Where many Died, Tales of Lost Past Bloom

Florida Flashback

Orlando Sentinel

Sunday February 25, 2007

by: Joy Wallace Dickinson

Path to Freedom. Volunteer actors from Daytona Beach and Lake City portray runaway slaves while Orlando-based Filmmaker Tyrone Young's Crew films them Feb. 17 at Olustee Battlefield Historic Park near Lake City. Young is making a documentary about black Americans in the Civil War.

Living History

Early on a cold Saturday in February, I'm rushing east from Lake City with Paul Simon in my head: I am following the river down the highway, through the cradle of the Civil War.

There's no big river here, but there is a 2-mile-wide lake called Ocean Pond. And the forests nearby are the cradle of Florida's major Civil War clash: the Battle of Olustee, or Ocean Pond. On this day, sunlight shimmers through the tall pines, scattering the frost. At the crossroads named Olustee, Joe's Pit Bar-B-Q advertises Southern comfort food.

Pioneer. Author and storyteller Mary Jackson Fears (here in 2004) first went to the annual re-enactment of the Battle of Olustee in 2002 and vowed to increase the number of black participants.

But 143 years ago, on Feb. 20, 1864, men bled and died here. Of the 10,000 who came to fight in the forests, more than 2,800 would be reported dead, wounded or missing. Union casualties included more than 600 black troops from regiments including the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry made famous in the movie Glory.

Now, the three-day occasion culminating in a re-enactment of the battle is the largest annual Civil War event in the Southeast. In 2002, members of the Central Florida chapter of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society, led by K.O. Mitchell of Orlando and Mary and Joel Fears of Daytona Beach, made certain that black civilians as well as soldiers were represented there.

They've returned every year, but 2007 marks another milestone.

Time Traveler. Re-enactor John H. Anderson Jr., whose mother is Mary Fears (above), portrays Frederick Douglass on Feb. 17 at Olustee Battlefield Historic Park.

Five years ago, about 15 black re-enactors made the trip to Olustee. Now, Mary Fears counts almost 130 African-Americans who will arrive early on this cold morning. Many will help Orlando-based filmmaker Tyrone Young capture pictures of the past with his cameras.

Young's film True Adversity was named best drama at the 2004 New York International Independent Film Festival. Now he is making a documentary titled Filling the Gap, about 'some really important pieces of black history that weren't included in the history books,' he says.

With more than 2,500 people in authentic costumes, plus tents, horses, cannons and more, Olustee offers great potential for visual storytelling about the Civil War.

Historian with a Camera. Tyrone Young films a closeup in the palmetto underbrush at Olustee Battlefield Historic Park. The Orlando-based filmmaker worked for months to recruit black re-enactors for his documentary 'Filling The Gap.'

The Fabric of History

At the re-enactment site, a van from Bethune-Cookman University sits by the side of a dirt road. Students have come to help out and to learn from Young and his crew. A larger bus has brought dozens of African-Americans of all ages (even a baby), clad in flannel shirts and woolen shawls, gingham skirts and sunbonnets.

In their caps and warm jackets, assistant director Trevor Brown and director of photography Richard Pabis are rooted in the now, but a tall man with a rifle nearby is straight from the 19th century.

'I'm the bad guy,' Eric Hague says with a smile.

Union Troops. Young black men and women are among a group of Union Army re-enactors practicing Feb. 17 for the battle re-enactment the next day.

If you're going to film scenes of slaves escaping, the slave hunter who hopes to catch them is part of the story. And Hague, of Gainesville and vice president of the Citizen Support Organization for the Olustee Battlefield, has volunteered to be a necessary evil.

Soon, many of the pretend slaves will race through the palmetto underbrush for the cameras, and Hague will be running after them.

To get a few minutes of action, it's a long process, and director Young is a model of patience. 'Don't look into the camera; look straight ahead,' he instructs his first-time actors. 'We're cool with the running,' he tells them after a number of takes. 'Let's get some closeups.'

Volunterr Villain. Eric Hague, also the exhibits coordinator for the 2007 Olustee re-enactment, portrays a slave hunter for Tyrone Young's cameras.

