COLUMBIA

SOUTH CAROLINA

A SPECIAL REPORT

THE RHYTHMS of African music and the sense of front-porch camaraderie swirl through Gullah culture. Marquetta Goodwine, dressed in purple, holds a friends birthday party at the Ansonborough Homes in Charleston. The group shared the private celebration with tourists who walked past, giving them a surprise glimpse at the unique sea island heritage. Goodwine, who also goes by the name Queen Quet, is among a small group of advocates who share the culture with outsiders through tours, festivals and performances.

Saving Gullah
This is hallow groun

ABANDONED fishing boats dont rise with the tides in the creeks behind Backmans Seafood on James Island. Thomas Backmans family once operated a fleet of six boats, but he used only one boat this summer. Many sea island residents scratched out a living fishing or farming a generation or two ago. Now large corporations dominate those fields.

YVONNE WILSON takes visitors inquiring about Daufuskie Islands Gullah culture to the graveyard first to make a point. Her mother fought developers who erected a visitors center for prospective resort-property owners there in the 1980s. Eventually, she won, and visitors now arrive about 100 yards away. But she couldnt save nearly 300 years of Gullah culture on Daufuskie. The distinctive language, social life, crafts and skills forged from African traditions and molded by slavery and isolation nearly have disappeared on the island just north of the Georgia line. The hundreds of descendants of slaves who had the run of

Daufuskie for nearly a century began to move away when pollution killed the oyster beds in nearby creeks in the 1950s. Many didnt pay taxes on the family property they left behind, and it ended up in the hands of developers through tax sales. Now the island portrayed as untouched by modern times in Pat Conroys 1972 novel The Water Is Wide has three golf courses, a beachfront resort, million-dollar vacation homes and about 20 residents with connections to the Gullah community that once owned most of Daufuskie. Were looking at extinction, Wilson said while standing amid the unadorned gravestones. I feel almost like an endangered species. A generation ago, some observers wondered whether the same fate awaited the Gullah culture throughout the South Carolina sea islands. Lately, the prognosis is more optimistic.

A theater group organized by Wadmalaw Island senior citizens performs plays in the Gullah language, forcing youngsters in the cast to learn the language of their grandparents. Entrepreneurs have put together tours of Gullah sites on Johns, Wadmalaw, St. Helena and Daufuskie islands. The Penn Center on St. Helena offers courses in how to hold communities together to stop development. The National Park Service is considering building three cultural centers to celebrate all things Gullah, but the culture wont be relegated to museums without a fight. I feel like God has left us here, said Wilson, who helped start a historical society on Daufuskie. Its like a mission to keep the culture from being forgotten. Whatever weve got thats left in here she points to her head thats all thats left.

STORIES BY JOEY HOLLEMAN

PHOTOGRAPHS BY TAKAAKI IWABU

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2003 SECTION M

Saving Gullah

Where you come from, where you going at

The Soul of Gullah

James Bradley, 67, shrimper, St. Helena James Bradley, who runs one of the few blackowned shrimping operations in the state, has worked on trawlers most of his life. I grow up close to a shrimp dock. I used to go down there and head shrimp. I just loved the shrimp boat. On a good day, hell pull up 600 to 700 pounds of shrimp, often getting out before the sun rises and staying out until late afternoon. Some shrimpers stay out overnight, but Bradley likes to sleep at home. He spent nearly 20 years shrimping for several months each year in the Florida Keys; he made more money down there. In recent years, he decided to stay in St. Helena and make a little less. Dis is my home here. Id rather be roun here.

