The St. Mark’s Community History Reunion will be held the first weekend in September for all community members devoted to preserving the history of African Americans in Sewanee.
Everyone is welcome to attend the event set for Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the St Mark’s Community Center located on Alabama Avenue in Sewanee.
This is the third such reunion. Attendees will enjoy barbeque, local entertainment and presentations about the Save Sewanee Black History Archive provided by The Roberson Project.
Save Sewanee Black History is an online archive of their lives and experiences on the mountain and a public education program dedicated to ensuring that the people of this community are remembered and honored.
Everyone is urged to bring any personal memorabilia (photographs, scrapbooks, postcards and letters, family bibles, school records, yearbooks, trophies and diplomas) which will be added to the Save Sewanee Black History Archive, blacksewanee.org.
This Archive ensures that future generations will understand the contributions of the St. Mark’s Community to Sewanee’s history.
Scanned items will be returned with a free digital copy on a thumb drive. Participants will also have an opportunity to tell their family’s history in a recorded interview and explore their family’s ancestry.
The African American residents of Sewanee have lived principally in two neighborhoods.
The St. Mark’s neighborhood is the larger of the two and today bounded on the north and east by the town’s two cemeteries and on the south by Highway 64.
It was home to the black community’s “mission” Episcopal Church, segregated school, and social center, the “Belmont Club.”
The smaller neighborhood was next to the Sewanee Military Academy on Tennessee Avenue (now home of the School of Theology and college dormitories) and called “Essie-May”.
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