Excellent piece, Home Slice!! Your family's beginnings in SC mirror my own, except for instead of cotton, it was that West African rice that made white folk rich as hayell. I'll tell that story one of these days.

Though many of her 15 living children were a part of The Great Migration (mostly to NY), a few of them stayed home on the Island on the plantation where our ancestors were enslaved (after my great-grandmother purchased some of that land with my great-great grandfather's Union Army pension for $100 -- I have the original deed in that metal box my mother kept under her bed) or in nearby Charleston.

After graduating from Talladega, I followed a no-good, abusive Mofo from there, to "Chocolate City," living in SE DC and fell in love with all the beautiful, Blackness I saw there (even though Marion Barry was the mayor then). I eventually left him, but stayed until I went into the Navy. I absolutely LOVE that damn place still -- it helped "grow me up!!"

Thanks for sharing...