Nearly 700 Freemanville residents, former residents attend reunion
By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
Hundreds of Freemanville residents, former residents and their descendants flocked last weekend to the grounds of Mt. Gilead Missionary Baptist Church for their biennial weekend of fun, food and fellowship.
This year’s Freemanville Community Reunion, held every two years since 2016 (except for 2020, during the COVID pandemic), brought families from across the nation back to the community in which they or their ancestors once lived.
Mary Dailey of Huntsville, one of the primary organizers of the event, said there has been impressive attendance at each reunion.
“We started this in 2016 — me, Sandra Gray, Ni’co Johnson and Valerie McMillan Jones, and we’ve been doing it biennially since then, except for 2020, when we had the COVID pandemic,” Dailey said. “The first year, we had people from California and Michigan, and we had around 500 people; the second year, 2018, we had close to 1,200 people.
“I didn’t do a head count this time or in 2022, but we’ve easily got 600 to 700 here today. I went from tent to tent, counting, last night, and counted more than 600.”
Jones pointed out that the community reunion, which is held tailgate-style on the first Saturday of every other June, has become a series of family reunions that were once held separately.
“Me and Mary Dailey had talked about doing something,” she recalled. “Finally, we were texting or talking, and we decided to let’s start a Freemanville reunion and see what happens. It caught on, and people are now tying in their family reunions with this.”
There were several dozen tents set up on Saturday, and the mouth-watering smoke and sizzling sounds of numerous types of meat, cooking on dozens of grills, floated on the frequent breezes that kept things cool. Most folks visited other family tents, and food was freely shared while the visits were ongoing.
“Each family cooks for itself, then we all go around and eat,” explained Gray.
The crowd included toddlers, teens and the elders from whom the younger attendees must learn their family history and the history of the community to which they are forever tied, such as Emma Lancaster of Brewton. The former Civil Rights activist will turn 90 in August.
“We like to see the young people come, and we tell them to keep it (the annual gathering) going,” Gray said. “We want them to talk with the older people. This gives them, and us, a way to get back to our roots.”
Dailey recalled some of the things she learned about the Freemanville area’s first black settlers.
“My daddy’s family moved to Freemanville when he was 3 or 4 years old, so that would be around 1928,” she remembered. “Back then, black people, or most of them, lived in tents because they didn’t have houses. Freemanville doesn’t have an official history, so we’re talking to the older folks, trying to create a history.”
The recorded sounds of funk, rap, rhythm and blues and other music prompted several individuals to hold an impromptu dance in an open part of the property. And while the event was mostly an upbeat affair, a display of photographs of the 41 members who had passed away since the 2022 reunion brought a reflective mood to most of those who viewed them.
Families or groups who attend the reunion pay a nominal tent fee, the proceeds from which go to the church in exchange for virtually unrestricted use of the several acres of grounds surrounding it. Commemorative T-shirts are also sold, with the profits also going to the church.
Dailey said there are no reservations required to attend the reunion and pointed out that the majority of those in attendance usually close the event by attending services at Mt. Gilead on Sunday morning.
“This is us,” she said, sweeping her arm to encompass the temporary city. “If you were raised in this community, you come home. You don’t have to call; you just show up. It’s all about fellowship.”