Wrapping Up
By Avery Braxton
With the wrapping up of the semester comes the wrapping up of our coverage with the historic Roxy Theatre. In the past week we have continued to finish transcribing interviews, pursuing new ones and finalizing conclusions.
Sarah Pounds, Jackson Dillard, and Jenna Eason have been working to transcribe the audio from our recent interviews with Sarah Gerwig-Moore, Leroy Thomas Sr. and Kim Campbell. One interview that is completely transcribed is Alice Bailey’s.
Bailey was able to give us some excellent information regarding life in Tybee and also recalled an anecdote about her experiences there.
“What’s important about Tybee was that just about everybody there had a J-O-B, because those [people living in Tybee] are the only people who would . . . do that kind of work that was necessary to be done,” Bailey said. “Tybee was… an insulated community. Every kind of business you needed was in Tybee, run by black people. There were dance halls, grocery stores, shoe shops, pressing club.”
Bailey said that because Tybee was such a tight community that there was not much reason to branch out and go anywhere else. Everything you needed was right there.
One man who could really give us some great insight is Hamp “King Bee” Swain. Thanks to Jenna, we have landed an interview with the former DJ.
There are still a few things that we are waiting on that we hope to be able to give you updates on in the near future.
Debbie R Blankenship is waiting on some information on tax exemption properties from a contact within the tax assessor’s office.
There is also research on the Tybee community being done by several members of the team.
