Inside South Carolina's Forgotten River Towns

In the P .D., time stands still.The P .D.region of South Carolina surrounds the P .

D.River, which runs from Appalachia into the Atlantic.While the rest of South Carolina is America's fastest -growing state, the P .D.is a very different story.Just look at the smoke.

This is as real as it gets.What's going on right here?Cooking.Cooking.We're holding pride and whatever.

I don't want to die here, but I'm going here.This town is half black, so you've got to be careful not to even say the N -word.

See, I grew up picking cotton.

We sharecropped.You were sharecropping?Yeah.We set out to explore the Pee Dee and ended up on a 100 -mile journey that took us from forgotten tobacco country.

I went from seeing, like, all this stuff right here being open, and everything being shut down.

Through the backwoods.You drive a long time, you see no one.You see more animals than you see people.

And into a swampy paradise.Yeah, it's just, that's what this is.It's just the most peaceful I've ever been.

If you want to know what it's like in the forgotten deep south, Come with us down the Pee Dee River.

Life has made it harder for us Americans of our color of skin to live.

I'm not kidding you.Where this journey would end is actually hard to believe, especially considering where we began, Pamplico.Pamplico is pure Deep South.situated along the river with old plantation mansions on its edge and neglect on its inside.So is he down here every day?

What do people do around here?

There ain't really nothing around here.It's a small town.We ain't really got no stoves up.We got about two gas stations.What do people do around here?Work.

There ain't really no jobs around here to work, so you gotta go, like, out.You know what I'm saying?You gotta go to Florence and Lake City and all type of other places to find a job.We ain't really got no jobs down here.Has it changed much?The downfall.

I went from seeing like all this right here being, all this stuff right here being open and all that, all that stuff down there being open, everything being shut down.Even the IGA just being open, they shut the IGA down.What was this?Like a little club.It was like a little liquor store.It was a big warehouse right here.

Big tobacco.They had the trains to go through.All that stuff.Been stopped like years ago.

You were born here?I was, yeah.Just outside of a place called Florence General Hospital.My mother had a home.right there on 2nd Avenue.My mother was African American.

She had a relationship with a guy who was from this area.And that relationship produced me.And because you're here, meaning here in Pamplico, South Carolina, back then, it was quite taboo for that type of thing.So several years later,my father never accepted me, but my mother did the best she could.Between Main Street, downtown, there's not much.

And in the past, I guess a year or so since COVID, their only grocery store has been closed for a while.I tell you what, but that Southern, if you will, charm, having been up North for a period of time, it's pretty good to still feel.You drive down the road, somebody wave at you, and you're like, what in the world?And further North, You don't get that.I'm just saying, it's a fun experience.

I'm not here because these guys are working, but if you just pull the car over in a quiet street, you just hear the bugs, the birds.The town feels like it's immersed in nature.

It is.You're right in the middle of nowhere, of nowhere, so to speak.You can feel nature, man. I mean, you can really.I don't give a damn if it's part of my expression, but the mosquitoes or the gnats, you can feel it.There's a flip side.Flip side is you have, damn near have nothing here.

How do folks survive?Once upon a time, the bean industry, you'd be in the bean fields or you'd be in the tobacco fields all day.That might have bred some sense of camaraderie, but that was work.Now, no one wants to do it.

The PD is full of towns like Pamplico, which have lost the industries that once powered them, namely cotton, tobacco, or lumber.The next one we visited, Greeleyville, was vacant.As you've seen, this row right here may take the cake for most abandoned.

We're from a little town.Ain't nothing going on.We had too much employment here because we ain't got no plan or nothing.Nobody hardly work here, right, Jay?So you were born and raised here?

Yes.

What was it like when you were a kid?Was it similar?See, I grew up picking cotton.Not a whole lot of cotton, but we had, like, a backer.We sharecropped.You were a sharecropper?

Yeah.

My dad was a sharecropper.

Well, I got a lot of questions.What's it like picking cotton?

Uh, it's like, you got to bend your back a lot and pick the cotton.You got a sack on your shoulder.That's how we used to do it.Now they got a cotton picker.That joke, go down to the field and pick more cotton than we do in four days.Right, Jay?

Marty's got a cotton picker.I don't know where he come from.He ain't never picked nothing.

So do people still do it?Or is it almost...No, we don't do it no more.

No.Then we, like, we plant in the back.We used to do it by, we got a little thingy, stick it in the ground, put the back in there.Now they got where you sit on, you ride and sit down the field and put the plant there.But we come a long way.We done come a long way, man.

What about racism, prejudice?We had our share of that.Black people over here, white over here, water fountain over here.We couldn't, you know, we're sitting on certain sides.Got me?Don't go over there.

