Kitty Wilson-Evans | |
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Born | Fort Benning, Georgia |
Nationality | American |
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Kitty Wilson-Evans was an American historical interpreter and storyteller. She was noted for her educational performances about the lives of African Americans who were enslaved at Historic Brattonsville. For that work she researched and created a character who appeared in several books, plays, and in performances at various historical sites.
Wilson-Evans was born in Fort Benning, Georgia, to a family with 14 siblings. She grew up in Columbus, Georgia. [1]
Wilson-Evans worked as a kindergarten teacher until her retirement, after which she became a full-time historical interpreter. [1]
Wilson-Evans was the first African American interpreter at the Historic Brattonsville, [1] where she started working as a historical interpreter in the early 1990s. [2] There she portrayed a fictional character of her creation, meant to illustrate the life of an 18th-century slave. [2] In addition to historical re-enactments, she also gave tours of the slave residence at Historic Brattonsville. [3] She was an early practitioner of the idea of researching and creating the character of a fictional slave to dramatize the experiences of slaves on southern plantations at a historical site. [4] In addition to working as a full-time interpreter at Historic Brattonsville, she also performed on special occasions at other historical sites, such as the Rose Hill Plantation State Historic Site [5] and the Redcliffe Plantation State Historic Site. [6]
The character that Wilson-Evans portrayed as an interpreter inspired a character in the book Colonial Spy by M. C. Beckham. [1] She also filmed a scene for The Patriot , but the scene was edited out. [2] She regularly worked as a stage actor, performing at venues including Lincoln Memorial University. [2] Wilson-Evans co-authored two books about the character, Kessi, whom she created and portrayed at Brattonsville: Kessie's Tales: The Adventures of an African-American Slave Girl in South Carolina (2008) and Old Maw: The Legend of Miss Kessie (2013). [7]
Wilson-Evans was given the Robert E. Lee Service Award by the Sons of Confederate Veterans in 2008, and may have been the first African American recipient of this award. [2] There was a reception held in her honor as part of the 2009 Black History Month celebrations at the University of South Carolina Lancaster. [8] Wilson-Evans was one of three recipients of the 2011 Keepers of the Culture Award from York County's Culture and Heritage Museums. [9] In 2014, Wilson-Evans was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the South Carolina African American Heritage Commission. [10] In 2017, she received the Medal of Honor in the Arts from Winthrop University's College of Visual and Performing Arts. [11]
The Patriot is a 2000 American epic historical drama war film directed by Roland Emmerich and written by Robert Rodat. The film stars Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Joely Richardson, Jason Isaacs, Chris Cooper, and Tom Wilkinson. Set in Berkeley County, South Carolina, it follows Benjamin Martin (Gibson), an American colonist who is opposed to going to war with Great Britain but, along with his son Gabriel (Ledger), gets swept into the American Revolutionary War when his home life is disrupted, and one of his sons is murdered by a cruel British officer (Isaacs). Rodat has said Martin is a composite character based on four historical men: Andrew Pickens, Francis Marion, Daniel Morgan and Thomas Sumter.
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Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley, born Anta Madjiguène Ndiaye, also known as Anna Kingsley, Anta Majigeen Njaay or Anna Madgigine Jai, was a West African from present-day Senegal, who was enslaved and sold in Cuba, probably via the slave pens on Gorée Island. In Cuba she was purchased, as wife, by plantation owner and slave trader Zephaniah Kingsley. After his death, she became a planter and slave owner in her own right, as a free Black woman in early 19th-century Florida.
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The Bondwoman's Narrative is a novel by Hannah Crafts whose plot revolves around an escape from slavery in North Carolina. The manuscript was not authenticated and properly published until 2002. Scholars believe that the novel was written between 1853 and 1861. It is one of the first novels by an African-American woman, another is the novel Our Nig by Harriet Wilson, published in 1859, while an autobiography from the same time period is Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, published in 1861.
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Mattie Clyburn Rice was an African-American member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. As the daughter of a Confederate Veteran, she is considered a "Real Daughter of the Confederacy" by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and is the second African-American woman to be recognized as such. At the time of her induction into the United Daughters of the Confederacy, she was one of twenty-three women who were living daughters of Confederate veterans. Rice successfully campaigned for her father and nine other African-American men, one freedman and eight enslaved, to be recognized for their Civil War service with a historical marker in Monroe, North Carolina.