Let the Circle Be Unbroken: An Account of Growing up Gullah
Victoria’s Parents - Elting and Laura Smalls on Wedding Day 1968, Victoria (right) with siblings on the Farm in Tom Fripp Community, St. Helena Island, SC
Victoria Smalls is a triumph of human unity.
Excerpt from Bluffton.com Article, Let the Circle Be Unbroken: An Account of Growing up Gullah, written by Michele Roldán-Shaw.
She is Gullah, one of 14 siblings in the blended family of St. Helena Island’s first-ever biracial couple. She grew up speaking Gullah and working the land; today she is a director at Penn Center National Historic Landmark District, a successful artist and a mother raising the next generation. Victoria is a living part of history.
Her own story began at an interesting time. The year was 1966. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had just spoken at Penn Center, when another crucial meeting took place.
“My mother saw this tall, charismatic, beautifully dark-skinned man standing 6’6”,” says Victoria, one of four children born from their union. “They started officially courting, then decided to get married.” He was Gullah and a graduate of Penn Center with six kids from a previous marriage, all black; she lived in Michigan with four kids from her own previous marriage, all white. Both their spouses had passed away. Amazingly, both were also members of the Baha’i Faith, a world religion founded in Iran that emphasizes the unity of all humankind under one God. It was at a Baha’i retreat on the grounds of Penn Center that they met.
