Ta Nak A Hey (Greetings)

The 2011 election is over and the results of the Election are as follows:

Tribal Council:

Council seat 1 – H. Dalton Hatcher             843-765-4640                         dalton.hatcher@gmail.com

Council Seat 2 – Scott Beaver                          843-957-4083                        poppabeav@gmail.com

Council Seat 3 – Neal Richard                        843-756-3853                        pantherfoot64@SCcoast.net

Council seat 4 – Homer Johnson                  864-616-4601                         hpigeon1961@aol.com

Council seat 5 – Richia Powell                       843-457-9032                        richia.r.powell@ftr.com

Council seat 6 – Susan Hatcher                     843-229-6751                          Afretsusan@gmail.com

Council Seat 7 – Robert Benton                      919-287-4311                           indian@atmc.net

You may write any of them at the tribal address: PO Box 628, Conway, SC 29528. If you are a tribal member and have recommendations, concerns, complaints, need information, need assistance, or otherwise have or want dealings with the tribe these folks should be your contact. Tribal Council manages all internal issues and assets. I don’t.

I do care but if you ask me for a tribal asset, all I have authority to do is ask Council and you also have that same authority. Eliminate me as the middleman and contact them directly. I am providing the numbers and e-mail addresses.

Surprise I, Chief Harold (Buster) Hatcher was re-elected! I was unopposed so I expected to be. Therefore, I will be holding the seat for another term and I will do the best I can at it. I was the only official candidate but I didn’t get all of the votes. Congratulations to those who were written in.

When I was a boy, South Carolina was racially segregated. My earliest memories revolve around life at home in the urban area now called Socastee. It may have been called that then too but I really don’t remember.

As long as I was home I don’t recall any hatred pointed at me and the life that I remember was fairly good. We lived in that Socastee house, when Hurricane Hazel came through. I remember the wind howling, and rain pounding and the whole family trying to sleep in one room. I remember being scared.

We moved from there into a small house just off of Tenth Avenue Myrtle Beach. Our water was a hand pump on the back porch and as I remember we didn’t have electricity at first but we finally did get a single light hanging from the ceiling in the living room. My dad worked at a lumber mill for (I believe) $0.65 an hour.

We lived there when I turned six and started to school.  We lived in the Black neighborhood and we went to White schools. There were no Indian Schools and the county didn’t know what to do with us.

In school, my eyes were quickly opened to hatred and scorn. Even the teacher despised me for reasons I didn’t understand. I was seated away from the class and publically chastised for anything I did.  The other children were told not to intermingle with me. I started to despise myself and started to believe myself inferior to any of the others.

A dark skinned boy in a White elementary school just was just not a good situation. At home, we were scorned because we were not dark enough and at school, we were wrong because we were too dark.

I have to admit that the inferiority I felt then, turned into a fighting spirit, now. Fight is what I did. Call me a name get a tooth knocked out. I was basically thrown out of school in the ninth grade for fighting.

It was this era in my life, I tell myself that makes me so protective of the Tribe!  The tribe is very important to me. I hate the idea of anyone being treated, as I was when I was young.  Maybe I am wrong in my reasoning but whatever the reason, I feel and felt driven to change that situation for anyone else.  In fact, here these 56 years later, I believe South Carolina is a better place for Indians because some of us took a stand. I am proud to be one of them and I am proud of my tribe, the Waccamaw for what we have accomplished as a tribe, even in the face of those who would have destroyed us, for reasons still unknown and certainly not understood.

 

Thank you for visiting The Official Website for The Waccamaw Indian People of Aynor, SC. This Tribe is led by Chief Harold D. Hatcher, who has led the Tribe since it’s founding in 1992.We hope you find the information here both useful and enjoyable.  Please come back and check the site often for new updates and the latest information on upcoming events, and please continue exploration and acceptance of other cultures, as we are all children of the Creator.   ~  Aho.

All photographs used on this website are the personal property of Waccamaw Indian People tribal photographers, and contributing photographers. They may not be copied, reproduced, or otherwise used without the written permission of the photographers.

Contact  webmaster@ waccamawindians.us or wipinternal@gmail.com with questions or comments about this site.

Contributing Photographers:  Joe Gesling, Terry Hatcher, Jason & Lindsey Stamp