Corridor of Shame: Hwy 301

Our class watched a video about decaying school systems along I-95 between North Carolina and Georgia called, “The Corridor of Shame”. This blog entry is not about I-95. It is about my experience along highway 301 traveling to Allendale, South Carolina for a public meeting. From Clemson to Allendale is about 220 miles southeast. I made the trek just yesterday. Allendale is 45 miles down highway 301 past Orangeburg. Highway 301 is largely a rural drive with views of large tracks of land, cotton fields, working farms and un-working ones, and lots of pine stands. It’s really a very relaxing drive. Apparently the highway was at its height before the construction of I-95. The peak of 301, coincided with an era of segregation. In Allendale, town members fondly remember and speak about all of the restaurants, hotels and businesses that existed along the 301, which are nearly all gone now. History tells us, while many will not, that those hotels and restaurants were for whites only. In every meeting I have attended with the mayor and leadership in Allendale, they bring up how they would like to see highway 301 restored. They would like more travelers to use the highway as a preferred north to south corridor.

About 15 miles north of Allendale on 301, I began looking for some place to stop, use a bathroom, and grab an energy drink before the public meeting. In the town of Ulmer, and I use the word town loosely—I wouldn’t have known I was anywhere without the town sign, I found an old gravel lot gas station with a small convenience store. I pulled right up front. As I was getting my purse and things together in the car, I looked up and saw a hand written sign posted on the entry door stating, “If you have to pull your pants up don’t come inside”. I paused for a moment. I went over the sign a few times in my head. The sign didn’t say, “We don’t want to see your underwear”, or “Pull your pants up first, then come inside”. What it did say was, if you are the type of person that wears baggy pants then we don’t want your business at all. The sign seemed so pointed that I sat in the car trying to figure out if I should go inside. I even, looked down at my own pants for a second, all the while knowing that the sign was less about pants and more about skin color. If I could have thought of another gas station or shop before I got to Allendale I probably would have pulled out of the parking lot just then.

Inside there were three middle-aged white women working, and about five working class white men coming in and out of the store purhcasing beer and lunch. I asked for key to the restroom, found and purchased a Red Bull and a pack of gum. I wanted to make my stop as quick as possible. This was partially because I needed to drive 10 more miles to get to a public meeting in Allendale that was quickly approaching, but it was mostly because I found myself in a place where I felt I shouldn’t have been, and as much as I wanted I feel otherwise when I entered the store, in reality, I didn’t. I felt worse. I could go into description about the people that were in the store and the normal but limited verbal interactions that took place, but I am not sure that is important here. As I was in the restroom I tried to settle this building feeling. I was so clearly an outsider, a traveler, a black woman by herself, vulnerable, and so many miles from anyplace I would think to call home.

I made it to the Allendale meeting on time. There was more talk about reviving highway 301 and creating welcoming gateways into the community, which might spark a feeling of progress—well before actual progress would be achieved. The struggling school system, deep historical segregation, and lack of jobs are huge problems that overwhelm small communities. I got back on the road after a few hours.

After about 30 miles on the drive back up 301, I stopped at an Exxon station to gas up. I opened my car’s fuel door and noticed something really bizarre to me. My gas cap wasn’t on filler neck. It was in locked position on the fuel door. For a split second I wondered how I could do something as stupid as not putting my gas cap on, and then I got a really sick feeling. I could clearly remember the last time I filled up in Columbia, and how I deliberately I had been cranking my cap tight since my visit with a mechanic, who told me how I had been loosing gas by not closing it tight enough, just this past weekend. Someone, for some reason, took off my gas cap and possibly did God knows what else to my gas tank. And they wanted me to know it. Only at two points had I been away from my car on the trip. Once at the public meeting with the mayor of Allendale and 20 of the most civic minded community members the town has to offer, and the other was the stop in Ulmer.

On my long ride back to Clemson that evening I tried not to freak out. I felt like someone was trying to get in my head. Someone wanted to let be know that I was being watched. Someone wanted to let me know they had the power to have me stranded on the side of the road if they wanted to. My mom called me twice while I was on the road to make sure the ride was progressing well. I didn’t tell her the story about how the sign made me feel or the gas cap. I didn’t want to make her worry about her daughter, who was trying to take some part in revitalizing one community, driving across South Carolina at night with so many questions in her head.

I made it all the way home, reflecting on 301. In many ways, 301 is a step back in rural southern history. And some of it is extremely negative and hostile. Blacks have been leaving the rural south in large numbers for nearly 100 years for change. Many of these places are not ready or interested in integration or diversity.

I can’t in good conscience promote the use of highway 301 to a diverse group of travelers, without confidence in their safety and that they would have a positive experience through all the towns they may encounter.