Brownsville has a proud past

SUMMERVILLE -- Family names that are familiar in Brownsville -- Thomas, Myers, Saunders, Duffy -- also are etched in granite on a wall of honor in the nation's capital. That's how deep the pride is in this historic black community.

Among its founding families were at least 10 soldiers stationed to guard the Summerville railroad station at the close of the Civil War. They were members of the 1st Regiment, United States Colored Troops, part of a force of freedmen and runaway slaves who made history with their service and paved the way for African Americans in the military.

At least some of the men were from North Carolina plantations. When the war ended they stayed where they were, living within hailing distance of each other along the tracks. Some of them lived on the "old back road" out of town where outrage has erupted recently over a resident flying a Confederate battle flag. Their ancestors still live there.

It's a striking note in a controversy over heritage that has raised hackles across the Lowcountry and the state.

The community's past is an obscure bit of the rich history in Summerville, maybe partly because for years the families kept it to themselves. They were the veterans and descendants of Union troops, living through Jim Crow and segregated times in a region that vaunted its rebel past.

The great-great-grandfather of Jordan Simmons III was among them. But growing up in Brownsville a century later, all Simmons remembers hearing about Jordan Swindel, his ancestor, is that he was a runaway slave who joined the Army. The rest, he says simply, "was not talked about." He didn't find out about it until he was an adult doing research on the Civil War and the troops and came across Swindel's name.

Now he's at work on a book about his family and the Brownsville heritage. Other 1st Regiment surnames in the community include Jacox, Berry, Campbell, Edney and Fedley.

Simmons, 64, has lived through some history of his own. He was one of the South Carolina State University students injured in the infamous 1968 Orangeburg Massacre. He too served in the U.S. Army, a 29-year veteran who fought in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne infantry and retired as a lieutenant colonel. He now lives in Virginia.

It overwhelmed him to see his great-great-grandfather's name on the wall of honor three years ago when he visited the African-American Civil War Memorial in Washington, D.C. Pvt. Swindel fought in four battles in nine months in 1864, from Florida -- where he was wounded -- to Honey Hill, S.C. Simmons wishes he would have sought out that history when he was younger.

"When you were a kid 50 years ago, there were direct links who were living," he said.

He has a keen perspective on the flag controversy. The constitutional amendment that provides for freedom of speech goes on to provide for the right to assemble and petition, "the right to assemble and complain about what the other person is doing," he said.

"I was sworn into the U.S. Army to defend the Constitution. As upsetting as it is, they have a right to fly their flag. I just wish (the resident) would not, because it's like calling 'Fire!' in a theater," he said. He'd like to see other people in the community fly American flags up and down the street.

Jack Bass, the noted Southern historian who wrote "The Orangeburg Massacre," has worked with Simmons and is pushing him to finish the book.

"It's quite a history, in terms of African-American history," Bass said. He compares the flag-flying in the neighborhood to someone flying a swastika in a Jewish neighborhood. "I can think of few things that would be more provocative in a neighborhood like that."

Reach Bo Petersen at 937-5744.