Gullah memories

Geechie mavericks quest in a Jim Crow city

The lush landscape and subtropical climate of the Georgia coast only enhance the air of mystery enveloping some of its inhabitants--people who owe, in some ways, as much to Africa as to America. As the ten previously unpublished essays in this volume examine various aspects of Georgia lowcountry life, they often engage a central dilemma: the region's physical and cultural remoteness helps to preserve the venerable ways of its black inhabitants, but it can also marginalize the vital place of lowcountry blacks in the Atlantic World.

A unique creole language spoken on the coastal islands and adjacent mainland of South Carolina and Georgia, Gullah existed as an isolated and largely ignored linguistic phenomenon until the publication of Lorenzo Dow Turner's landmark volume Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect. In his classic treatise, Turner, the first professionally trained African American linguist, focused on a people whose language had long been misunderstood.

This volume brings up to date the story of blacks on a sea island begun in the first edition published over 20 years ago ( LJ 5/15/67). The author and his wife lived on Johns Island for two years, 1963-65, collecting folk songs (many of which are included) and interviewing the inhabitants. They have continued to return since then. The result is a detailed record of a way of life that is falling victim to the ravages of time.

Julia Peterkin pioneered in demonstrating the literary potential for serious depictions of the African American experience. Rejecting the prevailing sentimental stereotypes of her times, she portrayed her black characters with sympathy and understanding, endowing them with the full dimensions of human consciousness.

Includes glossary

Assesses the complex interrelationships between food, race, and gender in America, with special attention paid to the famous figure of Aunt Jemima and the role played by soul food in the post-Civil War period, up through the civil rights movement and the present day.

A portrayal of gullah culture as it exists today.

This title presents oral histories of former slaves along the Carolina coast collected by a woman ahead of her time. It contains interviews, stories, and folktales of former slaves living in the Waccamaw Neck region in South Carolina as collected as part of the WPA Federal Writers Project.

Sallie Ann Robinson was born and reared on Daufuskie Island, one of the South Carolina Sea Islands well known for their Gullah culture. Although technology and development were slow in coming to Daufuskie, the island is now changing rapidly. With this book, Robinson highlights some of her favorite memories and delicious recipes from life on Daufuskie.

Julie Dash's celebrated film, Daughters of the Dust, became an instant classic, claiming honors at the Sundance Film Festival and winning a devoted audience who responded to its lyrical evocation of a family of complex, independent African-American women. Now Dash has put her vision to the page, penning a rich and magical new novel that reacquaints us with her marvelous characters, extending their tale in greater and even more compelling ways.Set in the 1920s in the Sea Islands off the Georgia coast, where the Gullah people have preserved much of their African heritage and language.

"In this memoir, Sapelo Island native Cornelia Walker Bailey tells the history of her threatened Georgia homeland." "Off the coast of Georgia, a small close-knit community of African Americans traces their lineage to enslaved West Africans. Living on a barrier island in almost total isolation the people of Sapelo have been able to do what most others could not: They have preserved many of the folkways of their forebears in West Africa, believing in "signs and spirits and all kinds of magic.""

Heartbreaking and true, The Great Sea Island Storm of 1893 details human courage and perseverance in the face of the second most fatal hurricane in US history. On a Sunday evening in August 1893, a massive hurricane slammed into South Carolina and Georgia at high tide.

A collection of historical facts, many stories about school, church and community activities, plus numerous growing up memories from people who were there. It is about life in a small Georgia town (near Savannah), mainly during the 30's, 40's and 50's.

Documents the lifestyles, customs, superstitions, and lore of cultures from which the Gullah sprang. Ronald Daise lovingly weaves poetry, personal experience, spirituals, and stunning visuals, to connect the Gullah culture to West African values and traditions and the African Diaspora of three hundred years ago.

A history of Gullah Cuisine Restaurant and Gullah culture, featuring recipes by renowned Chef Charlotte Jenkins.

In 1989, 1998, and 2005, fifteen Gullah speakers went to Sierra Leone and other parts of West Africa to trace their origins and ancestry. Their journey frames this exploration of the extraordinary history of the Gullah culture-characterized by strong African cultural retention and a direct influence on American culture, particularly in the South-described in this fascinating book.

Gullah Culture in America begins with the journeys of 15 Gullah speakers who went to Sierra Leone and other parts of West Africa in 1989, 1998, and 2005 to trace their origins and history. Their stories frame this fascinating look at the extraordinary history of the Gullah culture.

In 1888, Charles Colcock Jones Jr. published the first collection of folk narratives from the Gullah-speaking people of the South Atlantic coast, tales he heard black servants exchange on his family's rice and cotton plantation.

Join Alphonso Brown, owner and operator of Gullah Tours, Inc., on three accessible walking tours and a bonus driving tour through the places, history and lore relevant to the rich and varied contributions of black Charlestonians. Visit Denmark Vesey's home, Catfish Row, the Old Slave Mart and the Market; learn about the sweetgrass basket makers, the Aiken-Rhett House slave quarters, black slave owners and blacksmith Philip Simmons.

