“May We Preserve Honoring Our Past”
Thursday June 27, 2024 – Sunday June 30, 2024
Jesup, Georgia
Welcome to Portal's Promise Families Reunion Weekend! We are excited to celebrate and learn about our strongly rooted connections within the primary families of Holloways, Parrish, Riggs, and Lanier that extend to the Mercer, Ellis, Dekle, Summerlin, Mincey, Bird, Williams, Holland, Littles, Lindsay and Rawls lineages within Bulloch, Evans, Candler, Tattnall, Toombs, Liberty, Screven, Brooks counties in the state of Georgia. It is by divine intervention that we can reunite and rejoice in the strength of our ancestors. As we learn more about how our families intersect, we welcome all family and extended family in joining us along the journey!
Why Bulloch County?
Bulloch County, Georgia, was chosen for our first reunion because we wanted it to be an educational reunion, along with a reunion for many of us to survey and make a personal connection to the land and area where many of our ancestors worked and lived during slavery. Prior to the Proclamation of Emancipation, our ancestors lived, worked, and tended to the land within Bulloch, Evans, Screven, Candler, Tattnall, Daisy, Emmanuel, Toombs, Liberty, and Brooks counties. Based on information we retrieved from the 1870 & 1880 Census, we learned that the father to Andy, Aaron, Isaac, Lymus/Linus, Perry, and Clara Holloway was born in Africa, and we refer to him as “Father Africa Holloway” (abt. 1776) and the mother was born in Virginia, we refer to her as “Mother Holloway” (abt.1780). Their children above, are who we refer to as the “Root Holloways” and we all descend from one of these individuals, and maybe some others, that we haven’t determined the connection to as of yet.
It is through the children of Father Africa Holloway and Mother Holloway that we connect to many other families such as the, Laniers, Parrish’s, Mercers, Mincey/Mincy’s, Everett’s, Ellis, Edenfields, Tillmans, Williams, Bacon’s, Collins, Lee’s, Harrell’s, Anderson, Dekle’s, Holland’s, Summerlin’s, Munlin’s, Jones, Kirkland’s, Donaldsons, Riggs, Little’s, Halls, Hodges, and so many more.
“Root Holloways”
Portal's Promise
It is through their roots, that connects us all! They are the trunk and we are their branches
The family emblem is born of two Ghanaian symbols: The Sankofa (the heart shape with the crown at the bottom) and the Wawa Aba (the circle with the stem in the center) are combined.
The Sankofa is known for being a symbol of an African Concept: There is no shame to look back in order to move forward. The Wawa Aba is the symbol of Perseverance.
When put together, one can interpret this symbol, our symbol, as "Perseverance through Honoring our Past." Hence the slogan.
This is also the intended message of the designer, Jordan T. Robinson.
African Ancestry
Through African Ancestry testing of the maternal line tracing through Clara Holloway, it was determined that Clara's mother, also referred to as "Mother Holloway" descends from Cameroon.
It is with great pleasure that I report your MatriClan™ Test result. We have determined that you share maternal genetic ancestry with Bamileke people in Cameroon today.
We compared parts of your maternally inherited DNA (mtDNA) to that of people from around the world, to look for matches. Using the largest set of African mtDNA samples available today, we found identical, 99.7% matches for you with the mtDNA of Bamileke people. This means that at some point in the 500 - 2,000 year history of your maternal lineage (mother to mother to mother) there was a Bamileke woman.
Our analysis encompasses Hypervariable Regions 1, 2 and 3 (HVR1, HVR2 and HVR3) of your mtDNA. Out of the 3 billion parts of your DNA, the variants below are unique to your maternal lineage and indicate DNA sequence patterns that you share with some Bamileke. The combination of HVR variants determines your membership in Haplogroup L1c3b. Your statistical confidence measure, or Sequence Similarity Score, is 99.7%.
HVR1 Variants:16129A, 16150T, 16163G, 16187T, 16189C, 16223T, 16278T, 16293G, 16294T, 16311C, 16360T
HVR2 Variants:73G, 151T, 152C, 182T, 186A, 189C, 247A, 263G, 315.1C, 316A
HVR3 Variants:523d, 525d
Everyone on your entire maternal lineage, from the past and into the future shares ancestry with these groups. So, we encourage you to share this information with everyone on your mother's side of the family, including your siblings, children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, your mother, her sisters and brothers and your grandmother.
Willow Hill Heritage and Renaissance Center
Thank you, Dr. Jackson & Family
It is with humble hearts, and gratitude, that the families of the Portal’s Promise would like to thank Dr. Alvin Jackson in hosting us during our educational journey to learning more about our family history and Bulloch & surrounding counties. Dr. Jackson, we thank you for all that you do, have done, and continue to do. We thank you for sponsoring our tour and lunch and welcoming us into Willow Hill. We look forward to continued partnerships with you and the Willow Hill School in the future.
