True Places: A Lowcountry Preacher, His Church, and His People

Introduction

Introduction In the summer of 1994, I was vacationing with my family at a historic inn on Pawleys Island, not far rom Georgetown, South Carolina. `e inn was as intimate and restful as we had been told. `e veranda was wide, the living room 0lled with books, and the ocean right at the door. It was a place of old-fashioned comforts , including cocktail hour on the porch, where the waitstaf served us each evening before dinner. Everything relected a southern graciousness, almost exotic to someone who grew up in New York Ciy. But what intrigued me most was the silent black staf.`ey moved slowly, their eyes kept low; they seldom smiled or changed expression. Wearing starched white uniforms, they did their jobs in a quiet, e2cient, and accommodating way. I wondered about their lives and dreams, their homes and families. One morning at 6:00 a.m., as they came to work, I heard gimling and talking under my window. I felt a lixle jealous—I wished that I went to work gimling—and it made me wonder even more. I thought about what I could not see rom the protected veranda of this elegant old inn and what I could not hear in the silence beneath the clinking cocktail glasses and banter of the guests. One Friday night, ater serving dinner, the kitchen staf put on a brief gospel show. It was a hapv, energizing event 0lled with singing, dancing, and laughter. `ere was spirit all around, and it lowed into our small group of watchers. Other guests, mostly southerners, seemed less interested; perhaps they were used to Arican American celebrations. But I was elated. I had seldom seen human beings who had seemed so spiritually connected to God and to each other. “`ere’s something going on here,” I told my wife, Joy. And I wanted to be part of it. Ater the show, I asked a member of the kitchen staf if we could visit her church on Sunday, and she said, “Yes, of course.”`e next day Joy and I went driving to 0nd the church so we could be sure not to be late on Sunday. `e directions we received were helpful, but less than clear: “Go past Miss Halley’s blue house just over that white bridge.” We were soon lost and had to stop at a gas station to ask the way.`e teenage counter clerk, whose name badge said “Tranea,” asked, “What do you Swamp across rom St. Jude’s Church, 2000 (detail) ▲ 4 want to go to that church for?” I said, “Because I’m a photographer.” “Well you don’t want to go to that church you want to go to my church,” she responded. `en she called her pastor, told him about us, and gave us directions to her church. It was a cinder-block building south of Georgetown , on the edge of a 0eld and in the middle of nowhere. `e Reverend Floyd Knowlin drove over that day to meet us, and we became riends for life.`at meeting with Reverend Knowlin in the grass next to the un0nished walls of Shiloh Church inspired me to pursue this project. I asked if it would be possible for me to take photographs inside the church of him preaching and of his congregation in prayer. “Yes, that would be 0ne,” he said.`e next morning, when we entered the church, everything looked resh and yellow and pink. `ere were pink and white lowers on the altar; lixle girls had pink ribbons in their braided hair; and yellow sunlight streamed through the broken stained glass of an arched window. People were quietly greeting and huming each other. Mothers held babies in the back pews. We shyly sat down in the last row. But then Tranea, the girl rom the gas station, came over and beckoned us forward. “You don’t have to sit in the back of our church,” she said. Her welcome was enhanced by Reverend Knowlin, who introduced us by saying, “`is is my brother and sister! `ey don’t look like my brother and sister, but we are all brothers and sisters in the Lord! Now, don’t be camera shy. He’s invited here. He’s our brother.” With those words—similar to words he repeated at every subsequent service I axended—I sexled back, not knowing that I was about to hear...