The Living Legacy of the Parks-Wilder Family
Documenting the Parks Wilder Family From One Generation to Another
The Parks-Wilder Family History
The Parks-Wilder Family of Mosquito Beach on Sol Legare Island, South Carolina are the descendants of a long line of people that have lived in the low country. For well over 100 years, the family has resided on and owned acres of family land in the area.
The family traces its history on the island back to when Harrison Wilder, a veteran of the United States Civil War Colored Troops, traveled southeast from Sumter, South Carolina to settle in the Gullah-Geechee community.
Generations sprung from Harrison Wilder and who the family affectionately called, “Big Mama” Parks.
Today, Ernest, the baby who the family passed over the casket of his grandfather, because he was the youngest at the time and because that ritual removed bad spirits from around the child, is in his late 70’s.
And, as it goes with the passage of time, Ernest and his siblings Ronnie, Hosie and Arthur are the elders in the family now telling their nephew Joshua about the legacy they’ve inherited.
Land equaled freedom for African Americans living in the aftermath of slavery and the Civil War. For a people once treated as property, land ownership meant self-determination, security, the privilege of mobility, and a claim to home rooted in the ground itself.
Land is freedomInternational African American Museum
The Parks-Wilder Family obtained the land as heirs property— land inherited from generation to generation.
Heirs property has facilitated land ownership for African Americans in many cases but, though legal, in other instances the practice has made ownership difficult to prove.
Harrison Wilder had the foresight to buy land, and generations later, his descendants have the fortitude to keep it. Keeping the land requires working it and enjoying its bounty of plums, blackberries, and blueberries.
When the Park children and his siblings were growing up, they kept hogs. Wild geese flocked to the area. Turtles roamed. And even alligators were rumored to have been seen.
It is home to the Parks-Wilder Family, but Mosquito Beach was also a destination known as a place for Black joy and leisure by African Americans all over the southeastern United States looking to fish, swim, or just to frolic.
The area was self-contained and the family had what they needed nearby. Along with the land, the houses, and the churches, the Seashore Farmer’s Lodge is a centerpiece of the community.
The community was close knit with several family members and friends living in close proximity. Today, the roads in the area still bear the names of the families that lived there long ago. Many, like the Parks-Wilder family, still call it home.
During the Great Migration (c. 1910-1970) when millions of African Americans left the South for the north, midwest, and west coast, members of the Parks-Wilder Family also made the trek.
Aunt Margaret Parks was among the first in the family to strike out and up the eastern seaboard to New York. She sent for a few of her family who joined her but eventually returned to Charleston/Sol Legare Island.
Others followed the established pattern: In their young adult years they also went up North, first landing at Aunt Margaret’s before deciding where to go from there. As Hosie said, “Charleston and New York, particularly Harlem, always had that connection.”
Importantly, millions of African Americans remained in the South while their family members moved elsewhere. So family ties remained strong in spite of the distance through visits, returns, new arrivals, and correspondences.
Those strong ties strengthened the cultural and economic relationship between the two regions. Hosie eventually returned to South Carolina stating, “if you leave on good terms, you can come back.”
Black people are indeed returning to the South. Sometimes called the New Great Migration, African Americans and Black immigrants have reversed the flow back to the south over the last 50 years.
Bringing with them renewed energy to the region that has always been important in shaping American life.
Hosie, the artistic brother, according to his younger brother Ernest, took and preserved hundreds of family photos with his J66 polaroid camera in the 1960’s and 70’s. He captured the moments, settings, and the people most precious to him.
Documenting & Preserving the Legacy International African American Museum
Initially photographing the family was a hobby but as he matured he reflected on the deeper value of the photographs.
They are tangible pieces of the past; a moment captured in a flash. Or as he says, “Holding on to what you have so later on, generations can see what it’s all about.”
Simply pointing and asking, “who is that?” can strike up a recollection that bridges the past to the present and connects us with the legacies contained in a picture.
Hosie documented family members through the cycles of life as babies became children, children became young adults, young adults became elders, and elders passed on.
The photos also show changing fashions, evolving cars, and the technology of the camera itself. All the while, the Parks-Wilder land also changed in the background, but remained a constant in the family.
His aunt, father, and uncles praise Joshua Parks for his efforts to preserve his family’s history.
At the International African American Museum Joshua is helping to document, preserve, and present his family’s story which, like other families, is nestled within the history of Charleston, the coastal region, the United States, and the greater African Diaspora.
Credits:
Exhibition Curated by James Bartlett
Exhibition Coordinated by Shante’ Cozier
Exhibition Essay written by LaShaya Howie
Exhibition Design by Rolake Ojo
Film by Draulhaus
Photography by Joshua Parks
Special Thanks to the IAAM Curatorial Team, Martina Morale, Suzanne DiBella and Matthew Stevenson
Additional thanks to the Parks-Wilder Family
