Slave Songs of the United States, published in 1867, is one of the earliest books written on African American music. The book features transcriptions of 65 songs from Black residents of the South Carolina Sea Islands. The communities where these singers resided would later be identified as Gullah Geechee. Slave Songs was compiled by abolitionists William Francis Allen, Lucy McKim Garrison, and Charles Pickard Ward. While the collectors often struggled to understand the speech of Black St. Helena residents and simplified the islanders’ multi-part singing, the book remains an important document of Gullah Geechee music in the latter half of the 19th century.

In Folk Culture on St. Helena Island, sociologist Guy B. Johnson analyzed the language and traditional music of Gullah people on St. Helena Island, South Carolina in the early 20th century. Johnson’s aim was to detail these traditions and theorize their origins. He argues that both the Gullah language and traditional music are essentially Euro-American in origin, learned by Gullah people from the whites around them. Johnson’s thesis remains controversial and helped to spark a sub-genre of Gullah Geechee studies.

In Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect, Lorenzo Dow Turner argues that the Gullah dialect, or language, was not inherently European in its origins—as was suggested by earlier scholarship—but contained various elements of West and Central African languages. These intangible cultural elements were transported to the New World during the trans-Atlantic slave trade and retained by enslaved Africans in Black communities of coastal South Carolina and Georgia. Turner accurately demonstrates how elements of the Mende, Yourba, and other West and Central African languages appear in Gullah vowels, vocabulary, and song. Beginning in 1932, Turner conducted recordings among Gullah language speakers in coastal South Carolina and Georgia for his research, then compared this data to his studies of African languages at the University of London, beginning in 1937. Turner’s work, one of the most influential in Gullah Geechee scholarship, affirmed that Gullah language speakers exhibited the retention of African cultures in the Americas—an argument famously made by anthropologist Melville J. Herskovits. Part of Turner’s field research with Gullah language speakers is available in the American Dialect Society collection at the American Folklife Center.

Published in 1942, Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands is a compilation of 94 songs documented from residents of Sapelo Island, Georgia by Lydia Parrish. The book provides musical and lyrical transcriptions of these songs, as well as an opening chapter on the survivals of African cultures in coastal Georgia. While Parrish’s interpretations of Black coastal Georgians and their culture has received significant critique (see Cooper 2017 and Rosenbaum 1998), her compilation is now assisting contemporary Gullah Geechee community members as they attempt to relearn songs, lyrics, and other musical elements forgotten in community settings.

In Down by the Riverside: a South Carolina Slave Community, folklorist Charles Joyner gives a history of All Saints Parish in Georgetown District, South Carolina – a community which would be identified as Gullah Geechee today. In the book, Joyner also offers an analysis of the creolization of Gullah language, proverbs, and naming practices – that is, how these cultural expressions emerged from the mixture of West and Central African and European languages and traditions to create new forms of expression known as Gullah.

Historian Sterling Stuckey uses the first chapter of Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America to detail the ring shout—a Gullah Geechee religious practice involving music and movement—and to theorize the ring shout’s aesthetics as illustrative of African-derived cultural practices among enslaved Africans in the New World.

Never Too Late is an autobiography by Rosalie Pazant, a native of Beaufort, South Carolina. In the book, Pazant shares her experiences growing up in Beaufort, her family’s history, and the origins of the Original Gullah Festival of South Carolina (first-called the Gullah Festival)—one of the first public events to celebrate Gullah identity in coastal South Carolina in the 1980s.

Charleston Blacksmith: the Work of Phillip Simmons is a biography of African American blacksmith Phillip Simmons. Simmons (1912-2009) was one of the most renowned blacksmiths in the United States, specializing in richly detailed iron gates found throughout Charleston, South Carolina and the broader region. Vlach’s work traces Simmons’ life from his early days of fishing with his great-grandfather to the years when Simmons was named the “dean” of Charleston blacksmiths. Vlach gathered information on Simmons’ life from several sources, including his own interviews with Simmons. The book also includes many images of Simmons’ work and techniques. This book details an important Gullah Geechee tradition bearer, whose influence still reverberates in coastal South Carolina.

In Shout Because You’re Free, folklorist Art Rosenbaum traces a history of the ring shout – a sacred practice involving music and circular movement among Gullah Geechee people – and profiles the McIntosh County Shouters, a group of ring shout practitioners and performers, of Bolden, Georgia. The book also features transcriptions and notes on 26 spirituals used in the ring shout.

In Shared Traditions, folklorist Charles Joyner offers two essays on Gullah Geechee history and culture. The first, “Sea Island Legacy: Folk Tradition and the Civil Rights Movement” details a history of activism by Gullah Geechee people and white activists on Johns Island, South Carolina. The second, “Endangered Traditions: Resort Development and Cultural Conservation on the Sea Islands,” raises critical, contemporary issues about coastal development on the South Carolina Sea Islands and its ramifications for the continuity of Gullah Geechee culture and land ownership.

Lorenzo Dow Turner: Father of Gullah Studies is a biography of Dr. Lorenzo Dow Turner. Turner, trained as a linguist, was the author of Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect (1949). The book’s argument, that the Gullah language exhibited the retention of African languages in the Americas, created a paradigm shift in Gullah Geechee research that continues to this day. Wade-Lewis’ biography details Turner’s family, his childhood in North Carolina, and his academic career. The book gives particular attention to his development as a professor, his Gullah Geechee research, and his fieldwork in Brazil.

MA thesis in ethnomusicology, completed at Tufts University and advised by Dr. Idella Johnson.