South Carolina's Turkish People by Terri Anne Ognibene Glen Browder

Author:Terri Anne Ognibene, Glen Browder [Terri Anne Ognibene, Glen Browder]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781611178593
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
Published: 2018-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Our Journey

From Isolation to Assimilation

Sadly, the Turkish people of Sumter County seem to be fading away. The older generation is passing on; most Turkish people today marry outside the Turkish circle; and many of the younger crowd seem disinterested in their cultural history. Moreover, contemporary forces threaten to dilute or contradict our heritage in this community. Some groups would like to absorb the Turkish people into a broader society of mixed-blood ancestry, that is, the Melungeons. Other activists argue that our founders were actually American Indians. Already, some Turkish families of Sumter County are reconsidering their historical identity or drifting away from their traditional legacy. My point is that, after two centuries of adversity, our people—and our culture—seem to be assimilating into broader society; and we must tell our story before time and evolving forces erase our cultural history.

One of the main things I hope that readers will recognize as they follow this story is my earlier point that history generally has been recorded by the privileged about the privileged. Many gaps exist in historical text, because the voices of the underprivileged have been ignored and forgotten. When gaps such as these exist, and they can be bridged, historians should seek ways to offer various perspectives on the way things were. I sought to search and find the voices of those who had been ignored in historical texts. Their voices deserve to be heard and recorded for all to hear.

Browder documented the “true history” of the Turkish people in the first century of their existence, covering their origins and growth during the 1800s. The key to his success in solving the mystery of Turkish history was the fact that he secured the confidence and cooperation of the Turkish community in this investigation. However, there is more to our history than Joseph Benenhaley and the early years of the Dalzell settlement. The traditional narrative of the past led into an evolving narrative of the contemporary community and that journey must also be shared. Now, again with the assistance of living Turkish persons, I will attempt to tell the Turkish historical experience of the past century, the 1900s, from our perspective. I will combine my own historical research with interviews among the Turkish people of Sumter County to demonstrate our journey through isolation, segregation, discrimination, oppression, integration, and assimilation.

Isolation and Segregation

Whatever one concludes about ancestral origins, our investigation shows that the Turkish people have faced many struggles in the past two centuries because of the tones of their skin. They were not light enough to be considered white people by broader society nor were they dark enough to be considered black by that society. Consequently, despite continuous patriotic service to their state and country, the Turkish people lived and were set apart, as a unique, distinct society for most of the twentieth century in rural South Carolina. For generations, the Turkish people maintained their own institutions, such as churches and schools; and they lived their lives separated, in important ways, from the rest of regional society.

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