VA SEABROOK, or Miss Eva as everyone calls her, is a large woman with a friendly face behind designer glasses. A lingering cold and a bum knee left her feeling lousy one summer day, but her eyes lit up as the conversation turned to Gullah heritage. Miss Eva, who grew up on James Island, spent much of her adult life on Wadmalaw Island. She worked in daycare centers for 28 years. Probably half the people younger than 50 on the island have hopped onto her lap for a comforting hug. Along the way, Miss Eva worried that the two generations she cared for were losing touch with their Gullah roots as mainstream culture invaded the sea islands. Theyd rather watch TV than sit on the porch and talk with their grandparents. A few years ago, she accepted the challenge of writing a play in the Gullah language for a local festival. That first assignment has grown into three plays. In each case, the casts include people young and old. They all learn about the language while preaching the moral lessons hinted at in the titles Nuff Is Nuff, Look Where He Brought Me From and Why Is Heavens Road So Long? The groups home stage is in the Wadmalaw Island Community Center, and its actors have performed at the S.C. Folklife Festival in Walterboro and at the Aiken-Rhett House in Charleston. Miss Eva wishes more youngsters would want to learn about Gullah heritage. We really preciate where you come from, she said, adopting Gullah cadence, and where you going at. The Gullah resurgence is all about pride. LaVerne Davis, principal at St. Helena Elementary School since 1990, noted a tidal change in the late 1980s. No longer did teachers squelch Gullah. In order to have high self-esteem, we needed to play on our roots, said Davis, who grew up in nearby Bluffton. We wanted children to understand how valuable it is to know where you come from and where you are. Now, teachers at the school encourage children to explore Gullah poetry and compare it with standard English poetry. Local Gullah artists come

to the school to discuss their craft. Students interview longtime residents, often relatives, about island history. The difference is amazing to todays adults. We were made to be ashamed of (a Gullah background), said Linda Gadson, who directs the Rural Mission, a nonprofit social services agency on Johns Island. In schools, theyd say, Dont be speaking that bad language. When I was growing up, you had to be reminded that you speak one way at home and one way in school. Classes still are conducted in English, and Gullah history isnt part of the state-mandated curriculum. But Davis thinks its no coincidence that students at St. Helena Elementary have done better on standardized testing since the school embraced Gullah culture. The portion of fifth-graders scoring proficient or advanced on Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test English jumped from 19 percent in 1999 to 41.4 percent in 2002. Higher scores in math went from 1 percent in 1999 to 43.4 percent in 2002. Were teaching them that its different, but its beautiful, Davis said.

Queen Quet, whose given name is Marquetta Goodwine, thrives on those types of eye-opening experiences. A St. Helena Island native who moved away to attend college in New York, she returned to her roots to manage several heritage-related programs though the Gullah-Geechee Sea Island Coalition. (In some uses, Geechee is synonymous with Gullah, but more often its used to refer to the black sea island residents of Georgia and Florida.) The leaders of the coalition installed Goodwine as chieftess of the GullahGeechee nation in 2000 thus the name Queen Quet. She wears ornate golden African jewelry on her fingers,

much of nearly three centuries of sea island history has been poorly preserved, and many important Gullah sites have been developed as golf courses or shopping centers. For instance, theres no historical marker at the Stono River landing telling the story of the Stono Rebellion, one of the most important attempts by slaves to make their way to freedom. And many of the old black churches, where the Gullah brought their African experience to Christianity, were torn down through the years rather than being restored. Murray grew up in the Pee Dee and married into the Johns Island Gullah community. Sometimes outsiders ap-

In order to have high self-esteem, we needed to play on our roots. We wanted children to understand how valuable it is to know where you come from and where you are.
LaVerne Davis, educator

MY GRANDMA SPEAKS THAT LANGUAGE

A group of young people from Sea Islands YouthBuild, an alternativeschool program, put together a Gullah tour of Johns Island and Wadmalaw Island as a class project this summer. They took several longtime island residents and Gullah activist Queen Quet on a test run of the tour, hoping to learn more about the sites they were featuring. During the bus ride, Queen Quet stood up to talk with the group about Gullah culture. A few minutes into her talk, she switched from standard English to the Gullah language. Broad smiles blossomed on faces throughout the bus. The kids had been transported to a comfortable place. My grandma speaks that language, too, said Lenny Robinson, 21. Sometimes shell go into it and Ill have to say, Whoa, get back to English. Robinson knows some Gullah from just hearing it around his home, but he said he wants to learn more so he can help keep the language alive. He now realizes Gullah, which incorporates the grammatical rules and hundreds of words from African dialects, is more than a slang version of English.

