Sara Daise on Race Relations

AH: Can you remember any other racial divisions, or conflicts that you can think of in elementary, middle, or high school?

SD: Beaufort is an island, a series of islands, St. Helena Island, Lady’s Island, and everything is connected by a bridge so there are turf wars in Beaufort. Ah, Beaufort County is one side of the bridge and Lady’s Island is on the other and they do not like each other.

AH: Oh

SD: These are Black people and of course we are all related so, so all of my cousins live on the other side of the bridge, but that was a huge division. There were several fights in high school and my daddy went to Beaufort High School as well and that stuff was going on when he was in high school, you know. You don’t like the people because they live in this side of the bridge. You have people who rep Island you have people who rep Beaufort. I remember there was a gigantic fight in the gym a huge battle with like mace and the different football games we went to the police would be on watch because people would come and fight just because of where you lived.

AH: What year is this?

SD: I graduated in 2007, but this happened throughout my four years of high school and my daddy, I cannot remember the year he graduated from high school, but it has been going on since then.

AH: Is it based on historical facts or anything?

SD: I don’t think it is, I don’t think it is. I don’t know the historical background. Beaufort High used to be in Beaufort County, but now it is just off the bridge when you get into Lady’s Island. And I think now the way they draw the lines is different for who goes to that school and who goes to our rival school, which is Battle Creek, which is on another island and over another bridge and they have their own turf wars over there too. But I am not sure of the historical background, but they take it very seriously. Like I remember going to some games and being scared because you knew that someone was going to fight not for anything reason other than maybe my sister was talking to a dude who lives in Beaufort and we don’t like them.

Education

Sara Daise on differences between Black and White Students at Beaufort High School


SD: I would never go back. I know that some people loved high school. I did learn and I did enjoy it. I did marching band I was in color guard my senior year, I was color guard captain. I enjoyed choir as well. Um, I had a few good teachers some not so great, uh freshmen year was really tough for me because I wasn’t ready for high school so for tenth grade I had to get it together, buckle down and get my work done and I excelled. I got to meet different people. I was not in the honors program, but I took some AP [Advanced Placement] classes, but I could never be in the AP program because math and science are not my thing, so that would just be horrible. So, one of the things that is interesting is that in my honors classes that I did take the Black kids that were from marching band and choir were in those classes. There would be three or four of us in those honor classes. If I wanted to get to know the rest of the Black population I would have to go my CP classes.

AH: CP classes?

SD: College Prep

AH: College Prep, okay

SD: It is interesting to see that in most of the schools, college prep, oh that good, but at Beaufort High College Prep, college prep does not prepare you for college.

AH: Laugh. Okay, okay. So in your high school, in Beaufort there was a division between Black and White kids and they were tracked differently?

SD: Definitely, like I said in the honors classes I did take, like English and History, and um government, there would be about three or four or five of us. It was always the same ones and we were also the ones who did extracurricular like marching band, or choir; athletes not so much in the honor classes. I mean there were a few who acted like they were not dumb, but not much. It was mostly those in student government