A Belated Blessing for Taylor Square

I’ve been around long enough to believe Sistah Patt Gunn when she says that it never, ever rains on Gullah Geechee events. But I didn’t know conjuring perfect weather was part of the arrangement. 

February 10th was the sort of day that’s made Savannah famous, balmy with a gentle kiss of breeze off the river, the late morning sun sparkling through the live oaks like a heavenly benediction. It was as if the official dedication of Susie King Taylor Square summoned extra supernatural sovereignty from the ancestors, their blessing palpable in the soft, dappled light.  

Hundreds turned out for this momentous event, a culmination of cooperation and advocacy that began in 2020 with the righteous idea that this lovely Savannah square ought to be named for a historical local person of admirable courage and service rather than a windbag slavery proponent from South Carolina. (For those still crying about it, John C. Calhoun’s name is still in the square—on a plaque in the ground, in company with the dozens of unnamed slaves buried beneath the bricks.)

From the beginning, it seemed that Susie King Taylor, the Civil War nurse who taught legions of children to read and write and the acclaimed author of the only known account of the battlefield written by a Black woman, was the obvious choice.