
          Human Heroics in Uniting an Old Culture to New Religion.
          Reviewed by Prejean, CharlesCharles Prejean
          Vol. 12, No. 3, 1990, pp. 17-18
          
          Ain't you Got a Right to the Tree of Life? Recorded and
edited by Guy and Candie Carawan, with a preface by Charles Joyner and
an afterword by Bernice Johnson Reagon. (The University of Georgia
Press, 1989, second edition, 240 pp., $29.95.)
          This important book restates the values and updates the chronicle
of a unique pattern of life, one guided, perhaps even driven, by
influences of religion. It is the life story of the people of Johns
Island, South Carolina. It tells of the natural striving of people to
practice the human way in an organized society and under circumstances
of inappropriate human intervention and interdiction. It is the story
of the power and determination of the human will to live fully.
          More particularly and dramatically stated, Ain't
You Got a Right to the Tree of Life? is a story of human heroics
achieved by adherence to norms of a traditional African cultural
folkway fused to a personalized and deeply internalized Christian
faith. Seemingly, the result of this particular union of an older
culture to a newer religion has enabled the people of Johns Island to
transcend proscribed natural and legal rights and privileges.
          This resembled much less humble submissiveness to the abuses of
racism and misguided legal authority than recognition that undeserved
oppression is a reflection of the depravity of the oppressor. Other
people's depravity is not an excuse to abort one's effort to live well
the precious and divinely-given gift of life. The experience contends,
implicitly and explicitly, that life is bearable. It is a position
sustained, from every indication, by what is evidently a highly
developed consciousness of the Divine Presence in daily
living. Endurance and the determination to live well is guided by
belief that God will, so to say, "see them through"; or that
wickedness will eventually succumb to the greater power of
goodness.
          The essential contribution of the traditional African cultural
folkway seems to be ability to energize the human faculties of body
and soul, the whole person, in the act of worshiping and daily living:
worshiping and daily living are the same. It is body and soul in an
ancient motion, tried and proven over the ages.
          The Carawans, perhaps because of their own sincerity,
perceptiveness, and appreciation for the quality of line practiced by
the people of Johns Island, allow them to tell their own stow of life
as they and their ancestry experienced it through the ages and under
changing social orders. And the people do in these pages tell it
through personal statements and songs' lyrics that speak of
difficulties, but even more of hope, faith, and appreciation for the
many munificences of Divine Providence. Their songs' music echoes the
same, with variegated rhythmic patterns manifesting the whole
person.
          Photographs also tell the story of simple but elevated living under
miserable circumstances. Looking at these photographs and recalling
the content of the personal statement, one sees strength of character
and determination being projected, not despair and submissiveness. The
photographs of children at work, play, and as members of a family
structure speak of wholesomeness and hopefulness.
          The manner in which the people of Johns Island struggle, endure and
progress reveal a human constructiveness that can serve for
emulation. The personal statements and the words of songs, though they
sometimes speak of pain and misery, reveal no hatred, bitterness,
vindictiveness, or revenge. The Johns Islanders not only process to
be, but are demonstrating that they are indeed a "New Testament
People."
          Furthermore, given the regularity, spontaneity, and totality of
their worship; the heightened consciousness of the presence of the
Divine in their lives; the apparent ability to appreciate the
preciousness of life, even its existence in those who oppress; the
tendency to love rather than merely to give equal measure to
others--all seem to evidence a people who have not only a highly
developed level of Christian spirituality but also an exceptionally
noble pattern of living, one consistent with our acclaimed ideal
natural ways of the species. It is a life that finds no quarter in
substituting illusions for reality. It is one that finds purpose and
comfort in the unending struggle to have practice conform to
universally cherished and spiritually sound beliefs.
          I would be remiss not to mention the significance of the 

leadership
role of Esau Jenkins in guiding and sustaining the modern growth and
development of this community. He was a "Race Man" in the truest
sense. His concern was for the social, civic, economic, and spiritual
uplifting of the entire community. His leadership reflected the same
quality of selflessness that was evident in the best of that
historical African American leadership which has contributed to the
progressive strides of the race. His leadership was bonded by the
aspirations, traditional culture, and spiritual strengths of the
community. It surfaced and was fed by a combined sense of life's
requirements and of a commonly shared life-force. Esau Jenkins's
legacy can still be observed in the continued civic and institutional
progress of the community.
          It is now the contemporary generation's "watch" and its
responsibility to determine how to incorporate the benefits of culture
and religion in the lives of its members, under the circumstances of
the changed society. Hedonism and materialism in the Sea Island
environs notwithstanding, it is too soon yet to lament the
disappearance of the traditional expressions of culture and
religion. It may be that this influence is simply biding time, before
evolving into an appropriate expression under the changed
circumstances of the contemporary period, just as perhaps was the case
in preceding social orders.
          
            Charles Prejean, longtime executive director of the
Federation of Southern Cooperatives, has been one of the outstanding
leaders of the rural South. He is now teaching political science at
Xavier.
          
        