They had a certain place for the blacks and they had a certain place for the whites.I witnessed that myself.But we get along, you know, because we had to get along.No matter what you think of us, we're still human, right?

Yes, sir.

So, you know, we work for you.The person we work for, he was such a good guy.And he was a real human being, you know?And my daddy could get anything he wanted when he wanted, and stuff like that.

Well, the thing we've noticed driving through towns in South Carolina is a lot of the towns have got these huge mansions.You know, when you're driving in, I guess it was probably the mansions owned by the plantation owners.

Plantation, that's it.We got a plantation, and you know, we worked for them, but we was loyal to them, and they was loyal to us.Mr. Herbert Hughes, you know,police aggriever right here, and he was a great man to me, because you know why?Anything we wanted, we ain't gonna go lacking for it.All we had to go there and say, put it on his credit, something like that.

That's how we survived.

So that's interesting, because I feel like a lot of people, certainly from the North, when they think about a town like this, they would think that it was very kind of like, you know, whites versus blacks, and people didn't get along, but you're saying people, they did get along.

Yeah, actually, it's a pretty cool place.We're not in Mississippi.Well, you all from New York, right?Yeah.Mississippi's all lit.But you heard all this stuff about having Mississippi.

Yeah.There was nothing like that, because we knew what we had to do to survive.We got a loan.We deal with it and sleep good at night and rest, get up in the morning.We knew what we had to do and go on about our life.We don't call it slavery, but it's like we're working.

We're working like most people ain't never seen work before.The cotton field would be about three or four miles long, AJ.They ain't never pick cotton, see.I hear the guy, he talking and he ain't on the interview.Look, we went down to Monroe and picked cotton and a hundred pounds at the end of the day, you done did great.When you pick a hundred pounds of cotton, you a champion, boy.

One thing I noticed though now, when you go around some of these towns, you see construction workers, they're almost all Mexican.There you go.

They're all Mexican.What's you?No, no, I get that a lot Italian But what's up with that?

I mean people like because they will not play paid the black people and it makes it gonna work for less as well to the Mexican gonna do what we won't do Cuz we got lazy and now I'm saying not me when they go up didn't you gonna work hard?

They build a house in about two weeks Hey, I ain't got nothingand then we pimp too.

Yeah, it's too bad it's just dead now.It was more alive back in the day, huh, Pickle?Yeah.Yeah, it was.

That's the fireman from Brutal Kill.

Yeah.Hey, he's doing YouTube.Oh, you got me, kid?Yeah, you sound like you're from Massachusetts.

Oh, I'm from Massachusetts.What the hell?

What led you to move back down here?

Social Security.I can afford it down here.I can't afford the cable.

All New England teams are winners.Patriots, Bruins, Celtics.Unfortunately.Thank you.We're a team of champions.Maybe I'll win it next year.

Huh?

Pretty close though, huh?

OK.Can't count us out, huh, guys?

From here, we have 50 more miles to the coast, where we'd find our final and most unusual destination.On the way, we made three more stops.First, at one of South Carolina's most famous barbecue joints, Scott's.You know, we go all over the country searching for places like this.Just look at the smoke.This is as real as it gets.

Dude, the smell.What's going on right here?Cooking.Cooking.And you guys, dude, this is from the wood that y 'all chopped right back here.Mm -hmm.

The smell.It's like...Are you the cook?

Well, I wanted to cook.

the secret?

How long you been cooking?How long has this been here, Scott's?

They say this is the best barbecue in South Carolina.

We can't brag when we get peated hungry.

What's it like around here, this area?

Yeah, not quite.Yeah, it's slow.And then every day, you know, somebody be acting up every now and then.You know, anywhere you go.We live in here.I guess we're used to here.

And we're home fried and whatever.I don't want to die here if I was born here.

OK, so we went big with the order here.We got a pound of ribs.with some spicy vinegar sauce.Barbecue, I didn't even know barbecue came with a rib.Look at that, barbecue comes with a rib.We got baked beans, coleslaw, mac and cheese, or sorry, coleslaw, potato salad, no mac and cheese here.

This is as good as it gets.I mean, I have no words beyond this wood -fired smoky meat I'm about to stick in my mouth.Let's see how it goes.I've never eaten something that has been cooked with as much care as this right here.

This is unbelievable.

Now I just want to take 15 seconds to thank you for watching this video.My two friends and I started this channel because news companies did not care about the Americans living between the coasts.Towns like the ones we grew up in.We wanted to fill that gap and bring back real journalism, so we started Roken News with a mission of capturing the world without bias or fear.We now put out three videos like these a week.If you enjoy them and want to bring back old school journalism, please subscribe.

