The WeGOJA Foundation in Columbia, which promotes South Carolina’s African-American experience, will visit Cordesville in lower Berkeley County later this summer to interview people like Stanley Richmond.
A lifelong Cordesville resident, Richmond, 87, has memories and stories to tell about life in rural Berkeley County at a time when Black people worshiped at the Taveau Church, one of the oldest Black sanctuaries still standing in the state.
With funding from a variety of sources, the WeGOJA Foundation plans an oral history project that is reminiscent of the early-1930s Federal Writers’ Project that preserved the memories of formerly enslaved people throughout the South.
But this new oral history investigation will capture the memories of Black people who attended Taveau, built on the Claremont Plantation in 1835 for White Presbyterians. It became a home for Black Methodists in 1847.
Richmond attended Taveau in the 1950s with his mother, Georgiana Borden Richmond. The experience, he said, prepared him to become a deacon at the community’s Irving Chapel AME Church.
“When we were coming up in ‘40s and ‘50s your parents would make you go to church,” Richmond said lounging in a lawn chair in the carport of his Cordesville home. “You couldn’t stay home. You had to go to church and Sunday school.”
Richmond already has oral history experience. He’s featured in Edward Ball’s 1998 award-winning book Slaves in the Family. Richmond guided Ball to a forgotten burial ground hidden in the dense forest near Cordesville that holds the remains of people enslaved on a Ball plantation.
Martha Caroline Swinton Ball Taveau built the church at Claremont Plantation around the time when more than 700 enslaved people from the plantation were sold during an estate sale from five Ball-owned Cooper River plantations. When Taveau died, Black families began worshiping in the church that was named for her son Augustine. The church was used until the United Methodist Conference closed it in 1974.
The oral history project complements a Preservation South Carolina church restoration in its early phases. The 1772 Foundation, Historic Charleston Foundation and South Carolina Humanities are providing $25,000 for the oral history project that is expected to be completed in early fall, said WeGOJA’s executive director Dawn Dawson-House.
“We are grateful that our partners entrusted to us the responsibility of capturing and documenting these important stories,” said Dr. Larry Watson, chairman of the WeGOJA Foundation Board of Directors. “We hope to learn more about family, faith, and fellowship in the Cordesville community, and continue adding authentic African American voices and experiences to the state’s historical narrative.”
The final oral history will become part of Historic Charleston Foundation’s Margaretta Childs Archive Collection. Copies also will be retained by the Taveau Legacy Committee.
Dawson-House said initial plans call for “us to interview eight to 10 people. Then later on in the year, we hope to talk to even more people about the comprehensive role Taveau played in the Coredeville community. Eventually, we hope to talk to 20 to 25 people.”
Cynthia Gibbs, chairperson of the Taveau Legacy Committee, said she expects the oral history will include other Cordesville churches.
“It is impossible to focus on just one church because of the interconnectedness of the families and the other churches in the community,” said Gibbs, an Alexandria, Va. resident who grew up in Cordesville.
“This will not be a linear conversation, capturing sequential dates and events, like a history book,” she predicted. “It will be ordinary people telling their stories from their memories about the church and the community, and it will be absolutely fascinating.”
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