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The Gullah/Geechee culture flourished on the islands off the South Carolina and Georgia coasts.

Gullah is an oral history, and younger generations have kept the traditional spirit of Gullah alive through language, religion, arts, crafts, stories, and song. Gullah/Geechee people reflect a more African influence in their behavior, self-expression, and beliefs than any other African American group in the United States of America.

Queen Quet has been an indefatigable force to bring the culture and tenuous plight of her people to public notice. She's testified before a world body, UNESCO, and, largely, due to her energy, the Gullah Geechee area is being considered for designation as a Heritage Area of the National Park System.

Add your voice in support of the Gullah's quest for independence. See the report at http://www.nps.gov/sero/ggsrs/index.htm

Send your comments to: SERO_GullahGeechee_SRS_Team@nps.gov

Park Ranger Mike Allen says they have received less than 1,000 responses. Please, before February 2, take the time to send a note.

Gullah-Geechee culture at the crossroads


By Audrey Peterman

Until February 1, 2004, individuals and groups around the country have an unprecedented opportunity to help decide the fate of a living culture, unique to America's shores. The Gullah-Geechee culture, in its birthplace along the islands bordering Georgia and South Carolina is priceless for its uniqueness, rarity and authenticity as the flowering of African culture adapted to its American environment. But, as the people and place are threatened by encroaching development, the Gullah-Geechee Sea Islands may be recommended for protection by the federal government as a National Heritage Area, under the auspices of the National Park System.

Through a Special Resource Study initiated in 1999 by Congressman James Clyburn (D-SC), a team of researchers from the National Park Service has traveled through the area for two years, holding meetings with members of the community to determine the most feasible ways to preserve this inimitable culture and lifestyle. The NPS is currently taking input from interested people on the following five options suggested by the research team, which will then be presented to Congress with recommendation for one or more options to be pursued:

"The community prefers the National Heritage Area above all of the alternatives because we remain in control of telling our own story," said Queen Quet, chieftess of the Gullah-Geechee Nation and a St. Helena resident. "The people that live the story are the true keepers of culture and should be respected as such."

Queen Quet, who writes, travels and speaks prolifically on the issue and has testified before the United Nations about the need to preserve her culture, wants federal officials to bring in Gullah community leaders as partners in creating the Heritage Area.

"We see this Study as an opportunity to recognize a part of our American fabric and energize the interpretation of Gullah heritage," said National Park Service Ranger Michael Allen, who has been instrumental in helping put together the project for the National Park Service, and was recently honored by the US Congress for his outstanding contribution to preserving American history.

Stretching along the southeastern coast roughly from the Cape Fear River near the North Carolina/South Carolina line to the St. John's River near the Georgia/Florida line, the Sea Islands area extends 30 miles inland and encompasses approximately 12,315 square miles, nearly the size of the state of Maryland.

Gullah-Geechee people of today are descendants of enslaved Africans from various ethnic groups of west and central Africa who were forced to work on the plantations of coastal South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida. The Gullah- Geechee people are survivors - unique groups of African-Americans who lived near the coast and on barrier islands that were separated from the mainland by creeks, rivers, and marshes. Because of their geographic protection from outsiders and strong sense of family and community, Gullah-Geechee people maintained a separate creole language and developed distinct culture patterns, which included more of the African cultural tradition than African-American population in other parts of the United States.

The isolation of these sea island communities from outsiders was vital to the survival of the cultures. Although the Gullah-Geechee people traveled to and from the mainland and to nearby islands, outsiders seldom came into their communities, especially after the Civil War. Their isolation, which began in colonial times in response to tropical fevers, later became an isolation of choice. People chose to come back to their homes, their families, their language, and their way of life - a slow-paced life among majestic trees, tidal marshes, and dirt roads traversed by ox and mule carts - places where small boats, horses, mules and feet were the primary forms of transportation. Thus, within these rural communities, people were able to maintain their language, arts, crafts, religious beliefs, folklore, rituals and food preferences that are distinctly connected to their West African roots. The islands were accessible only by boat until the first bridges were built around 1950.

Nowhere else on the face of the Earth can one experience this special mix of the African and American. Influences of the Gullah-Geechee culture are widely dispersed across the country.

"Most Americans have no idea how many African Americans are "touched" by what some of us grew up calling "Geechee" culture, " says Al Calloway from Fort Lauderdale, FL. "The church I grew up in -- The Metropolitan AME Methodist Church in Harlem, New York City -- had an original membership of mostly first generation removed South Carolinians and Georgians. They came from the Charleston area and the Islands around, as well as from coastal Georgia. The red rice, greens, candied yams, deep fried chicken and cornbread cooked every Sunday at church, and the accents and strange words used and understood, especially by the adults, gave a sense of belonging to a tradition far different from the fare encountered outside those walls. The music was haunting, spiritual, deep gospel. All the way from Mother Africa."

Now you, too, can experience it in its birthplace and influence its fate. The report may be viewed at http://www.nps.gov/sero/ggsrs/index.htm

We encourage you to send your comments to:
SERO_GullahGeechee_SRS_Team@nps.gov or to:

John Barrett
National Park Service
100 Alabama St., SW
Atlanta, GA 30303
GullGeeCo@aol.com

Links to sites:

• http://users.aol.com/queenmut/GullGeeCo.html

• http://www.npca.org/explore_the_parks/new_parks/gullahgeechee.asp

• http://www.southern.ohiou.edu/folknography/gullah/queen.htm

Queen Quet

Gullah/Geechee
Sea Island
Coalition

www.causticdames.com

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