abdoulaye.jpg

Mamarame Seck, (left) a linguistics professor, and Abdoulaye Gueye, (center) an Arabic teacher and professional translator, examine texts inside an archive in Saint-Louis, Senegal. Driver Youssou Badji (right) reads with them. Gavin McIntyre Staff

This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.

It’s hard to quantify how much time Post and Courier reporters Jennifer Berry Hawes and Adam Parker, along with photographer Gavin McIntyre, spent working on this journey to find Omar ibn Said, both in history and in art.

On March 11, 2020, Hawes and McIntyre had just gotten off a flight from Charleston to Atlanta, prepared to board their overnight connection to Paris and then Senegal where they planned to research Omar's roots, when then-President Donald Trump announced a ban on travelers entering the U.S. from Europe. 

A pandemic gripped the world. 

With chaos erupting, the journalists abandoned the trip. Spoleto Festival USA postponed its "Omar" opera, which had been set to debut in Charleston last summer. The newspaper’s project sat on hold.

Almost a year later, in February 2021, McIntyre and Hawes again boarded an airplane amid coronavirus fears, this time with people wearing face masks.

Pulitzer Center

During their reporting in Senegal, supported by a generous grant from Pulitzer Center, they convened an invaluable crew: Senegalese linguistics professor Mamarame Seck, Arabic teacher and translator Abdoulaye Gueye, drivers Youssou Badji and Serigne Ndiaye, and French graduate student Amandine Situ Bocco.

For two weeks, countless Senegalese residents opened their homes and villages, offering insight to these strangers who showed up asking about a long-ago man most had never heard of.

Back home, the journalists spent months scouring archives, libraries and museums across South Carolina and North Carolina searching for clues about Omar and the times he lived in. They did the same in Senegal’s capital city of Dakar, its port city of Saint-Louis and Podor in Futa Toro. 

For translations of Omar's writings, they relied on Gueye, Ayla Amon, Ala Alryyes, John Hunwick and imams and historians around the region. 

2.19 Gavin shooting in Gababe-m.jpg

Photographer Gavin McIntyre takes pictures of an imam in Gababe, Senegal. Jennifer Berry Hawes/Staff

The journalists interviewed dozens of experts in the U.S., Europe and Africa.

Chief among them was Amon, then working as curatorial assistant at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Her forthcoming book will bring Omar’s 15 known surviving texts into one place and translate them all into English.

The journalists also relied on Mbaye Lo, a Duke University professor with roots in Futa who also is writing a book about Omar’s words. With Professor Carl Ernst, he is exploring religious and poetic texts that Omar drew from when he wrote.

Two published books with important context about Omar's life and writings proved invaluable: Alryyes' book "A Muslim American Slave: The Life of Omar Ibn Said" and Sylviane Diouf's "Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas."

A box of the late North Carolina historian Thomas Parramore's research also was helpful.

Meanwhile, as the journalists traveled around Futa, they left copies of Omar's writings with people they met. Imams and historians there now are deciphering his words and meaning.

AV2V0344-jenn-senegal.jpg

Reporter Jennifer Berry Hawes shoots video inside the House of Slaves on Goree Island. Gavin McIntyre/Staff

All the while, reporter Adam Parker, who pitched the idea of writing about the making of the opera “Omar” nearly four years ago, remained in touch with Spoleto Festival USA staff members about the new commission. He and McIntyre followed its progress from conception to completion. 

Along the way, they spoke with Rhiannon Giddens multiple times, attended a workshop in New York City, sat in on auditions, visited the scene shop and costume shop, and observed rehearsals in Charleston. They also conducted video interviews of several members of the creative team.

Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic threw monkey wrenches into the Omar project, causing delays that might have driven less determined journalists off-course. Parker and McIntyre stuck with it.

The final result of The Post and Courier's double-project consists of two remarkable stories that implicate Charleston in more ways than one, stories that complement each other.

One is about Omar ibn Said the man, the other about “Omar” the opera. The first is the result of deep investigation, the second the result of deep knowledge of Spoleto Festival and the performing arts.

They are, in a sense, two sides of one coin — the whole of which contains the kind of special value that consequential history and great art bestow.

Contact Jennifer Hawes at 843-937-5563. Follow her on Twitter @jenberryhawes.

Contact Gavin McIntyre at 843-614-9676. Follow him on Twitter @gavin_mci.

Gavin McIntyre is a photojournalist at The Post and Courier capturing powerful images that convey compelling stories.