GOOD NEWS: 500 years of Chicora Cherokee history in 50 feet

Anik Hall in front of the new mural. Photo provided.

Staff reports  |  Fresh Future Farm (FFF) has used money from a grant to create a public mural that showcases images over centuries of the Chicora Cherokee neighborhood in North Charleston where it is located.  The project seeks to use art at the community hub to educate, boost community conversation and increase pride.

The grant from South Arts led the staff to work with historians to verify and uncover little-known historic information. According to a press release, Anik Hall, the farm’s 23-year-old special projects manager, collaged images of the neighborhood from the 1500s to the present.  Then last spring, Comcast employees prepped the space for the. Hall translated the collage mock-up into a 50-foot by 12-foot replica on the back wall of Fresh Future Farm’s grocery store. 

Staff members then started recording oral histories using the StoryCorps app. To complement its work, FFF was awarded a fellowship from the League of Creative Interventionists, a national organization invested in building a network of artists doing creative placemaking work. 

The Farm plans to host a community dinner that celebrates the mural’s completion and expands their oral histories project to include additional narratives from current and former residents later this year. These videos will be recorded for FFF’s YouTube channel and future podcast. 

As part of Fresh Future Farm’s Kickstarter capital campaign to purchase its land, donors can pay to have their names added to the mural. To view the public artwork, visit Fresh Future Farm Tuesdays through Fridays from noon to 7 p.m. and Saturdays from 7 a.m. to noon.  More info and location.

In other Good News:

Top lakes.  The Santee Cooper lakes — Lake Marion and Lake Moultrie — have been named the ninth best bass fishing lakes in the country, according to Bassmaster magazine.  In the Southeast, the lakes were the third best bass fishery, behind Alabama’s Lake Guntersville and Tennessee’s Chickamauga Lake. More. Bassmaster.com.

Immigration debate hits home.  Protesters in Charleston are calling on U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to demand closure of child detention centers in the news for having squalid conditions, according to WCSC.  The Charleston protest was part of a national day of action to close camps.  Highlighting how the issue might become part of the 2020 election in which Graham is running for another six-year term, protesters carried signs that said, “We will remember this in 2020.”

Harrison shows mettle.  One of Graham’s Democratic opponents, Orangeburg nativeJaime Harrison, raked in more than $1.5 million in second-quarter donations, surprising many political observers.  The large cash haul highlights how Graham may be more vulnerable among a General Election electorate than previously thought.  But to take on Graham, Harrison first has to beat Georgetown County native Gloria Bromell Tinubu, an educator and economist.