on her wrists and in her hair, and carries herself with the confident air of royalty. She doesnt mind stirring things up. She ripped the Sea Island YouthBuild organizers because the only bus they could round up for the tour was borrowed from the Charleston County Sheriffs Office, which typically transports criminals in the buses. That shows a lack of respect for the young people in the group, she said. Her organizations have come along to make sure to educate the people that are actually Gullah and Geechee concerning both their land rights and their human rights, she said. No one had focused on this as it specifically relates to this cultural group. Its not just young people who need to be educated on their own heritage. Many of the customers on Sharon Murrays Gullah tours are adult black tourists, often two or three generations removed from their roots. Frequently, theyre in town for family reunions. Murray visits local historical sites on Johns and Wadmalaw islands, tells of the legends and traditions and introduces tourists to Gullah artisans. Shes one of several tour operators who feel that in order to save a culture, you have to appreciate it. Thats not easy, because

preciate the culture more than the people living it. You dont walk around saying, Im living an amazing existence, Murray said. When I got to the islands, it was like a kid in a candy store. I loved hearing them talk. I couldnt understand hide nor hair of it, but I loved listening to them. Most Gullah entrepreneurs in the past simply sold sweetgrass baskets or Gullah food standards such as seafood gumbo. The tours take the next step, introducing customers to the historical background for those traditions. The most encouraging thing about the tours, according to professor Veronica Gerald of Coastal Carolina University, is that many of them are led by Gullahs with strong educational backgrounds in the subject. In the past 10 years, we have people within the culture who can interpret it, can look at the scholarly points and explain them, said Gerald, who also directs tours.

THERE WAS NO JOBS

Otis Daise is a rarity, one of the few Gullah still farming several acres with a hoe, just as his grandfather did. But the 65-year-old St. Helena resident

CONTINUED ON PAGE 4

Tracae Mack, 17, high-school senior, Johns Island In a statewide historical speech contest, Tracae Mack performed in Gullah. I appreciate it because its part of my heritage; its part of me. I listen to the elderly a lot. I learn so much from them. She practices her speeches in front of older friends, who let her know if shes not using a word or phrase correctly. She gave a Gullah speech at the Charleston Museum and at the intermissions of Wadmalaw Island Theater Group productions. She said many others her age were more immersed in Gullah culture than they knew. They dont understand that theyre involved in it all the time. Its within the person themselves. Its not going to go away.

RESORT VISITORS arrive at a dock on Daufuskie Island every two hours during the day. The resorts first welcome center was built on the site of a native cemetery before protests prompted developers to move it a few hundred yards away. Now most visitors walk past the graveyard to get on buses bound for the resort, unaware of the history or of the people who rest only yards away.

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THE STATE, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2003 PAGE 2

Saving Gullah

FOR YEARS Daufuskie natives made their living harvesting oysters from the creeks around the island. But pollution in the 1950s killed the oysters, forcing many residents to leave the island to find jobs. Now, peaceful views of those beautiful creeks draw tourists to resorts on the island.

CZERNY LEVIS, left, and her nephew Quran Greene watch their family members pick wild grapes on Daufuskie Island.
They are among about two dozen Gullah descendants remaining on the island, once home to hundreds of natives in the mid-1950s. Today they share Daufuskie with hundreds of tourists and golfers who spend a day or a week at island resorts.

ANNIE MIKELL, 96, spends her mornings at the Wadmalaw Island Community Center, talking with old friends and eating lunch. The oldest member at the center, she shows up in her best clothes each day, usually complete with a fancy hat. The senior citizens of the island started a Gullah theater group and built a small stage at the community center.

CUSTOMERS wait for their fish to be prepared at Backmans Seafood on James Island. Longtime customers come from throughout the Charleston area to buy fish and shrimp fresh off Thomas Backmans boat. Seafood once dominated the Gullah diet and still is a big culinary treat.

