H 5810

South Carolina General Assembly
126th Session, 2025-2026
Bill 5810
Indicates Matter Stricken
Indicates New Matter
(Text matches printed bills. Document has been reformatted to meet World Wide Web specifications.)
A house RESOLUTION
To recognize and honor the city of Georgetown, South
Carolina, as a designated site of the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization Routes of Enslaved Peoples: Resistance, Liberty, and
Heritage Project.
Whereas, the year 2026
marks the five-hundred-year anniversary of the first African arrivals to Winyah
Bay in the Village of Georgetown, with Spanish explorer Lucas Vazquez de Allyon;
and
Whereas, for more than five
hundred years, approximately twelve million Africans were forcibly carried
across the Atlantic Ocean in the largest forced migration in human history; and
Whereas, during the
ocean voyages known as the Middle Passage, an estimated two million perished-lost
to violence, disease, and despair; their names were largely unrecorded; and
Whereas, those who
survived brought with them the languages, technologies, cultures, and
agricultural knowledge of Africa's Rice Coast and surrounding regions, wisdom
that would shape the Americas; and
Whereas, among the
transatlantic documented vessels arriving to the port of Georgetown are Warwick
in 1737, with eight captives, Endeavor in 1738, with thirty captives, Susanna in
1767, with thirteen captives, Peggy in 1770, with one hundred forty-four
captives, and Betsy in 1784, with nineteen captives; and
Whereas, a Steering
Committee of Georgetown, community members headed by Ron Daise, Beatrice
Rodrigues, Marilyn L. Hemingway, Effson Bryant, and Mary Rice Crenshaw, was
established in August 2025 to develop and install an exemplary Port Marker in
Georgetown under the guidance of the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers
Project; and
Whereas, a Middle
Passage Marker will be erected on sacred ground in Georgetown on October 24,
2026, honoring those who endured, remembering those who did not, and
memorializing the cultural legacy of the Gullah Geechee people. Now, therefore,
Be it resolved by the House of Representatives:
That the members of the
South Carolina House of Representatives,
by this resolution, recognize and honor the city of Georgetown, South Carolina,
as a designated site of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization Routes of Enslaved Peoples: Resistance, Liberty, and Heritage
Project.
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This web page was last updated on August 25, 2026 at 02:00 PM