With the Middleton's losing their fortune investing in the Confederacy all their descendants really stood to inherit was a good name and a myth. And by god they are protecting them just like those antiques in the flank house.
While the "African American Focus Tour" came off like a tortured reading of Judith Carney's Black Rice it still managed to cast slavery as a necessary evil. The house tour only exacerbated this trend by callously displaying slave tags and shackles among the Middleton family's prized heirlooms. So much for context.
 |
| Charleston 2010 click photo for album |
Then to Charleston proper. After returning to civilization we meet Alphonso Brown, proprietor of Gullah Tours. In complete contrast to Heather's, bless her soul, plantation tour we are gifted with a whirl wind tour of past and present Charleston. Alphonso Brown, as an alternative historian, brought to my mind the finest work of Howard Zinn. But his amazing skill at "telling lies" is what highly impressed, perfectly illustrating the importance of oral literature in the Gullah culture and corroborating Jones-Jackson's ethnographic account.
No comments:
Post a Comment