Category Archives: Lifestyles
Reconciling racism & religion
By Dr. Thomas Cloer, Jr.
Special to The Courier
For Black History Month, we have focused on the award-winning book “Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo,” by African American author Zora Neale Hurston.
“Barracoon” is a Spanish word for “barracks.” A barracoon was the hellhole where captured Africans were kept until their voyage to a life of enslavement. This book is already considered a masterpiece of our American literature by many in the literary world. It won Book of the Year awards in 2018 from 14 different entities, such as Time, NPR, Barnes and Noble, Christian Science Monitor, New York Public Library and Amazon.
Although Hurston finished the manuscript in 1931, it was published in paperback by First Amistad Paperback Edition of HarperCollins 
Publishers in 2019. I wrote earlier about why it took so long for this masterpiece to be in print. The author finished her manuscript in 1931. Hurston interviewed and wrote direct dictation from the African Kossola of his growth to adulthood in Africa and his capture and voyage to Mobile Bay, Ala. Kossola gave memories ranging from his horrifying enslavement to his release from slavery into Jim Crow America.
Chapters I-XII in Barracoon are the words of Kossola, as Hurston wrote them in the 1920s. The dialect of Kossola was written so expertly by Hurston that it flows smoothly and eloquently in the book. Kossola learned a dialect of spoken English as an adult slave in Alabama. Hurston made many visits to Kossola’s little home in Alabama when Kossola was in his 80s. He would be the last former slave who had grown to adulthood in Africa and could give an eyewitness account. His memories
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Parallels between Native American and African slavery
By Dr. Thomas Cloer, Jr.
Special to The Courier
Last week, to celebrate Black History Month, we introduced the award-winning book “Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo,” by Zora Neale Hurston.
Barracoon is a Spanish word for the “barracks” where the human cargo from Africa was kept until their voyages. The book was a result of Hurston travelling to Alabama in the 1920s and recording the memories of Kossola (African name) or Cudjo Lewis (American name). He was the last living eyewitness former slave
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Kidnapped from Africa: Last captured slave tells all
By Dr. Thomas Cloer, Jr.
Special to The Courier
I’ve often thought about how much I would have loved to read the last sad report by Cherokees whose homes and crops were burned in our Eastatoe Valley of Pickens County. As far as I know, such a report doesn’t exist from the Cherokee perspective.
I have read many slave narratives, but until now, had never read a firsthand account from a slave who was born, reared and stolen from Africa. I had never read a slave narrative written as this slave dictated. This former slave, Kossola, stolen from Africa, could neither read nor write. His remarkable memory has been corroborated historically by the academic world using other
sources. His easy-to-comprehend language is remarkably captured by the author.
For celebrating Black History Month, I want to feature this must-read for anyone
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Paying Tribute
Wreaths laid at graves of more than 1,000 local veterans
By Ann Warmuth
For The Courier
news@thepccourier.com
COUNTY — Downpours could not stop the Central, Clemson and Easley volunteers numbering over 450 who came out for the third year in a row on Dec. 18 to remember the lives of the communities’ 1,027 veterans at rest in the 10 cemeteries supported by the local Wreaths Across America (WAA) programs.
This year’s WAA theme was “Live Up to Their Legacy,” with 2.4 million veterans wreaths laid on their resting places in more than 3,110
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Clemson player faces reckless driving charge
Police: July wreck left mail carrier with ‘severe injuries’
By Riley Morningstar
and Greg Oliver
Courtesy The Journal
news@thepccourier.com
CLEMSON — Clemson football player Fred Davis turned himself in to police Sunday morning after being charged with reckless driving after authorities said 
he was driving 115 mph before hitting a U.S. Postal Service carrier last month.
Davis, 19, was booked in the city jail and released on a $500 personal recognizance bond after an investigation
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Current state law
Campos said current South Carolina law does not have an enhanced penalty for reckless driving that results in serious bodily injury, but the S.C. House of Representatives is looking to add “great bodily injury” as an enhancement.
CThese egregious and aggressive driving acts that result in serious injury to another need to have an appropriate penalty,T Campos said in a statement. In most cases, the injured suffer much pain, multiple medical procedures, lengthy recovery times and whose freedom to live life injury free are taken from them. The offender, especially if they are not hurt, currently only have a few hurdles to navigate and get to live life freely, while the injured do not.”
Campos said with advances in modern medicine, many injuries do not meet the definition of “great bodily injury.” He is advocating for a more inclusive definition for the enhanced penalty.
“The legislature’s current proposed bill is a step in the right direction, but will not account for serious injuries that are not permanent,” Campos said.
Court date scheduled
A Clemson Municipal Court official told The Journal on Monday afternoon Davis is scheduled to appear before a judge on Sept. 1. If he requests a jury trial, the official said it will happen at a “much later date” due to a backlog in cases.
rmorningstar@upstatetoday.com | (864) 973-6685
goliver@upstatetoday.com | (864) 973-6687
‘Your community supports you’
Farm hosts appreciation dinner for local law enforcement officers
By Jason Evans
Staff Reporter
jevans@thepccourier.com
SUNSET — Pickens County law enforcement officers enjoyed a night out Saturday, thanks to local business Arabella Farm and corporate and community support.
Arabella Farm owner Ken Smith, his family and staff began planning a way to thank area law enforcement around four
months ago, he said.
Saturday evening, the wedding and event venue in Sunset hosted law enforcement members and their spouses for an appreciation dinner.
The idea for the dinner came after Smith and his wife, Sharon, were watching the news one day and saw how law enforcement were mischaracterized, he said.
Welcoming their guests to the venue, Smith shared a story from his childhood, when after buying candy for a friend, he realized he no longer
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Teamwork turns the corner on an insect invasion in South Carolina Lowcountry
Courtesy Clemson University
news@thepccourier.com
CHARLESTON — An aptly named invasive pest, the Asian longhorned beetle (ALB) snuck into South Carolina for the first time in 2020 and established a toehold in Lowcountry hardwood trees.
A toehold will be all the insect gets if a coalition of federal and state officials, local property owners and Clemson researchers has its way. The team has organized one of the Palmetto State’s largest and most coordinated responses to an invasive species, leading to a recently expanded quarantine of 76.4 square miles in Charleston County and a sliver of Dorchester.
“We feel pretty confident that the ALB is contained within the area,” said Steven Long, assistant director of Clemson
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SC banning sales of invasive Bradford pear, 3 other species
Courtesy Clemson University
news@thepccourier.com
CLEMSON — South Carolina will become only the second state in the United States — and the first in the Southeast — to 
ban the nursery sale of Bradford pear trees and any other pear trees grown on the
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Serving & learning
PICKENS — From June 14-18, 23 cadets from the Pickens High School JROTC program participated in the Junior Cadet Leadership Challenge.
Consistent with the JROTC mission to “motivate young people to be better citizens,” the cadets spent an intensive week
serving the community, improving their physical
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