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Saving Gullah
The Soul of Gullah
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2
couldnt support himself on proceeds from his vegetable crops. He gets by because he has a government pension after decades of working a civilian job at Parris Island. The hardscrabble Gullah farming lifestyle is a thing of the past. Row-crop farming is back-breaking work, and small plots arent profitable enough to pay the taxes on increasingly valuable island property. Many of the Gullah people on St. Helena now work at nearby resorts or businesses on Hilton Head and Beaufort. A lot of young people aint gonna do this, cause theres too much work in it, Daise said as he pulled weeds from a row of sugar cane. Cars, televisions and pop culture rode onto the sea islands on bridges built in the mid-20th century. Soon people realized how tough their lives were, and they wanted something better. As Daise so eloquently put it: The TV, once it gets in the brains, it dont come out. Frustrated by low-paying jobs and discrimination in the South, many Gullah moved to big cities such as New York, Philadelphia and Detroit in the 1950s and 1960s. There was no jobs here, said Charlotte Ascue Jenkins, 60, who grew up in Mount Pleasant and moved to New York after high school. The only job was housecleaning for $15 a week. Thats what my mama did. With the outmigration, a big chunk of two generations lost touch with their Gullah roots. They didnt sit and talk as young adults with their basket-weaving grandmothers or their cast net-sewing grandfathers. The true essence of Gullah, it was a way of life to those people, said Richard Habersham, 49, who moved away while in the military but eventually returned to the Phillips community in Charleston County. We just dont have that. As the elderly passed on, it wasnt passed on to the people like us. Maebell Coakley, 59, who sells sweetgrass baskets on U.S. 17 in Mount Pleasant, regrets that none of her children seem interested in making baskets. Shes proud of what theyre doing one sons an engineer in Atlanta, anothers stationed in Cuba with the Navy and a daughters a nurse in North Carolina but she thinks theyre missing something. Weaving sweetgrass baskets using traditional methods is good therapy, said Coakley, a retired school cafeteria worker. It helps relax your mind. Some I work on for a few days, some for months. What she finds comforting, young people find boring. The younger generation is microwave-age people, Coakley said. They want it right now. But a generation that once left Gullah culture behind those 30 to 60 now has returned with a passion. Now these people are the leaders in saving it. Jenkins, who runs Gullah Cuisine restaurant on U.S. 17, returned to Mount Pleasant in the 1980s to be closer to family. She started a catering business, which grew into the restaurant. Collards, fried chicken and okra gumbo bring in customers for the lunch buffet. The food smells like home. Jenkins doesnt like for her dishes to be referred to as soul food because that brings to mind greasy fried foods and vegetables seasoned with pork fat. She prefers to use garlic and onions to give her food an extra kick. My mothers family, this is how they cooked, how they seasoned food, Jenkins said. Sheila Middleton returned to Wadmalaw after graduating from Howard University because she appreciated the community. She compared it to the TV show Cheers without the bar setting. Not only does everybody know your name, everybody knows your story. I know people that are 95 and 100 who can tell me about my parents and grandparents, said Middleton, who runs the Wadmalaw Island Community Center. Instead of two parents, sometimes I feel like Ive got 40. Yvonne Wilson, 50, returned to Daufuskie from New York in the 1980s to help her mother fight to preserve island history. It started with a battle with developers over a graveyard, and it hasnt stopped since. It took us three years of fighting to set a precedent that you cant just buy a graveyard, Wilson said. Once we got the graveyard back, I decided to stay home. She attended classes at the Penn Center on preserving land and helped form a historical society on Daufuskie,. Wilson has made her peace with the developers. In fact, the resorts might be the best thing to happen to one of her pet projects, the Mount Carmel Baptist Church built by Wilsons grandfather in the 1930s. It has only about 20 members, most of whom are whites who now call the island home. On summer Sundays, inland visitors outnumber island residents in the church. I remember going to the church when there was only three people me, the preacher and the deacon, Wilson said.

