like mecca . . . we make our pilgrimage here
Transcription
like mecca . . . we make our pilgrimage here
Can LANCE ARMSTRONG win a sixth Tour de France? It’s all about peaches in Gilbert today SPORTS, C1 METRO, B1 113TH YEAR, NO. 185 • SOUTH CAROLINA’S LARGEST NEWSPAPER Saturday, July 3, 2004 COLUMBIA, S.C. • WWW.THESTATE.COM • CAPITAL FINAL ++ S.C. plan to help poor quit smoking MARLON BRANDO 1924 | 2004 Medicaid will pay for anti-smoking products for low-income residents TRAILBLAZING ACTOR DEAD AT 80 He was ‘a quintessential original .æ.æ. mean, moody and magnificent.’ Brando’s life, his loves, his lines, his legacy — and a tribute poster. MORE INSIDE | LIFE&STYLE By JENNIFER TALHELM Staff Writer Poor South Carolinians soon will be able to use Medicaid to pay for the nicotine patch and other products to help them stop smoking. The state Department of Health and Human Services approved the program with little fanfare Tuesday, saying it expects the $500,000 annual cost to be offset 3-to-1 by a reduction in the cost of treating smoking-related diseases. “This is a wonderful proposal to decrease the number of Medicaid recipients who smoke,” said Warren Derrick, a USC pediatrician and member of the HHS Medical Care Advisory Committee. The state still must get approval from the federal agency that oversees Medicaid, the govern- ment health insurance program for the poor. But it is unlikely the state will be turned down, state health officials said, since 39 other states already pay for anti-smoking efforts with Medicaid. Under the program, Medicaid would cover any stop-smoking product prescribed by a doctor, including patches, inhalers, sprays, prescription drugs, gums and lozenges. Most states started covering such products with Medicaid in the late 1990s, said Sara Hutchinson, federal and state policy director for the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Tobacco Cessation. But so far, about 10 percent of Medicaid recipients nationwide take advantage, often be- ‘LIKE MECCA . . . WE MAKE OUR PILGRIMAGE HERE’ Lang Syne Plantation reunion draws descendants of slaves, sharecroppers back to the land SEE SMOKING PAGE A9 Mansion mold problem severe Sanford family must stay away till fall By AARON GOULD SHEININ Staff Writer The mold problem at the Governor’s Mansion is worse than previously thought and will keep the first family away at least until September. The consultant hired by the state to fix the problem said Friday that mold also has been found at the Lace and Caldwell-Boylston houses in the mansion complex. Consultant Rick Bennett said it will be another eight weeks before Gov. Mark Sanford’s family can move back into their official residence in Columbia. It will take a total of 12 weeks to complete the entire project, he said. ABOVE: This is the tombstone of Jackie Whitmore’s great-greatgreatgrandmother, Anniker Bryant, who was once a slave. SEE MOLD PAGE A5 RIGHT: Whitmore clears the weeds and debris around the tombstones in the Lang Syne Cemetery where his ancestors are buried. SUNDAY PHOTOGRAPHS BY RENEE ITTNER-MCMANUS/THE STATE By CAROLYN CLICK Staff Writer FORT MOTTE — For all their long years of toil, in slavery and in freedom, Jackie Whitmore’s people possessed only a smattering of the distinctive red clay soil of Calhoun County. Yet it is, somehow, theirs. Years ago, they laid spiritual claim to this land that rolls up and away from the Congaree River and spreads out in fields of corn and cotton. First as slaves, then as sharecroppers, they came to call Lang Syne Plantation home. There are stories here, real and imagined, that draw descendants back — in the old Lang Syne BUSINESS SATURDAY G1 COMICS 6 07770 00001 >KNIGHT RIDDER> D4 0 ‘We take pride in that, despite slavery, like Maya Angelou says, still I rise.’ JACKIE WHITMORE | who traces his ancestry back seven generations to a slave woman named Anniker Spann Bryant cemetery, where the remains of ex-slaves mingle with those of midwives and farmers and soldiers, in the stone baptistry that sits behind a small Baptist congregation, in the shuttered storefronts of Fort Motte. “The place is like Mecca to us,” said Whitmore, a Columbia social worker who traces his ancestry CLASSIFIED G5 TV C7 South Carolina deaths, B1 back seven generations to a slave woman named Anniker Spann Bryant. “Every now and then we make our pilgrimage here.” This weekend, several hundred descendants of Lang Syne Plantation gather to celebrate their shared past and return to a place illuminated by writer Julia Mood Peterkin in her stories of 1920s INDEX 7 SECTIONS, 76 PAGES ABBY D5 MOVIES LIFE&STYLE D1 OPINION METRO B1 SPORTS D2 A10 C1 black rural life. The United Family Reunion, in its 10th year, brings together descendants of those who lived on the plantation before and after the Civil War. Peterkin, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her 1929 novel “Scarlet Sister Mary,” was a white Southerner who came to Lang Syne as a bride in 1903. But she gained fame for her gritty, evocative portrayals of the black people who resided along “the street,” a row of makeshift wooden slave cabins just steps from her house. Immersing herself in their language and society, Peterkin es- Questions of Innocence: Sometimes the bad guy isn’t the one doing time. PAGE A1 About 100,000 hungry, sharptoothed predators prowl S.C.’s waters LIFE&ARTS SEE REUNION PAGE A7 W E AT H E R METRO Chance