GETTING TO KNOW DR. ALVIN JACKSON
Dr. Jackson was born in Portal, Georgia. He lived on a farm and was one of the first students to integrate the high school there. Dr. Jackson received his B.S. degree from Andrews University in Michigan. He also did undergraduate studies at Oakwood College in Alabama. Dr. Jackson was the second recipient of the prestigious Luard Scholarship which allowed him to pursue studies at The University of Keele in England and travel to over 20 countries in Europe and Russia. Dr. Jackson earned his M.D. from The Ohio State University and completed his family practice residency at Mercy Hospital of Toledo, Ohio. On May 16, 2004, Dr. Jackson received the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Heidelberg College. In 2005, Willow Hill School and property was listed for sale by the Bulloch County Board of Education. Dr. Jackson, along with a group of concerned citizens and other direct descendants of the founders of Willow Hill School looked for a way to purchase the school in an effort to preserve the legacy of the Willow Hill School. This group had approximately two weeks to secure the funds for the purchase of the school property. The group members pooled their resources and personally donated $60,000.00 dollars for the project. The Willow Hill School was started in 1874 by former slaves. The school was in existence for 125 years; the longest for any school in Bulloch County, Georgia. The founding of the Willow Hill Heritage and Renaissance Center and its future operation as a museum and community resource is an effort to preserve a piece of American History. This museum will serve to educate and expand the current knowledge of Black History in the 21st century. Source; Willow Hill Heritage and Renaissance Center website: https://www.willowhillheritage.org/aboutus
ABOUT WILLOW HILL
In 1874, nine years after the end of the civil war, a group of former slaves started a school for Black children. The school which was housed in the remnants of an old turpentine shanty had only one small stove to heat it during the cold of winter. The first teacher was a 15-year-old former slave named Georgiana Riggs who learned to read and write during a time when the penalty for teaching a slave was death. The first books most likely shared by all were an old blue back speller and the bible. This small school was the start of a Dream Not to be forgotten. In 1988 Nkenge Jackson, daughter of Alvin D. & Gayle L. Jackson of Columbus Ohio, a descendent of the founders entered a project in the National History Day Competition titled "A Dream Not to Be Forgotten: The History of A Black School Willow Hill 1874 to the present." The project told the story of a school started by Blacks a few years after the end of the Civil War. The Willow Hill School was started by former slaves during a time when religious and civic organizations were starting schools to educate Blacks. Despite the limited resources Willow Hill would sprout into a community of successful Black Americans whose early history was mostly documented through the oral tradition common in the Black community. The School started by a small group of families was sold to the Bulloch County board of education in 1920 and continued to educate Blacks until 1970 when despite a threatened closing the school continued to educate both blacks and whites in the community. The story of Willow Hill would win first place in the Junior Division of the National History Day Competition and later be awarded notice by the American Association of Museums and become part of a Huntington Bank Exhibit, "A Walk-Through History." The history has also been featured in a Bulloch County historical publication. In 1999 The Willow Hill School was closed, and the building became a community center. The year that Willow Hill Closed it was longest secondSary school in existence (125 years) in Bulloch County. In 2005 The Bulloch County School Board put the school up for auction and a group of descendants of the founders of the Willow Hill School purchased the school in a effort to preserve the history and create a museum at the site of the old 1954 Willow Hill school building. The family Historian Alvin Jackson MD has collected a database of over 8,000 names, countless recordings of old community members who have since passed and thousands of documents. This oral history needs to become written history to pass the story through the generations. This project is the effort to start a Museum that will tell the story of The Willow Hill School. Source; Willow Hill Heritage and Renaissance Center website: https://www.willowhillheritage.org/aboutus
The Founding of WHHRC
The Willow Hill Heritage and Renaissance Center concept was spawned after the 1954 Willow Hill School building and property was placed for sale by the Bulloch County Board of Education in 2005. A group of concerned citizens and direct descendants of the founders of Willow Hill School looked for a way to purchase the school in an effort to preserve the legacy of the Willow Hill School. This group had approximately two weeks to secure the funds for the purchase of the school property. The group members pooled their resources and personally donated $60,000.00 dollars for the project. The Willow Hill School was started in 1874 by former slaves. The school was in existence for 125 years; the longest for any school in Bulloch County, Georgia. The founding of the Willow Hill Heritage and Renaissance Center and its future operation as a museum and community resource is an effort to preserve a piece of American History. This museum will serve to educate and expand the current knowledge of Black History in the 21st century.
Mission Statement
To protect and preserve the history of the Willow Hill School by the preservation of property and individual histories related to the founding and operation of the school and promoting an understanding of the school's historical, social and educational impact on the community, county, state of Georgia and the nation.
Source; Willow Hill Heritage and Renaissance Center website: https://www.willowhillheritage.org/aboutus
Over the past year, it has become a joint mission for those of us that descend from Clara’s line to join the Willow Hill Heritage & Renaissance Center, in its mission to preserve the history of the Willow Hill School, as DNA indicates we have a direct connection to the founding members of this school. We would like to encourage the rest of you by joining our cause in the preservation of the Willow Hill School by donating to the school and assisting Dr. Jackson and the Board Members of the School in accomplishing their mission and vision for the School.
You can DONATE to WHHRC directly here: https://www.willowhillheritage.org/support
