By Eric Curl
March 2, 2024 – It took about 20 minutes on Saturday to call out the names and ages of the 436 men, women and children who were sold 165 years ago in Savannah.
The individuals, some as young as three months old, were “lifted up” during the 2024 commemoration of the Weeping Time tragedy – named for the separated families and heavy rain that accompanied the two-day auction of enslaved people at the former Ten Broeck Race Course in 1859.
The calling of the names came after a impassioned speech by keynote speaker, Dr. Daniel Black, an author and professor of African and African American Studies at Clark-Atlanta University, who implored the crowd, the “descendants of resistance,” to tell the real story that happened that day.
“It doesn’t matter if the school system refuses to teach our history,” Black said. “What matters is if we refuse to teach it.”
A makeshift memorial consisting of 436 empty chairs was set up outside the Otis J. Brock III Elementary School in West Savannah, where the commemoration was held and where part of the former race course was located.
Each of the chairs represented those who were listed in the auction catalog, said Dr. Kwesi DeGraft-Hanson, a member of the Weeping Time Commemoration Committee.
“We honor here the people who were sold, but in many ways we honor ourselves because they are gone,” DeGraft-Hanson said. “We need as a society to remember events like this to prevent future events like that.”
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Local activist Patt Gunn, who was instrumental in the city’s recent renaming of a downtown square to honor Susie King Taylor, called on those in attendance to voice their support for the passage of Georgia House Bill 1425, which would create a Weeping Time Cultural Heritage Corridor Authority. Gunn said she looked forward to city, state and federal governments coming together to buy property to commemorate the event.
“We cannot pay homage until we have a place for them,” she said.
A large portion of the former race track site is now sitting unused more than one year after Dixie Plywood sold the property for more than $30 million to a shipping container transportation company, as previously reported. In November, IMC’s chief marketing officer said that company has not made any decisions regarding the site’s future, but they “remain committed to being good citizens of Savannah and stewards of its history and plan to engage all stakeholders involved if the time comes to develop the property.”
Comprised of about 30 acres, the property acquired by IMC is not part of the controversial site directly to the north at 2305 Augusta Avenue where the Salvation Army plans to develop a homeless transitional shelter. That site, which the Salvation Army purchased from the Housing Authority of Savannah, is under dispute as to whether it was part of the original site where the Weeping Time took place and a lawsuit filed by opponents of the shelter plan is ongoing.
Mayor Van Johnson told the crowd on Saturday that the city was hoping to one day to access at least a portion of the race track property to commemorate the event and he offered assurances that “there is work going on in that regard.”
After noting that the Weeping Time occurred 35 years after Savannah’s first St. Patrick’s Day Parade – an event the city is preparing to celebrate this month – Johnson said it’s important to tell the city’s story and history in its entirety.
“And we are determined in the city of savannah to do that, he said.
The Weeping Time is currently memorialized with a historical marker at a small park on Augusta Road about half a mile away from where the tragedy occurred.
The 165th Weeping time commemoration is scheduled to continue Sunday, as detailed below
2024 Weeping Time Commemoration Service: Darien
Sunday, March 3
2 pm – 4 pm
St. Cyprians Church (built by Freedmen and Women; former Butler enslaved), 401 Fort King George Drive, Darien, Georgia 31305
Host: Ms. Clara Rowsey-Stewart & Mr. Arthur Stewart: St. Cyprians Church
Gathering for Libations and Candle Lighting Ceremonies (TENTATIVE; Based On Interest)
5:00pm – 6:30pm
Igbo Landing + Hampton Hampton Plantation: St. Simons Island
Host: Mother Amy Lotson Roberts; St. Simons Island Community; Elder Griffin Lotson; Ms. Delores Polite
Source: https://oceans1.org/2024-weeping-time-commemoration/
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