FROM A SHIP, THEY BUILT A CHURCH

In contrast, the Hebron Church forlornly sits a hundred feet off the fourlane road taking tourists to Kiawah Island. No sign denotes its rich history, and vandals have smashed the windows. Many folks driving by might see the church as a decrepit eyesore. But Hebron is a classic example of Gullah heritage. The boards used to build the church were salvaged from a lumber schooner that wrecked on Kiawah during an 1865 hurricane. Many former slaves had attended church with their owners at Johns Island Presbyterian Church, but with their freedom they wanted a church of their own. When word of the shipwreck reached them, they organized a salvage operation. They towed the lumber down the creeks, then over land in ox carts. The church was finished in 1870, and services were held there for more than 100 years. Church members now meet in a newer structure nearby. Despite its broken windows and peeling paint, many people feel the old church is worth saving. Recently, a group of black Johns Island natives and new white residents on Kiawah Island have combined to try to save it. They have begun a fund-raising drive, hoping to renovate the church. Alfreda LaBoard, a leader of the effort, is determined not just to save it but to put it to good use as a senior center.

Veronica Gerald, 52, college professor, Conway Veronica Gerald, a professor at Coastal Carolina University, grew up in Conway. When I went to graduate school in Maryland, I didnt realize I was different (from other African-Americans), but I was. I still fried fish with the head on it. The more she looked around, the more she realized she had grown up in a unique culture. I see a need to incorporate certain aspects of the culture into the curriculum in all schools at the elementary level, she said. We need to recognize the difference yet the commonality.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

The History of Sea Island Culture

Born of the horrors of slavery, fostered under the evil of racism and encouraged by physical and economic isolation on the Southern sea islands, the Gullah culture not only survives, but thrives. Did You Know?
The origin of the term Gullah sparks debate.
Some say it is a shortened version of the African region of Angola. Others say it comes from the name of the Liberian tribe called the Golas. Gullah and Geechee are often considered interchangeable terms. Gullah is used in the Carolinas, while Geechee is more common in Georgia and Florida.
GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

Gullahs are concentrated in the S.C. Lowcountry around Charleston, Beaufort and Georgetown counties, where rice, indigo and cotton plantations, fueled by slave labor, thrived in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The plantations were no longer profitable when slavery ended and many white landowners deserted or sold off the land. In many cases, the former slaves took ownership and their descendents still own the land.

The Gullah Crescent

Cape Fear

Charleston

Savannah

The sea islands from the St. Johns River in Florida to Cape Fear, N.C. are the heart of the Gullah culture.
Gullah women hulling rice, 1900.
St. Johns River

A Gullah banjo player, about 1902.

Where They Came From

Main homelands of slaves imported into S.C., 1716-1807

Senegal

Gambia Bissau Guinea Sierra Leone Liberia

AFRICA
Benin

AFRICA
Ivory Coast Ghana Nigeria

3
Number of slaves 18,093 5,533 15,879 12,268 1,394 2,303 35,812 473 Percent of total 19.7% 6.0% 17.3% 13.4% 1.5% 2.5% 39.0% .5%

5 4 6
Cameroon

The language and culture were more than a retention, more than a mixture, they were a creative synthesis born of memory, necessity and improvisation in a new environment.
--- William S. Pollitzer

Gullah Foods
Crops domesticated in Africa and brought to S.C. with slave trade
n Benneseed n Okra n Sorghum n Yam

Traditional seafood and rice dishes, the blackeyed peas and rice dish called Hoppin John and the shrimp, sausage and potatoes concoction known as Frogmore Stew.

Gullah Arts
Gullah crafts developed from necessity. Sweetgrass baskets were used for storage, quilts for keeping warm, cast nets for catching dinner. Those who still practice the traditional crafts have been rewarded with renewed interest in Gullah culture.
Originally made for utility, handcrafted sweetgrass baskets today sell for hundreds of dollars.

