Page 104 - 1619 Project Curriculum

The 1619 Project

Shadow of the Past

This spot is the site of the largest auc - A photograph cannot show you too. ’’ A photo can’t capture the In 2008, the Georgia Historical

tion of enslaved people in American enslaved families herded into contribution those 436 people Society and the City of Savannah

history — an 1859 event the enslaved sheds that normally held horses. made to the economy of their erected a commemorative marker

called the Weeping Time, in which It cannot show you a man named country, or the gifts and talents near this land, but no marker can cap -

436 people were brought to the Jeffrey, recorded in one contem - they lent it. (As part of the Gullah ture the scars carried by those sep -

off
hammer to pay the bad invest - porary writer s account begging Geechee community, they were arated on the auction block. Today
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ments and gambling debts of Pierce in vain for his purchaser to also among those who gave the world the site is home to a large regional

M. Butler, the absentee owner of the buy his love, Dorcas, Chattel No. a song of peace, ‘‘Kumbaya. ’’ ) plywood and lumber distributor. It

Butler Island plantation. The auction 278: ‘‘Please buy Dorcas, Mas’r. What you do see are two tracks, also contains the Otis J. Brock III

was held at a playground of the local We ’re be good sarvants to you intersecting but going in differ - Elementary School, whose students

elite: the Ten Broeck Race Course, long as we live. We re be married ent directions, toward different are almost all black. This March, the

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then on the outskirts of Savannah, right soon, young Mas ’r, and de outcomes — a fitting metaphor, school was the site of a moving com -

Ga. It netted Butler the phenomenal chillun will be healthy and strong, perhaps, for black and white life memoration of the 160th anniversary

sum of $303,850. Mas ’r, and dey ll be good sarvants in America. of the Weeping Time. Anne C. Bailey
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Photograph by Dannielle Bowman 98