Women’s trip to Penn Center brings needed Black history education

By Jessica Brodie

A crowd of women from across South Carolina headed to St. Helena Island Feb. 15 for a racial justice field trip for Black History Month.

A number of teens joined the women to explore and learn about the Penn Center, a 50-acre historic district near Beaufort that was founded in 1862 as a school for freed slaves. It was the first school in the South for formerly enslaved West Africans and is one of the most significant African-American institutions in existence today. A historic and cultural institution, the Penn Center is a National Historic Landmark District and comprises two of the four sites in Reconstruction Era National Park. It is nestled in the very heart of Gullah culture and also served as a community center for St. Helena Island. During the civil rights era, it was a retreat for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders of the movement.

Kathy Roys noted the Penn Center group trip arose from the South Carolina Conference United Women in Faith Charter for Racial Justice Committee, whose awareness campaign of encroachment on Black settlement communities in South Carolina has especially focused on the Gullah community on St. Helena Island in Beaufort County. The committee was hopeful a personal tour of the site would not only help people understand a place where significant Black history has taken place in our state, but also understand why it’s important to work to preserve such places.

Dr. Marie M. Gibbs of the Penn Center shared the importance of Penn Center with the women gathered; there were so many they spilled beyond a second room of people as women and youth eagerly listened to her presentation.

Gibbs explained that when the Civil War started, slaveowners fled the island and left their slaves behind to fend for themselves, which effectively emancipated them through abandonment. The freed slaves worked with northern abolitionists and others to raise funds to bring teachers to the island and start a school there. Back then, classes were held in the Brick Church with 80 pupils enrolled. Not long after, they purchased land from Hasting Gantt, a freed man, and a new three-room building became what they called Penn School.

Over the years, private donations mostly supported the school, much of the funds from Quakers and other religious groups. Students at the Penn Center learned skills such as masonry, blacksmithing, mechanics and basket-weaving.

As Gibbs explained, “They did academics in the morning and industries in the afternoon.”

At its peak, the school had 600 students. Gibbs’s ancestor was educated at the school and later returned to serve as a doctor.

It ceased operating as a school in 1948 and turned into a community agency. It was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 1974.

Lexie Chatham, Columbia District United Women in Faith Social Action coordinator, brought women from Mount Hebron UMC, West Columbia, as well as her Bible study teacher at Brookland UMC, West Columbia, on the Penn Center trip. She said it was an experience she will cherish and not forget.

“Growing up in South Carolina, I didn’t read about African-American history in our state even in our South Carolina Department of Education-issued state history book in elementary school,” Chatham said. “As I grew older and was exposed to more of that culture, I realized how much I had missed in my failure to learn of that rich culture. Hearing the experiences and backgrounds of my African-American friends and their ancestors opened my eyes to both our commonalities and the ways our cultures had differed. I wanted to learn more as I fell in love with their music, arts and beliefs, and I mourned the hardships they had endured.”

Chatham said that every year the South Carolina United Women in Faith hold a social action event to celebrate Black History Month. Last year they read and discussed “So You Want to Talk About Race,” by Ijeoma Oluo, and this year they will read and discuss “How to Be An Antiracist,” by Ibram X. Kendi. The Penn Center trip was meant to complement the readings.

“Some of us had been before, but most had never been to Penn Center. They left in awe of what they learned and saw there, as well as the fellowship that was shared among even people we met for the first time. Our appreciation for Penn Center and African-American history grew and matured,” Chathan added.

United Women in Faith will continue their educational efforts this month as they gather at Epworth Children’s Home in Columbia for Legislative Advocacy Day, an annual event designed to become more knowledgeable about social issues affecting women, children and youth and to become better equipped to bring about the needed changes to address such issues. This year’s Legislative Advocacy Day theme will be “Faithful Advocacy; Faithful Service; Transforming Justice and Equity.” Program participants include State Representative Dr. Jermaine Johnson, South Carolina School Improvement Council’s Dr. Quantina Hagwood and Vivian Anderson, educator and founder of EveryBlackGirl Inc.

To sign up, contact your church’s UWF organizer or visit https://www.umcsc.org/women.