Slave Population By Coastal District

Congo

The Gullah People and Their African Heritage

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Gabon

Population in 1860 Percent of total population Beaufort

Gullah-related Web Sites

To learn more about Gullah culture, past and present, please visit these Web sites:
www.degullahsingers.com www.sightsandinsightstours.com users.aol.com/queenmut/GullGeeCo.html www.penncenter.com www.ronandnatalie.com www.ccpl.org/ccl/gullahcreole.html www.gullahcelebration.com www.knowitall.org/gullahnet/ G R A P H I C

32,530
AT L A N T I C OCEAN Charleston

81% 32,307 77% 7

Angola

African-American Population
as percentage of total S.C. sea islands population Island Edisto James Johns St. Helena Wadmalaw B Y R O B 1930 87 79 87 96 88 B A R G E / 1960 82 30 52 83 85 T H E 1980 84 22 43 61 79 2000 39 20 33 56 61 S T A T E

Mozambique-Madagascar

Colleton

Subtotal: 91,755
(Another 26,033 slaves were imported from unknown regions of African; 6,676 came from the West Indies)

37,290 53%
Georgetown

N
600 MILES

Total: 121,464
SOURCE: The Gullah People and Their African Heritage by William S. Pollitzer

18,190
Namibia

85%
SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau

SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau

C O M P I L E D

B Y

J O E Y

H O L L E M A N / T H E

S T A T E

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THE STATE, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2003 PAGE 4

Saving Gullah

VERA MANIGAULT, sweetgrass basketmaker, wears the earrings she made for herself. Manigault is one of the best-known of the basket artists in the Charleston area, and she teaches others the Gullah craft to keep the traditions alive.

JIMMY BRADLEY sorts the catch on his fathers shrimp boat six days a week. He is considering taking over his fathers business, one of the few
black-owned shrimping operations on the sea islands. The egret waits patiently on the back of the boat for Bradley to toss out junk fish.

SHARON MURRAY and her husband, Frank, get ready for their Praise House performance at Circular
Congregational Church in Charleston. De Gullah Singers bring the culture alive through songs and stories. Sharon Murray aims to help sea island residents market their culture while educating others.

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Saving Gullah
The Soul of Gullah
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4
This is hallow groun cause its still standing, solid as ever, LaBoard told a recent tour group.

LAND IS THE KEY

Many Gullah leaders hoping to keep the culture strong say its the hallowed ground that will sustain the traditions. Land is the key to this culture, said Bernie Wright, director of the Penn Center, which has put together programs to help sea island residents hold on to their property. Natural boundaries early on, especially the lack of bridges over to the islands, contributed to the creation of the culture. Now people are moving in. They have no direct interest in taking the land (from the Gullah residents). They just want to live near the water. Some Gullah communities already have been lost. Only tiny pockets of Gullah-owned land remain on Hilton Head. Mount Pleasant is quickly spreading through former communities on U.S. 17 as families sell out to shopping-center developers or are forced off land to make room for new roads. Two Mile and Four Mile communities known by their distance from Mount Pleasants town center are mostly gone. Where sweetgrass basketmakers used to sell their wares in front of their small homes in Four Mile, now stands the Sweet Grass Shopping Center with a Starbucks coffee shop, a tanning center and a surf shop. Were trying to hold on to it, but unless somebody intercedes, the community will be gone, said Jeannette Lee, who lives in Four Mile. Theyre building subdivisions all around us, but we dont want to live in subdivisions. Hilton Heads population went from almost all black in the 1930s to 8.3 percent black in 2000. The transformation hasnt been quite as startling on other islands, but Johns Island has gone from 87 percent black to 33 percent black and St. Helena from 96 percent to 56 percent. The desire to live along the coast has created land-rich, cash-poor residents. The Penn Center, which started as the first school for free blacks in the South, conducts seminars on how to navigate the tax laws and take advantage of lands worth. The most important tool for maintaining ownership of the land might be the Beaufort County land-use plan adopted in 1998. At the request of conservation groups and many St. Helena residents, most of the island was zoned so that no more than one house can

