Sumter's 'Turks'

Much turmoil and unrest has manifested over the last generation regarding the racial identity and 'real ancestry' of the people who have been labeled Turks in Sumter County, South Carolina. While amateur historians over the years have concocted wildly exotic origin stories for these Turks, the actual extent historical records reflect a much simpler narrative. That historic documentation is included here, in unedited form, for the reader to form their own conclusions. Bound together by blood and social interaction, the Benenhaley, Buckner, Deas, Exum, Hood, Jolly, Oxendine, Pitts, Ray, and Scott families comprised the core of a racially insulated community which, due to an increasingly segregated south, became further alienated from their white and black neighbors.