating a good wife, so, therefore, I had to find this most precious treasure that Proverbs 31:10 describes as being worth more than jewels such as rubies and diamonds.

It was at the age of 27 when I began a quest for that precious jewel of a lady. She would not be found on the internet, an airport, or nightclub. According to Proverbs 18:22, he that finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor of the Lord. In most churches, and that’s where my wife would be found, the sisters outnumber the brothers. Therefore, having found 6 young ladies in 1975, I realized in order for a union to be biblically acceptable I could only marry one. Let every man have his own wife was Paul’s suggestion in I Corinthians 7:2. A righteous faith in Christ certainly does not lend itself to polygamy as other philosophies and religions do.

In order to find this help mate, I didn’t have far to travel. As a young evangelical gospel minister, I was conducting a series of revival services at a local church in Beaufort, South Carolina. To cut down on the expenses of the meetings I stayed at my Aunt Sally and Uncle Joe Hamilton’s house in a place called Hazel Farm. That gave me a chance to spend some time with my Jehovah Witness relatives. Keep in mind that when given the job of caretaker of the earth and all that God had created, Adam was given a woman to help with the task and be a suitable companion. In order to find my wife, I only had to travel from Aunt Sally’s kitchen to my bedroom. Once again, our God often moves miraculously and speaks directly to His children in the twilight time just before the dawning of a new day.

While wide awake, an empty feeling of loneliness overwhelmed me. Without making a sound in my aunt’s house, I cried loudly from within, asking God to reveal the choice He had for me. Being a popular gospel radio announcer and having associations with three church congregations, I’d come to know 6 potential help mates. I remember letting go of my will and inclinations of physical attractions, asking God, which one Lord?

I had to ask Him which one, because before I could get the words out of my mouth, on the wall by my bed I saw a vision of the face of a huge clock. Moving forward clockwise starting at 12 o’clock, I began seeing all 6 of the young ladies that I had put away on the shelf of my mind. All six were in a circular-fixed position around the face of the clock. After a few seconds their faces began fading away from view, and as they faded, the face of one coming from the center of the clock got bigger and bigger until it was the