Sullivan Island SC--The Black Ellis Island

[Chrishayden]

http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2009/03/sullivan-s-island-african-american-ellis-island

[dgivensterry]

http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2009/03/sullivan-s-island-african-american-ellis-island

This post caught my eye because Sullivan Island is referenced indirectly in my book, "I'm a Good Wife...Most of the Time." The main character, Shelby Freeman, is an African-American woman in the throes of a midlife crisis. She writes about all of her anxieties in a journal, whose pages begin to mysteriously appear of the Internet. The Internet journal entries go viral and suddenly Shelby is thrust into the white-hot and unwanted celebrity spotlight. She runs away to "Dewey Island" in her native South Carolina. While there, she attends a fundraiser to dedicate a site on the island as a slave burial ground memorial to those unfortunate African souls who died on American soil shortly after arrival and whose bodies were unceremoniously dumped in mass graves on the island. In another scene in the book, as Shelby stands on the shores of "Dewey Island," she acknowledges the African men, women and children who were lost at sea during the grueling Middle Passage.

I am a native of Charleston and hope to return at some point this year to visit the exhibit mentioned in this article.

If you want to know more about my book, or me, visit http://mysite.verizon.net/resysc92/ .