Charles Williams, 60, Gullah artisan, McClellanville Charles Williams doesnt have to say a word to tell a story. You cant help but imagine a fascinating tale when you see him sitting outside an antique shop on U.S. 17 knitting a cast net or carving a walking stick. Receding gray hair fluffs up on top of his head. Big, thick glasses deepen his soulful eyes. The mustache and the soul patch on his chin complete the package. Williams retired as head of criminal investigations at the Charleston Naval Yard, disabled after suffering serious knee injuries. He makes some money carving the intricate walking sticks, beautiful enough to display as artwork, but he doesnt consider it a job. I just do it to be doin it, really. He learned the Gullah style of knitting cast nets from his father, starting at the age of 10. His father began teaching him the basic knots, the widener knots, the pattern of tying. You start with 36 eyes, and after the third row, you put in a widener. Then every third row, you need another widener. In the end, you have 18,000 knots in a net with a 5-foot circumference. It takes Williams about 200 hours to make one; he sells them for $250. A store-bought net made with less durable fabric costs about $20. Williams said those will fall apart in less than a year, but his nets should last a lifetime. I learned from my father, who learned from his father, who learned from his father, and the way I tie my net comes from biblical times, and it hasnt changed. He has two sons and a daughter. Theyre not interested in knitting nets or carving sticks. The only one showing any interest is my granddaughter, he said, and shes 10.

YVONNE COULSON pays tribute to her aunt, Sadie McClair, with a praise dance at McClairs funeral on Wadmalaw Island. A spiritual sung during the service declares, Jesus, he is coming to take mother sail to the land of the Lord. Religious traditions, such as dancing around the casket, remain a strong link to the Gullah past.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

SAVING GULLAH
Writer: Joey Holleman,

(803) 771-8366; jholleman@thestate.com Photographer: Takaaki Iwabu, (803) 771-8420; tiwabu@thestate.com Graphics: Rob Barge, (803) 771-8374; rbarge@thestate.com Design: Martha Stroud, (803) 771-7942; mstroud@thestate.com Editor: Betsey Guzior, (803) 771-8441; bguzior@thestate.com Features Editor: Alicia Roberts, (803) 771-8597; aroberts@thestate.com To purchase additional copies of or photographs from this section, visit www.thestatestore.com

MANY OF THE HOMES on the sea islands feature windows and doorways framed in blue, a tradition born of Gullah superstitions. The
color blue represents water, which haints mythical ghost-like figures who enter homes at night to haunt dreams are afraid to cross.

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Saving Gullah

Speaking Gullah: A branch of Africas tree

HE MOST OBVIOUS aspect of Gullah culture to outsiders in the early 20th century was the language. Linguistic researchers spent years studying the distinctive rhythm, words and grammar that developed when enslaved Africans from varied regions struggled to survive on plantations controlled by Englishspeaking owners. Amateur linguists such as Ambrose Gonzales, former publisher of The State newspaper, referred to Gullah as lazy English, with its use of dis and dat for this and that. But as researchers listened more closely and traveled to Africa, they discovered hundreds of words of African origin in Gullah speech. Lorenzo Turner started changing minds in 1949 with his ground-breaking book Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect. Turner documented the African derivation of many Gullah words tote, yam, gumbo, cooter, goober, okra that since have melded into standard English. Some other Gullah words remain foreign to

GULLAH IN ITS OWN WORDS

Some Gullah words have made it into the mainstream American dialect. For example, goober, gumbo, yarn and kumbaya have Gullah roots.

Some Gullah expressions

Beat on ayun: mechanic; literally, beat-on-iron Troot ma-wt: a truthful person; literally, truth mouth Hush ma-wt: hush mouth; literally, hush mouth Sho ded: cemetery; literally, sure dead Tebl tappa: preacher; literally, table-tapper Ty oonuh ma-wt: Hush, stop talking; literally, Tie your mouth. Krak teet: to speak; literally, crack teeth