If there's one thing we learned coming up on Daufuskie," remembers Sallie Ann Robinson, "it's the importance of good, home-cooked food." In this enchanting book, Robinson presents the delicious, robust dishes of her native Sea Islands and offers readers a taste of the unique, West African-influenced Gullah culture still found there.

This is a collection of 180 images from artist Jonathan Green. He paints the world of his childhood amongst the Gullah people of the South Carolina barrier islands. He reveals an awareness of the social and natural environments in which we live, elevating the everyday and celebrating the social.

An Abbot Agency Mystery - Velma is charm itself, especially when shes being inexact with the truth. Now she wants Bea, widowed owner of the Abbot Agency, to check up on her stepson Philip, as hes somehow acquired a valuable picture last seen in the flat of an elderly lady whos been murdered.

The Gullah people are one of our most distinctive cultural groups. Isolated off the South Carolina-Georgia coast for nearly three centuries, the native black population of the Sea Islands has developed a vibrant way of life that remains, in many ways, as African as it is American. This landmark volume tells a multifaceted story of this venerable society, emphasizing its roots in Africa, its unique imprint on America, and current threats to its survival.

The Gullahs of South Carolina is a work of art as well as a work of history which tells an urgent and important story about the Gullah people and their vanishing way of life and culture. The book gives a pictorial journey through the sea islands and low country of South Carolina and conveys the great love of the Gullah people for the land and the water in peaceful times gone by. The art images and text in each section provides historical information and interesting facts about the Gullah people, their way of life, and their culture.

Hoodoo Medicine is a unique record of nearly lost African-American folk culture. It documents herbal medicines used for centuries, from the 1600s until recent decades, by the slaves and later their freed descendants, in the South Carolina Sea Islands.

Eighty miles south of Savannah lies St. Simons Island, one of the most beloved seaside destinations in Georgia and home to some twenty thousand year-round residents. In Island Time, Jingle Davis and Benjamin Galland offer a fascinating history and stunning visual celebration of this coastal community.

Powerful forces in educating African American youth.

Partly an homage to classics ranging from Don Quixote to Huck Finn, Lord Baltimore is a novel that creates its own universe and whose characters walk the line between the real and the fantastic.

During the 1920s and 1930s, anthropologists and folklorists became obsessed with uncovering connections between African Americans and their African roots. At the same time, popular print media and artistic productions tapped the new appeal of black folk life, highlighting African-styled voodoo as an essential element of black folk culture. A number of researchers converged on one site in particular, Sapelo Island, Georgia, to seek support for their theories about "African survivals," bringing with them a curious mix of both influences.

A historical analysis of the Gullahs of South Carolina, and an imaginative and suggestive treatment of slave religion and social cohesion, "A Peculiar People" Slave Religion and Community-Culture Among The Gullahs examines the components that provided the Sea Island slave population with their cultural autonomy and sense of consciousness.

Keith Cartwright, assistant professor of English at Roanoke College in Roanoke. Virginia, was a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal. He is the author of a number of articles about Afro-Creole literature and two books of poetry.

Lifestyles, customs, superstitions and folklore of St. Helena Island.

Sapelo, a state-protected barrier island off the Georgia coast, is one of the state's greatest treasures. Presently owned almost exclusively by the state and managed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Sapelo features unique nature charac­teristics that have made it a locus for scientific research and ecological conservation.

Hog Hammock, located on Georgia's Sapelo Island, is only accessible by ferry or private boat. It is one of the last island-based Gullah-Geechee communities in America--a living connection to West African languages, folkways, and spiritual traditions. With its dirt roads and tin-roofed houses, Hog Hammock is the site of a social hall, two historic Baptist churches, and a former schoolhouse, all built by descendants of slaves. The nearby Behavior Cemetery has burial sites that date back 200 years. Much has been written about the people of Hog Hammock and Sapelo Island, mostly documenting their lives as slaves and then as landowning free people working for millionaires who reshaped Sapelo Island into their own personal retreats. But there is another part of the island's story, one filled with entrepreneurs, skilled craftsmen, and community leaders, that is told here in Images of America: Sapelo Island's Hog Hammock.

In Stigma and Culture, J. Lorand Matory provocatively shows how ethnic identification in the United States--and around the globe--is a competitive and hierarchical process in which populations, especially of historically stigmatized races, seek status and income by dishonoring other stigmatized populations. And there is no better place to see this than among the African American elite in academia, where he explores the emergent ethnic identities of African and Caribbean immigrants and transmigrants.

The ancient African art of sweetgrass basket making has been practiced for more than 300 years in the Christ Church Parish of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.

Talking to the Dead is an ethnography of seven Gullah/Geechee women from the South Carolina lowcountry. These women communicate with their ancestors through dreams, prayer, and visions and traditional crafts and customs, such as storytelling, basket making, and ecstatic singing in their churches.

There's one thing you can say for sure about Vertamae -- she does her thing her way. And in spite of what she says, she always gives ample instruction on how to create her tasty dishes. But the recipes are just part of the immense appeal of this memoir-cookbook, all of it as sassy as Vertamae herself.