Listen to an excerpt of Chase Evans’ essay for the Forsyth Descendants Scholarship:
Transcript
Chase Evans: My Scholarship Essay by Chase Evans.
My great grandma was expelled from Forsyth County when she was only three years old. She was the eighth of 11 children and the last to truly not be an infant when this injustice occurred.
She grew up distinctly molded by these experiences that immediately followed my family's expulsion, yet she went on to get an education through eighth grade but possessed much more wisdom than her education allotted her.
She married during the Depression and lived in little more than a barn made home, bartering butter to make the ends meet to support her five children and their educations. By no means were her efforts in vain. She and her husband went on to buy a house in Smyrna and then some, and her children went on to become teachers, pastors, and musicians.
Over 100 years have passed, and my bloodline is finally beginning to shake off the shackles of disparity that were placed upon us by society, our finances, and even ourselves.
The weight of the world is great and not fairly put upon everyone equally, but it is not only the duty, but the sincere will of good men among us to raise that weight so that others can move about easier to be a pillar among mankind and a warrior against the brutalities of inequity. She was such a person, a pillar to her family, her faith and her community. I had the privilege to know her in life.
Only now have I begun to comprehend it all. It is for this reason that one of my true regrets in life was never having the opportunity to thank her. To tell her I was finally old enough to understand. That I was old enough to listen. Time, as it turns out, is truly the great equalizer. And sometimes there's just never enough time to tell the people you love the things you wish you could before their time here ends.
Even though I may not be able to say the words to her, I know the greatest thanks I can give is to utilize the opportunity she gave my family and go forward in this life with that will to carry on that she had. And in every endeavor I pursue to remember how truly strong the cloth was that I was cut from.
In 2022, a group of Forsyth County church leaders founded the Forsyth Descendants Scholarship. The group awards college funds to descendants of the Black residents that were expelled from the county in 1912. The scholarship’s mission is to honor Black descendants and their ancestors from Forsyth County while still acknowledging this is not justice, but only a start toward connection and healing. For more information on the Forsyth Descendants Scholarship, visit https://forsythscholarship.org/