{"id":311,"date":"2015-03-03T19:02:55","date_gmt":"2015-03-03T19:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/?p=311"},"modified":"2015-03-06T17:24:05","modified_gmt":"2015-03-06T17:24:05","slug":"hidden-savannah-georgia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/?p=311","title":{"rendered":"Hidden Savannah, Georgia"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of years ago, I travelled to the American south working on a documentary series about African American Churches. I especially looked forward to our five churches in Savannah, Georgia.<\/p>\n

The city sounds just great in their brochures. But Savannah has a pretend surface. It\u2019s one big historic landmark, with about 1100 designated buildings protected from demolition. I think they used a colour chart to co-ordinate the paint on all the old houses. And sure, those amazing squares are rimmed with hedges of blowsy flowering azaleas and hanging moss. \u201cVery pretty\u2026very pretty,\u201d said a visitor.<\/p>\n

\"moss<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t be taken in, look closer. The building used for auctions of human beings in the 1800s borders one of these grassy squares. Right beside that square, sits The First African Baptist Church. It pulls the back story together. First African owns the nondescript auction building that isn\u2019t on my tourist map. The church is and it\u2019s exploited, knowingly, by the pastor.<\/p>\n

He loves to point out the holes in the churches’ wooden basement floor.<\/p>\n

The \u201censlaved\u201d African American builders who worked nights, by torchlight, told the whites that the pattern of those holes was an African symbol carved by the slaves. In fact, those little circles were the breathing holes over the pit used to hide runaway slaves. Looking at those tiny dirt-clogged openings makes you gasp for air.<\/p>\n

\"holes\"<\/p>\n

The church website explains that indeed, the holes in the floor are the shape of an African prayer symbol known as a Congolese Cosmogram. In Africa, it also means \u201cFlash of the Spirits\u201d and represents birth, life, death, and rebirth\u201d.<\/p>\n

Four feet under that basement floor is another finished subfloor. Runaways hid between the floors.<\/p>\n

Our tour guide was the pastor, Reverend Thurmond Neill Tillman. Tall, good-looking, funny, charming, great suits, charismatic, I could go on. And on. He never lets up selling his church and its history \u2013 built by free and runaway slaves. Or as Rev. Tillman says \u201cnot slaves, enslaved people. See the difference?\u201d (If you\u2019ve read my Montgomery piece<\/a>, you know that already.)<\/p>\n

Rev. Tillman\u2019s big pitch? First African has the beginnings of a museum with slavery artefacts and archives, and they\u2019re raising money to turn their old slave auction house across from them into subsidized apartments. Seems right and just.<\/p>\n

Founded in 1773, First African is the oldest black church in North America. Well\u2026not to be too cynical, we found almost every church can claim the oldest something. When this congregation finished their work, they had \u201cthe first building constructed of brick, owned by blacks, in the State of Georgia.\u201d It\u2019s sanctuary holds over 300 people. The pipe organ is the \u201coldest in Georgia\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"stained<\/p>\n

The ceiling of the church is in the design of a \u201cNine Patch Quilt\u201d. It was a code. Anyone hanging out a Nine Patch Quilt was saying: This is a safe house for runaways. The quilt was also a map. Lots of churches have stained glass windows in them; not many have stained glass portraits of their first pastors who were all African Americans.
\nAnd we were there to make their sound equipment room match the fine woodwork in the rest of the church. As if it had all been built in the same century.<\/p>\n

Savannah pastors including Rev. Tillman, run a programme to help people caught in Georgia\u2019s \u2018two strikes and you\u2019re out\u2019 law. (On your third conviction for armed robbery, you go to jail for life, with no parole, \u2013 as if you\u2019d committed murder. So, may as well kill anyone who can identify you.)<\/p>\n

The pastors know every local person who\u2019s in the two strikes system and when they\u2019ll be released. Three to six months before the prisoners get out of jail, people start visiting them in jail. Families are called, accommodations found, potential jobs are listed. With awareness and support, it\u2019s hoped there won\u2019t be a third time.<\/p>\n

Rev. Tillman had men from a rehab programme come to help us. The men always sang as a warm-up to working. And we all damn near cried when one of the men said that they were in the church helping tear down and build up — and that\u2019s what he was doing inside himself.<\/p>\n

Oh yea, the ladies of First African made the best cornbread of all the churches. One lady caught co-host Catherine and I stealing it. We were embarrassed, no mortified. The ladies said it was a compliment. We choose to believe them and arrived at our next church covered in corn bread crumbs.<\/p>\n

Savannah has the second largest St. Patrick\u2019s Day in the U.S. Did I know that when I made our schedules? In each of our five churches, I\u2019d asked, \u201cWhat are you doing on St. Patrick\u2019s Day?\u201d
\n\u201cGettin\u2019 out of town,\u201d
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s the parade like?\u201d
\n\u201cDon\u2019t know. Never been.\u201d
\nI still didn\u2019t get it. \u201cAny suggestions for St. Patrick\u2019s Day?\u201d
\n\u201cDon\u2019t go downtown.\u201d<\/p>\n

March 17 shut down our shoots — the Parade and festivities made any travel impossible, so we watched on our hotel\u2019s wide screen in the lobby. Slowly it dawned. Except for our crew, everyone else staying in our hotel was white. The streets were a crush of white people. It was a parade of white people. It was a parade of power.<\/p>\n

The other hotel guests looked at our crew with distaste. Especially when we hugged each other in our inter-racial kind of way\u2026 which we did a lot. We wanted to upset them and we thought we were rebels and cool. And I admit it, we felt good shaking those tourists up.<\/p>\n

I remembered a bumper sticker I\u2019d seen on our drive from Atlanta to Savannah: I\u2019m White and Proud of It. The wide-screen in the lobby continued to broadcast the parade in its full all-white glory. And I finally got it. Did it take so long because I\u2019m white?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of years ago, I travelled to the American south working on a documentary series about African American Churches. I especially looked forward to our five churches in Savannah, Georgia. <\/p>\n

The city sounds just great in their brochures. But Savannah has a pretend surface. It\u2019s one big historic landmark, with about 1100 designated buildings protected from demolition. I think they used a colour chart to co-ordinate the paint on all the old houses. And sure, those amazing squares are rimmed with hedges of blowsy flowering azaleas and hanging moss. \u201cVery pretty\u2026very pretty,\u201d said the visitor.<\/p>\n

\"moss<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t be taken in, look closer. The building used for auctions of human beings in the 1800s borders one of these grassy squares. Right beside that square, sits The First African Baptist Church. It pulls the back story together. First African owns the nondescript auction building that isn\u2019t on my tourist map. The church is and it\u2019s exploited, knowingly, by the pastor. <\/p>\n Read More...<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":342,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions\/342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}