An outsider might look at South Carolina and only see what jumps out at them: an intense football rivalry, longstanding traditions of sweet tea and seersucker and a bit more than a few political uh-ohs. But to immerse oneself in South Carolina’s culture is to see the variety of it. From scenic mountains to world-famous beaches, one-stoplight towns to tourist destinations like Charleston, this state covers more ground than its size might suggest. The content of South Carolina is the content of its people: rich, diverse and still changing.
From now until next July, McKissick Museum is exhibiting “Heard at Every Turn: Traditional Music in South Carolina,” a collection of historic musical instruments and artifacts. The exhibit showcases the different groups of people who have brought musical traditions to the state, the evolution of that music and how it influenced what we listen to today. While the history of South Carolina’s different ethnic groups might not always have been pretty, the pieces gathered by the museum prove that their pain created something beautiful.
An article in Wednesday’s issue of the Daily Gamecock lists the different instruments and items on display, including one of James Brown’s original suits, but why should we care? If our forebears have already done the work, put the magic ingredients in the pot of culture, stirred once or twice and let them simmer for years, isn’t it our right to sit down and reap the benefits? What do we owe the past?
Well, everything.
If the best part of our community as South Carolinians is that we haven’t plateaued, then we must not forget to look backward as we move forward. Exhibits like “Heard at Every Turn” are opportunities to learn how the past shaped the present. It’s important to know how that evolution gave us what we have today, so that we can contribute in the right way. One day, our present will be someone else’s past. Our latest innovations, inventions, discoveries, Mayor Benjamin's latest announcement, the Can't Kids' latest gig, the new Tapp's gallery, the Chicken Man's paintings: one day all these things won’t be contemporary — they’ll be history. Reminding ourselves of permanence, that what gets created does not always return to dust, inspires us to create things that matter. Things that can stand the test of time.
It is a tribute to the achievements of our ancestors to give them credit where credit is due. Remembering and preserving artifacts of the past is not to be regressive, but a nod at what we’ve been able to do with the materials handed down to us. It is a disservice to make uneducated assumptions about who gave us these blueprints, even worse to not care at all.
It doesn't take reading every South Carolina textbook on the market or staying up-to-date with every South Carolina historian, it just takes noticing the things around you and remembering that something someone else did first led to their existence.
So look around the "Heard at Every Turn" exhibit and enjoy the preservation of what helped make South Carolina's culture what it is today.
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