Honey Bea's Everlasting Gift

This is a story about my great-great-grandmother, Maah on the Plantation in Abbeville, South Carolina during the Civil War Era which takes you to my mother, Honey Bea in Mount Pleasant - Charleston during the Civil Rights Era, and it ends with reflections on race relations 150 years later. It tells of our struggles as an African American family and how victories were reached through prayers and persistence...... The first four chapters start off in a slightly Gullah Geechie dialect of Charleston, with the modern English interpretation of those chapters at the back of the book for those that are not familiar with the Gullah dialect... ...MAAH - DURING THE 1860s CIVIL WAR ERA..... Massa aint know that Mae Ann cant stand he tail now, and that she be fuh spit in he food and in he water every chance she get, since Massa done whip she child worsa than he would do an old mule.... Now it be a lil fore midnight and we slaves all be fuh sit or fuh lie down in the church, just fuh wait on somethin. They say President Lincoln done give we somethin that gonna free all of we slaves in the south..... I know I gonna go to Charleston with my freedom..... ...MAAH - WHEN THEY FINALLY GET TO CHARLESTON... Lord, Charleston be just fuh crawl over with the Negro folks. I hey tell that most of the Negro folks in this ya whole country come from these parts and now, cause I fuh see, what I fuh see, I be fuh believe them fuh real. They dey yet still got the slave market right ya in Charleston. ...HONEY BEA IN CHARLESTON, SC DURING THE CIVIL RIGHTS ERA IN THE 1960s... The pastor continues on with his fervent preaching. God is able! He brought our people from a mighty long way! Oh yes, My God is able! We have got to have that same kind of faith next week when we go to vote. We have got to believe that God is sending deliverance to our people through Kennedy to free us from the Jim Crow Laws just he as he did a hundred years ago when he sent Abraham Lincoln to free the slaves. Answer this for me, please Is there anything too hard for our God?"..... I start thinking about those crazy Jim Crow s laws. Just last week we had gone to Woolworth to get a soda float for Sarah. I was tired because we had been shopping downtown all day on King Street and spending all my money in the white and Jewish stores. Most of the Jewish merchants were usually really nice to my babies and always told me how clean and pretty I always kept them. That day I was just too tired so I sat down at the counter at Woolworths... The man that worked there refused to serve me because I was sitting down at the counter. "Niggra, you know you cant sit down at this here counter. You know the rules!" He says to me loudly. I was getting tired of the silly rules, and I was physically tired too. "I am paying my money just like everyone else that is sitting at the counter and I deserve to be served too." He looked at me with scorn in his eyes and his face turned beet red with anger. Now you listen here, gal, I dont care what you are paying. You best be gittin out of here or I am gonna have to git you outta here myself, and then Im gonna call the patrol man on you."... I look at him and say My momma always told me that git is for dogs, and I am know that I am no dog. I am due the same respect that you give to any lady!... He leaves from behind the counter and comes around the front toward me and my three children. I thought about my babies and what would happen to them if the policeman came to arrest me and I had to leave them behind. I start to leave and he turns around to go back behind the counter and stumbles over a box in his path. He trips over the box and goes flying face forward and all I could think of is, "Da git for ya!" Which means, that it is good for him that something bad just happened to him as punishment for being so mean to me... We get outside, and a white man runs up behind us. "Excuse me mam. I just want to say that I a