What is Kingstree

I was raised in Kingstree, where my ancestors lived and were buried as slaves on a plantation. 

The special time that I was able to live with a woman who is known to everyone in my lineage as Mama, and to the neighborhood as Ms. Tang & Ms. Elizabeth Shaw – with my complicated parent situation from birth, my grandmother Anise adopted me immediately; however, she experienced a fatal car accident so her mother, Mama, received me in order to rescue my infancy. 

Mama’s parents grew up in the late 1800’s, and she was my furthest link to the past, the most direct connection to my ancestors. As generations proceed, familial wisdom is retained and lost through the ages. Mama was in tune with her holy spirit, and when I would become frightened during the night due to my vivid nightmares and dreams, I could always find solace by placing my hand under her pillow as we rested. I will never forget when Mama told me a lifesaving instance of her dream coming true the very next day, and since then I’ve understood the powers that my family carries in intuition and spirit. 

When my ancestors were shipped from West Africa (Cameroon, Mali, Nigeria) many of them landed in Barbados and became a part of the Creole culture of the Caribbean. Our retained family heritage us Gullah and Geechee, which is a culture of Black Brilliance that developed along the east coast of the US due to the extremity of the times; especially, in Charleston, SC, an hour drive from Kingstree and where another portion of my immediate family calls home. Gullah culture is a West African-based system of traditions, customs, beliefs, food recipes, art forms and family life that have survived centuries of slavery. 

My ancestors became slaves in Kingstree, they were purchased by the Shaw plantation in Kingstree, baptized, and put to work. There is English-European blood in my family’s DNA, which is no coincidence to the brutalities that my family faced. Now, many of them are buried in the backyard of the slave owner's home, owned by the great-great-granddaughter who is proud with no regard that there are hundred of ‘n*ggers’ buried in her backyard. . .

My family.