Rev. James Curtis Hudson

I am a minister of the Gospel, barber, musician, graduate of Savannah State University (1965) and former teacher in the Chatham County Public School System.  I am the third of four sons and one daughter born to Hezekiah and Isabell Bryan Hudson: Isaac, Hezekiah Jr., James Curtis, Eugene, and LaMae Hudson. I was born January 16, 1943. We lived in Yamacraw Village – Savannah, Ga. We were one of the first families to move into the new Federal Housing Project in 1941. My parents were part of the Daufuskie Island (South Carolina) to Savannah diaspora. For as long as I can remember, my family would take “the Bessie M. Lewis,” a boat Captained by Mr. John Polite, to Daufuskie Island to see a host of our relatives—hundreds of them. One of my earliest memories was walking from the public dock at Benji’s Point to Haig Point road, passing Aunt Queen’s house on Benji’s Point road, and arriving at Aunt Cynthia’s house with a block of ice in a croker sack that we brought over on the boat. A croker sack is a bag made of burlap or a similar material.  Our first task was to bury the block of ice, rapped in the sack covered with paper, in the whole in the ground by the pear tree south of the front porch in the front yard. 

In 1975, I opened Hudson’s Barber Stylon on Staley Ave., in Tatemville. I previously worked with my two older brothers Isaac and Hezekiah, Jr., in our shop in Carver Village, which we opened in1956. However, we all started in the barber profession when our father established his first barber shop in 1946 in Yamacraw on the corner of Fahm and York Streets in Savannah, Ga.

Two generations of Hudsons have lived on Daufuskie Island. My paternal great-grandfather was Jack Hudson and his wife, Cynthia. My paternal great-grand parents and their children had been slaves on the Hudson Plantation in Albany, Georgia. After receiving their freedom  in Albany, Georgia, my grandfather William, his sister Maggie and brother Sam, and one of their first cousins, Willie; and other relatives traveled to Dublin (Georgia) prior to migrating to Daufuskie Island, South Carolina. My grandfather William married Alice prior to leaving Albany, and six children were born to this union: Sarah (June 2, 1888), Jacob (1889), Hagar (1891), Rufus (1895), Ada (Estell) (1897), and McKinley (Irving) (1900).  After Alice’s death, my grandfather married Chloe Miller, his second wife, the daughter of Marshall Miller, a landowner on Daufuskie Island. To this union, Sylvia (Queen) (1903) and Cynthia (1906) were born. Following Chloe’s death in 1912, my grandfather married his third wife, my grandmother, Sarah Gertrude Rivers, the daughter of Sandy and Lucy Rivers of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina—At the time, Sarah had two young children, James Lord Williams (1906-1965) and Mary Elizabeth Manuel whose father previously died on the Titanic in 1912. From this union two children were born: William Hudson, Jr. (1915) and Hezekiah Hudson (September 18, 1918), my father. Sarah passed away five months after giving birth to Hezekiah, due to the Spanish Flue of 1918. My grandfather then married his fourth wife, also named Sarah (Missy), who had three children —Leroy Smalls, Westley Fields and a daughter.  From this union were born three children: Rebecca Hudson, Mamie Hudson and Daniel (Buddy) Hudson. Overall, my grandfather had a total of 13 children and five step children.