“These yellow Norfolk sands and black river bottoms are as sacred to my kinfolk as the wild goldenrod that grows singular along the muddy banks of Igbo Landing on Dunbar Creek—the place where once-free West African tribesmen, chained together during the Middle Passage, walked into the brackish waters and drowned together rather than live enslaved. They are as hallowed as what is now St. Andrews Beach on the Jekyll River, where the last known slave ship, the Wanderer, landed more than 160 years ago. As sanctified as the ancient sand-and-clay loam beneath Gilliard Farms, where Freshwater Geechee, experts in irrigation, cultivated rice. This often unforgiving land is my home, and it has now fed my family for eight generations.”1
Matthew Raiford
There isn’t a conclusion, because this history is still being written by Gullah and Geechee people today, as well as by forces outside of their control. And it is a story that envelops both hope and uncertainty, and it is hard to see the path forward. There also is no conclusion because this website is meant to be a beginning, an introduction to Gullah Geechee culture that has hopefully sparked interest and a desire to know more. It is an invitation to seek out more knowledge on the subject and continue to learn.
In these sections, we hear about hardships that Gullah Geechee communities are facing, and the ingenious ways in which they are finding solutions and creating new ways to share their stories. We will also look at the role academia and scholars have played, and ideas for how they can act as allies to these communities moving forward.
Again, please comment section on these pages! Feel free to add something, ask a question, suggest an edit or use it as an area to highlight great work you know that is helping elevate Gullah Geechee stories, past and present.
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Footnotes
- Matthew Raiford with Amy Paige Condon, Bress ‘N’ Nyam: Gullah Geechee Recipes from a Sixth-Generation Farmer, (New York: The Countryman Press, 2021), 20. Available here.