Shout Because You're Free: The African American Ring Shout Tradition in Coastal Georgia

3. Lawrence McKiver, Boss Songster

My mother lived to be 104years old, and she have five more sisters besides her. And they all like to keep the old slave shout going around in the community. We alway shout the . . . New Year in, shout the old year out. And she—they was sitting around and sometimes they be makingquilts through the fall of the year after they done take in all their crops. . . . People have something to keep themselves warm in them old houses, and they'll start telling stories of what their mother tell them. Well I being a small-size boy, I be taking in all that stuff, you know.And that's the way I come to be carry it on today —Lawrence McKiver As Lawrence McKiverapproaches his eightieth year, he lives alone in a smallhouse set back off the highwayin Bolden—under the live oak trees. With some of his extra earnings from takingthe shout out of the communityin recent years, he screened in his front porch, eliminating the green and white sawtooth ornamental woodwork that had distinguished the house from several other modest neighboring houses, and added a carport. The interior isdark and sparsely furnished. In the back is a smallkitchen; there is an iron heater and a brass bedstead in the middle room; on the walls of the front room are posters of folk festivals he has appeared at with the Mclntosh County Shouters, photos of the group, and one old photograph of 85 3 LawrenceMckiver,BossSongster his mother, Charlotte Evans. Lawrence is more likely to be out in the dirt yard than in the house, talking to a group of young neighbors. One time we stopped to see him in the winter as men were returning from hunting. "I'm kin to everything you see here," he said, indicating both the younger and older men milling around. "I'm the boss" of the shouters, he says, and none would deny it. Not that he makes the final decisions—these are made by the group and community —but he is the man who indeed "knows all the songs," is in full possession of the shout song repertoire, and is the person most knowledgable about the shout in all its aspects—with the possible exception of Reverend Palmer, who is inactive in the shout. Knowledge brings power in traditional societies, and McKiver is in secure possession of both. He speaks of his mother and his "aunties" as his "old ancestors" and draws wisdom and authority from them. As he speaks his expressively chiseled features and his choppy, often repetitious but forceful phrases conveyurgency, and his hands dance in delicate gestures that amplify the meanings of his words: the visitor aswell asthe kinsmanmust understand. He is the "big" singer in Bolden, and the man with the fullest knowledge not only of the shout but of the rich fabric of folklife of which the shout is a part. And he is not just a bearer and repository of tradition, he renews it in practice, shapes and refines new performing modes. He has reworked some of the shout songs and has made new solo songsthat express his religious faith and comment on the social turmoil and drug culture that have moved into his community. We have heard already about and from him, with regard to the shout, in these pages. Now let us flesh out his story further, through mostlyhis own words. Oh, I was born in 1915. April the eighteenth. Really, in fact, Iwas born on Easter Sunday morning,but you can't plug a Easter Sunday morning, understand, so then I placed my birthday on April eighteenth , so I'd be celebrating in between each one. . . . My mother had six head of us, and I don't know anything about a daddy; I never seen my daddy in my life. My mommytelled me my daddy died two weeks before I was born. AllI know is my mommy, and I knowwhat she had to go through to take care of us. She would work for a white fella down there, call him Kelly Townsend, sometimes get twenty-five cents, some sweet potato, some syrup.1 [Charlotte Evans worked in the fields for Townsend.] And from that, she would get those white folks' clothes 86 Shout Because You're Free down there, and put 'em on her head, and tote 'em here, and wash 'em and starch 'em and iron 'em and...