of rain A stray storm possible this afternoon. High 89, low 72. A chance for a storm Sunday afternoon. High 93. See Page A2 Police not charged in raid S.C.’s attorney general criticizes, but will not charge, Goose Creek police for their aggressive high school drug raid. See Page B1 NEWS 771-8415 • HOME DELIVERY 771-8380 • CLASSIFIED 771-SOLD • INTERNET www.thestate.com INFORMATION FOR LIFE WWW.THESTATE.COM THE STATE, COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2004 A7 LANG SYNE PLANTATION REUNION FROM PAGE A1 PHOTOGRAPHS BY RENEE ITTNER-MCMANUS/THE STATE Descendants of those who worked and lived on the Lang Syne Plantation conclude the United Families Reunion this weekend with worship at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Fort Motte. The church is the first organized by African-Americans in Fort Motte. ‘IT’S SO MUCH HISTORY’ THE STATE.COM | Read more about Lang Syne’s Julia Peterkin and her award-winning book, “Scarlet Sister Mary.” who spent Saturday morning clearing the family cemetery. “It’s so much history. As a black man, you don’t know much history.” Tangled underbrush and fallen pines obscure some of the gravestones, but in the days before each biennial reunion, Whitmore rallies a small cadre of relatives to tame the growth and carve paths through the cemetery. RIVERBEND SOD COMPANY 1 Ft. Wide by 5 Ft. Long Rolls of Centipede Sod 2 $ 00 per Roll 46560-46 Under New Management NEXT TO PUBLIC BOAT RAMP AT SALUDA RIVER (LEXINGTON SIDE) • TAKE CORLEY MILL RD. TO HOPE FERRY RD. TURN RIGHT & GO TO BOAT RAMP • 799-7185 OR 359-5260 • OPEN 8-5 SATURDAY ONLY UPGRADE YOUR HOME! 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A lot of stories live here.” His nephews, Dayton Whitmore, 13, and Demetrius Johnson, 11, know the stories, feel the connection to Lang Syne. Their mother is buried here, and they come regularly to tend her grave. On Saturday, they painstakingly raked and groomed the ground Dr. Keith Davis • Dr. Charles McNutt II • Dr. Patricia Noland COLUMBIA DENTURE CENTER FREE MEASURING & ESTIMATES 51621-63 Whitmore was a teenager when he read “Miss Julia’s” stories. But as a child, he listened as his maternal grandmother, Lucinda Jackson, wove accounts of life on Lang Syne before mechanization and migration emptied the old cabins. Since then, Whitmore, 35, has become the family’s unofficial genealogist, excavating information from his elders and setting it down for future generations. “It’s awesome,” said Stanley Davis, a descendant by marriage 2123 Broad River Rd. • 798-2377 750-7150 • 736-3494 www.blindsplus.net SERVING NORTH CAROLINA, SOUTH CAROLINA AND GEORGIA FOR OVER 23 YEARS! 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For African-Americans, who face daunting challenges in tracing their genealogy, the Peterkin stories provide a starting point, Whitmore said. But many descendants never have read the novels, choosing instead the oral culture of the family. Today, other family relatives reunions travel to throughout Fort Motte, the state, rethe tiny flects the hamlet near power of Lang Syne the human that was the connection, scene of a said RevolutionWilliam ary War Hine, hisJackie Whitmore siege, for the tory profesannual Fort Motte Community sor at South Carolina State UniFestival. versity. The reunion concludes with a Despite the isolating pull of Sunday church service at Mount television and other mass media, Pleasant Baptist Church, organized “people want to get together,” he in 1867 by ex-slaves and built in said. He sees a similar connection 1869 on land donated by Augus- to college homecoming events tus and Louisa McCord Smythe, staged around sporting events. Lang Syne’s antebellum owners. “The football game is just an The service draws black and white excuse,” he said. “It’s sharing the descendants of Lang Syne, in- past and experiencing the past.” cluding Bryants, Keitts, CheeseHine recognizes the power of boros and Whitmores, Peterkins, reunions by the clothing of his stuMcCords and Smythes, who share dents — all through the year they bonds of blood and spirit extend- sport T-shirts touting their family ing back 200 years. gatherings. Allen Conger, who is married The United Family Reunion will to Julia Peterkin’s great-grand- be no different. This year, the Tdaughter, attended his first re- shirt will bear the slogan “From union in 2002. Lang Syne to Me,” an acknowl“It’s such a joyful crowd,” he edgment, Whitmore said, of the said. past and an emphasis on today. “We take pride in that, despite MOVING FORWARD slavery, like Maya Angelou says, Lang Syne itself has been still I rise,” he said, recalling Anspared from extensive alteration gelou’s poem by that name. or development and remains in the The time of slavery on Lang Peterkin family. The 1,000-acre Syne is the “foundation for movspread is farmed by William Pe- ing forward,” he said. “It’s not one terkin III, grandson of Julia and of the things that are thrown away William Peterkin, who is mindful or cast aside.” of its history and attentive to the descendants’ sense of place. Reach Click at (803) 771-8318 The gathering, like so many or [email protected]. Tempur-Pedic® has used technology originally developed for NASA to create a mattress that automatically reacts to your body’s weight, shape and temperature to provide unsurpassed comfort and therapeutic support. 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