Welcome to the new Gathering The Harvest Website. As you peruse through the site you will meet the descendants of Charlie Samuel (1866-1934, Camden, SC). Though created with our family in mind, all are welcome. Our purpose is to strengthen the bond of family by means of communication and by journeying together through the pages of our history. Included here are priceless photos and stories, information on upcoming gatherings and announcements.
We hope you enjoy the site as much as we have putting it together. The photo at left is the Samuel Family Crest. Below, L-R: Samuel Family Reunion 2005, 2004, 2003.
2019 Reunion, Shelton, Connecticut
The Black Family Pledge by Maya Angelou
BECAUSE we have forgotten our ancestors, our children no longer give us honor.
BECAUSE we have lost the path our ancestors cleared kneeling in perilous undergrowth, our children cannot find their way.
BECAUSE we have banished the God of our ancestors, our children cannot pray.
BECAUSE the old wails of our ancestors have faded beyond our hearing, our children cannot hear us crying.
BECAUSE we have abandoned our wisdom of mothering and fathering, our befuddled children give birth to children they neither want nor understand.
BECAUSE we have forgotten how to love, the adversary is within our gates, an holds us up to the mirror of the world shouting, “Regard the loveless”
Therefore we pledge to bind ourselves to one another, to embrace our lowliest, to keep company with our loneliest, to educate our illiterate, to feed our starving, to clothe our ragged, to do all good things, knowing that we are more than keepers of our brothers and sisters.
We ARE our brothers and sisters.
IN HONOR of those who toiled and implored God with golden tongues, and in gratitude to the same God who brought us out of hopeless desolation, We make this pledge.