We got back on the road and headed toward McClellanville, and our next stop was an accident.

As we headed east, we stopped outside an abandoned house next to the old train tracks and happened to meet Cowboy the Can Man. I fought for three and a half years in the Army.There was once industry during the wartime of World War II.Now it's just standing still.If you're not colored or you're Mexican, you get a job.Today, we whites have a hard time to get a job.

You think it's harder if you're white than black?

Yes, they made it harder.Life has made it harder for us Americans of our color of skin to live.I'm not kidding you.It is very rough.I wouldn't be doing this if I was in a poor spot.

Yeah, it feels kind of strange to be like this town feels a little bit stuck in time.

Yes, it does.I tend to agree with you.I don't know how he feels about it.It does make you wonder where we're standing right now.

Well, then at the same time, you think you got, you know, you got robots and AI and all this stuff.Absolutely.

And we got a satellite that's floating around in space.And every time we're discussing something, that satellite picks up just exactly what me and you are saying.But I'm not trying to be badly interracial about it, but we gotta worry about ourselves.You got blacks living down there, you got some living over in there.This town is half black, so you gotta be careful not to even say the n -word.Talk about bad.

This town takes the cake right here because this town is just like living in the Wild West The only thing is you can't always wear a gun But they do carry guns around and they will shoot you if they feel like shooting you But they say thou shall not infringe on the laws of the pack of gun.That's one of the Constitutional rights you got is you can carry a gun.I'm very honored to be on camera.Hey, thank you cowboy If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to smash that subscribe button.Subscribe.We Americans are lucky for what we got.

And we got to stick with the Lord all the way.We can't let the devil win.

We then learned that this town had not recovered from Hurricane Hugo decades ago.

So what's up?We noticed a lot of abandoned buildings.That used to be an old funeral home right there.Since my mom, since even when my mom was here, because she used to tell me about it all the time.But if you see a lot of abandoned buildings, a lot of that stuff came after you.The hurricane hit?

Yeah, when the hurricane hit it, they just said, nah, we ain't even gonna build it back no more.And that's it.So it's only really that.A couple of gas stations up that road, you'll see that's abandoned and a laundromat, some stuff like that.Like I said, it's just a little small town, man.That's about it.

Back in the car, we drove toward McClellanville, our last stop.As we traveled, we passed through swamps and dense forest.We decided to drive down one of the dirt roads to see what or who we would find.

Right now you're in Berkeley County, but right here it's called Honey Hill.Honey Hill.Yeah.It's mostly private country people, whatever.Then we got no money.I moved down here about 30 years ago.

I don't get along with people too good, but back here it's quiet.Everybody keeps to themselves, car go by, hey, that's it.What do people do here?I'm retired.I'm 66.I don't do nothing.

I do whatever I want to do.You know, I worked hard all my life, 47 years.What'd you do?I used to be a mechanic.Worked hard.Get a little bit of money.

It's all right.I live doing good, eating.A lot of people nowadays don't want to work.Yeah, I agree with you.But what do you eat?What do you have?

If you don't work, you don't eat.You know, the Bible tell you that.In the 30 years you've been living here, has the area changed?Oh, it changed.It went up.When I first come here, when I bought the house, I paid $30 ,000 for the house.

30 for this one, 30 for that one, and 30 for that one over there.That one over there, that was another sold last year for 220.When I come here, acre of land was $35 ,000 a acre.Now it's 30 ,000.So that's all your land right here?Yeah, seven and a half acres.

Really take away to go.Won't let nobody fool you.Really take away to go.Well, it's a beautiful spot you got.Quiet?Quiet, very quiet.

Like you said, you're the first car went down the road this morning.I've seen it.Are you serious?I've seen it.

We're the first ones.

Yeah.No store or nothing around here.You have to go like 10 miles to go to the store.If you're out of bread, you're out of bread.If you're out of milk, you're out of milk.Unless you want to ride, you know.

From here, we drove our final 10 miles to McClellanville on the edge of the forest.We expected to find another poor, remote swamp town.Instead, we found Utopia.We'll go deeper into McClellanville in our next video, which proved to be one of the nicest and most unique towns we've ever visited.But for now, I'll say this.On the surface, it had almost nothing in common with the other places we visited.

They were poor, black, and shrinking.McClellanville was wealthy, white, and growing.Yet one important thing they had in common.None had been touched by the rapid growth that is consuming the rest of South Carolina.For better and for worse, there were no highways, Walmarts, canes, or Chick -fil -A's.In the P .

D., the old -school Deep South is alive and well.

I live here.I've lived here about 15 years.What's it like?

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