Ancestral Memories

During a break, women from the Free Will Holiness Church in Daytona Beach and the Olivet Missionary Baptist Church in Lake City get acquainted and talk about the value of their history. The ship from Africa that brought her ancestors to the New World stopped in Cuba, says Blondell Johnson of Lake City.

'I grew up Rodriquez; my natural family came to Florida from Cuba,' she says.

Most of the volunteer actors come from these churches, along with Shiloh Baptist of Daytona Beach.

As the women talk, Mary Fears helps adjust costumes. For head coverings, slave women 'just had 24-inch squares,' she says; double layers of fabric or even a generous bow aren't authentic.

Voices from the 1860s. Yvette Birdsong (from left), Diane Smothers, Ernestine Johnson and Jerelene Rosher participate in a program on 'The Service of People of Color in the Civil War' at Olustee.

When it comes to black re-enactors, Fears wrote the book, literally. Her Civil War and Living History Reenacting About 'People of Color': How to Begin, What to Wear, Why Reenact, published by Heritage Press in 2004, aims to inspire African-Americans to take up re-enacting and includes practical advice on everything from buttons to bodices.

Essays in the book by re-enactors such as Ernestine Johnson of Ocala offer insights into rewards discovered in what may seem to some the last thing they would want to do -- dress as a slave.

Fears is a great apostle for living history. In a section of her book titled 'Who, me? I don't want to do that,' she speaks to why a 21st-century black American might want to revisit a painful chapter in history.

Guardians of the Past and Future. Bethune-Cookman students Patrick Smiley, 22 (from left), stanley Saladin, 21, and Shana Wiggins, 20, work as production assistants Feb. 17 on he film 'Filling The Gap.'

'Re-enactors represent the hopes and dreams of a people who longed to be free to enjoy the fruits of their labor and the bond of love within their families,' she writes.

'In the role of a slave character at a Civil War battle re-enactment, people of color honor themselves as they honor slave ancestors.'

Sometimes it is a message people don't grasp right away.

'It took Mrs. Fears and me 51/2 months to put this together,' director Young says later about visits to churches and other groups.

He asks people to portray slaves 'so we don't lose our history,' he says. 'If we preserve it, then our kids will understand it.'

Such understanding includes learning that not all Civil War-era people of color were slaves, and that slaves did plenty more than pick cotton.

Vision of the Past. Orlando-based director Tyrone Young seeks to tell chapters of history missing from textbooks.

Far from 'Farby'

At 11 a.m., the filmmakers take a break, and everyone heads to a big tent for the program on 'The Service of People of Color in the Civil War.'

I hadn't been back since the first one in 2002, and the difference is remarkable, with many more people on stage and in the audience.

The presenters, who started in 2002 with improvised costumes that some sticklers might call 'farby' -- re-enactor slang for inauthentic, from 'far be it for me to tell you your costume has some flaws' -- are now models of authenticity.

John H. Anderson Jr., Mary Fears' son, looks so much like the great orator Frederick Douglass that he draws double takes from passers-by.

In Costume. Carrie Jackson of Daytona Beach takes a break during director Tyrone Young's filming at the Olustee Battlefield.

'That was a fine speech, Mr. Douglass,' a white Union re-enactor tells Anderson. 'It made me want to sign up.'

After the program, a Confederate band swings into Civil War tunes. They're garbed in gray but do a spirited 'Battle Hymn of the Republic,' as Frederick Douglass looks on, listening and smiling.

It's the kind of juxtaposition of modern and old, white and black that one can find at Olustee -- historic foes now on the same side in the interests of their passion for history and freedom.

That's why Young, the film director, says that, with all due respect for Black History Month, he would just as soon take the 'black' out of it.

'Black history is not just black,' he says. 'It's American history.'

Joy Wallace Dickinson can be reached at jdickinson@orlandosentinel.com, at 407-420-6082 or by good old-fashioned letter at the Orlando Sentinel, 633 N. Orange Ave., Orlando, FL 32801.

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