Common History. Common Goal: The Penn Center legacy lives on

St. Helena Island, S.C. – The first face you see when you turn into the driveway of the Penn Center might be one of the most familiar faces in the history of the United States. A sign with the word “Welcome” rests above a large photo of Atlanta native and late civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

The connection between Dr. King and the Penn Center, formerly known as the Penn School when the school was built in 1862 as the first school for formerly enslaved West Africans, is deep and full of history. King and many of his fellow civil rights-era stalwarts visited the Penn Center and stayed on campus during those visits. During the height of the Civil Rights Movement, the Penn Center was a place King and many others could strategize but also get away from the Birminghams, Chicagos, and Atlantas of the world. The retreat house, situated through the woods and overlooking the water, was built specifically for King. The Ebenezer Baptist Church Pastor, Morehouse College graduate, and Nobel Peace Prize winner never got a chance to stay there as he was murdered in Memphis a few months before the home was completed. 

King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference held several retreats at the Penn Center from 1964-1967. A paper on those visits to St. Helena Island titled “I Will Not Be Silent, and I Will Be Heard” was written by South Carolina historian and author J. Tracy Power.

“When he would come to town, we didn’t know about it,” Erveria  Faulkner, 86, said. “They didn’t want the citizens of St. Helena Island to know about it.”  

Earlier this month, The Atlanta Voice spent a couple of days at the Penn Center in order to better understand the center’s connectivity to Atlanta. 

From learning how to farm to training students on how to build homes and schools, the Penn Center was at the center of life on St. Helena Island during a time when educating Black people was forbidden. The institution received National Historic Site recognition in 1975. The various buildings located on campus remain in the original locations of construction. There have been structural updates, but the bones of the institution are still the same.

Dr. Robert Adams, the Penn Center Executive Director, feels that way every time he walks the grounds of the Penn Center. A native of Bangor, Maine, who grew up a military brat and lived all over the world, lives in one of the houses on campus. He says he enjoys being one with the immense history of the Penn Center.

“I like to sit with the ancestors,” Adams said. 

Adams says the Penn Center’s legacy is an important piece of the story of Black history and The Atlanta Voice needs to be one of the publications that tells that story.

“This is a testament and a witness if you will to the importance of Black history in the evolving story of American democracy,” Adams said. “That’s why this is so important. All the major characters came through here: Booker T. Washington, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert Smalls, Harriet Tubman, this is an important platform for the struggle for civil rights and full citizenship.” 

That list of luminaries who have visited the Penn Center also includes Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, the 6th President of Morehouse College and former mentor of Dr. King. 

Adams says the story of the Penn Center has to be told in order to properly tell this country’s story.

“We have to be heard because we have to tell our own stories if our stories are going to be appreciated and understood,” said Adams.

York Glover, Beaufort County Councilman (District 3), graduated from St. Helena High School and loves his community. His work as a county council member has been focused on two things: Creating economic opportunities for the St. Helena community and keeping the golf courses off the island. The latter is an issue that has picked up steam of late.

“The voice of the community is struggling to keep the golf courses off the island,” said Glover, who is Vice Chairman of the Public Facilities Commission and has been a part of the council for nine years. “It’s a lot of work.”

Glover says that he has to constantly remind the locals that the history of St. Helena Island is important to preserve. 

“Reconstruction gave us hope and Jim Crow took it away,” Glover said. “If we don’t know our history we are doomed to repeat it. All money is not good money.” 

The connection between the Penn Center and the City of Atlanta extends beyond Dr. King’s life and legacy.

“The Penn Center, since 1862, has served to hold the line against fear and promoted what is the best in what this republic can produce,” said Atlanta Preservation Center Executive Director David Yoakley Mitchell. “The Penn Center addresses the complexities of this region and the national conversation of how we have come to this age. The Atlanta Preservation Center has become a partner with the Penn Center and connected the unique dynamics of Dr. King, the “I Have A Dream” speech, and so much more.” 

Mitchell, who is also the Penn Center Board Chair, said other than being a husband and a father, his work with the Penn Center “has become the thing that brings me a genuinely real sense of purpose.” 

There are many people who have helped and continue to help make the Penn Center special. 

On Tuesday, April 8, Queen Quet slowly walked to the front of the main room in the Frissell Community House, which is located on the campus of the Penn Center. On her way to address the three dozen people in attendance for a scheduled Water SC meeting, she sang the chorus from “Wade in the Water.” 

Located on the campus of the Penn Center, the Frissell Community House, which was built in 1925, is one of many buildings that were built on the 50-acre property. At the Penn Center, the goal has always been to educate, train, prepare, and protect. The land is sacred to many who work there, live there, and conduct business on the grounds.

Before Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah Geechee Nation, introduced herself and began to talk about the important relationship between water and St. Helena Island, her hometown, she asked everyone to hold hands and pray. Spirituality, no matter what the foundation of one’s faith, is very important to the people of the island.

“I’ve been everywhere around the world but there’s no place like home,” Quet said. 

Reverend Johnnie Simmons has several pieces of his work on display at the Penn Center’s museum. An artist and native of St. Helena Island, Simmons served his country in the United States Army and overseas during the Vietnam War. Simmons found painting as a therapy for the physical and mental scars of war and never looked back. His pieces such as “Gullah Baptism,” “When Everything Fail, Pray, Then Go Fishing,” “De Gullah Farm,”  and “A Man Gotta Have a House,” do well to represent the colors and vibrancy of the Gullah Geechee culture.

The art of the late Thomas “Sam” Doyle can also be seen at the Penn Center museum, where he studied at the formerly named Penn School and where Dr. Marie Gibbs is currently the caretaker of the museum.  

Deacon James P. Smalls, a caretaker in his own right, also cultivates culture on the Penn Center grounds at the Mary Jenkins Praise House. 

Smalls told the story of looking up from a rice paddie in Vietnam one evening as the threat of death from an enemy’s bullet filled the air. Smalls recalled the moon being full and bright and he wondered if someone was back home on St. Helena Island looking at that same moon.

“That kept me alive,” Smalls said. 

These days the elderly Smalls makes sure visitors to the Penn Center can visit the Mary Jenkins Praise House, one of the few places Black people on St. Helena Island could worship in peace. 

“There’s a lot of history that came out of Penn Center,” Smalls said. The things that are going on in America today aren’t new to us. We feel it, but we can handle it.”   

Adams believes it is as much about the people of the Penn Center as it is the historical importance of the place. Speaking of Smalls, Adams said, “He’s not just the guardian of the praise house, he’s the guardian of the tradition.” 

And Smalls says he has no plans on slowing down anytime soon.

“I’m determined to keep it going,” he said. 

Next year will mark the 250th anniversary of this country and the Penn Center has been around for 162 of those years. The work being done there and the history on display there is even more important today than ever, says Mitchell.

“I hope others will go to the Penn Center and experience and feel what courage really looks like,” he said.