Some Gullah words Bawn: born Goway: Go away! Gran-maamy: grandmother Onduh: under PoTrial: Port Royal

most South Carolinians oona as the singular or plural for the word you, and nam as the verb to eat, for example. Even more telling is the similarity in rhythm and grammar, Turner said. In many African languages and in Gullah, pronouns dont specify gender. Duplication of words intensifies their meaning, so something that is freezing is col, col. Katherine Wyly Mille, a professor at Benedict College, has studied the Gul-

lah language for years. A white woman, she grew up in the Lowcountry and spent time on Edisto Island, listening to the natives. Last semester, she read the 23rd Psalm in Gullah to one of her classes at Benedict. Looking out on the students, she saw mouths drop as they heard the familiar sounds. They said, Thats how my grandmother talked. I didnt know it was a language, Mille said. Even those who have come of age

during the recent period of Gullah celebration dont feel comfortable using the language outside their homes. They look at it as an embarrassing physical infirmity, but thats not it at all, Mille said. Its the sounds that make up your experience. With that in mind, she tells her students they need to learn standard English as a passport to education and professional jobs, but never give up your identity, never give up your roots. The Gullah-Geechee Sea Island Coalition works to keep those roots strong. (Geechee is synonymous with Gullah and often is used in the Georgia and Florida sea islands.) On its Web site, the coalition greets visitors with a Gullah saying: Ef oona dey frum de lowcountree an de islandt, lookya, e da time fa go bak. Disyah da wey fa cum togedda wid wi people fa hold on ta de tings wa wi peepol lef wi. The standard English translation is: If you are someone who is concerned about the preservation of the branch of Africas tree that has grown in America, this is a way for you to assist in nurturing and protecting that branch.

The Soul of Gullah

Jeannette Lee, 58, basketmaker, Mount Pleasant Jeannette Lee grew up in a community called Four Mile, near Mount Pleasant. She stayed with her aunt, who didnt work outside the home but made baskets. Shed let me do the bottoms. By 9, I was able to master a bread basket. When she grew up, Lee went into banking. She suffered a back injury that left her partially disabled. Now, she stays home with her 83-year-old mother and makes baskets when she finds the time. She doesnt sell them on the road but through word of mouth, often to museums. A few young people are starting to learn basketmaking. Were knocking them across the head, and now some of them are understanding the value of the baskets, Lee said.

The battle of S.C. 41

A plan to widen a highway also threatens to widen an old wound for Gullah families
good. Richard Habersham, Jonathan Ford and Elijah Smalls Jr. stood on the steps of the House of Prayer Pentecostal Holiness Church one steamy July night discussing the fight to stop the widening of S.C. 41 through Phillips. They are among about a dozen people leading the effort, and many more show up at public meetings on the proposed project. We can stop it if the community and the people in (the town of Mount Pleasant) can get behind it, said Habersham, 49. Phillips community leaders want a different road to be built a quarter-mile north. That would take vehicles directly into nearby upscale developments such as Dunes West instead of funneling those commuters through Phillips. But it would cost a lot more to buy the land for the new road. Phillips leaders hope a bit of history on their side will help. These are people who dont have any means, Habersham said. They say theyre offering a fair price for the property, but these people cant afford housing around here anymore. If the road pushes them off the land, theyll move to cheaper areas inland, farther away from jobs and from what has been their home for more than a century. The black community has always been the first to be displaced, the first to make the sacrifice, Smalls said. The communitys boundaries can be traced to the 1700s, when the nearly 600acre tract was part of Boone Hall Plantation. Generations of the Pinckney family, which included two signers of the U.S. Constitution, broke off Laurel Hill Plantation from Boone Hall, then Phillips Plantation from Laurel Hill. Rice was the big cash crop, but indigo, cotton and corn also grew in the area. After the Civil War, the plantation owners couldnt afford to keep farming, so they sold off portions of their land. In 1878, a group of former slaves paid the Horlbeck family $63 each for 10-acre tracts. They retained the name of the plantation and called it the Phillips community. You could put that 1878 plat on top of a current one and see the lot lines havent changed, except some of those 10-acre tracts now are shared by a dozen or more heirs to the original owners.

HE BATTLE to protect ancestral Gullah land in the Phillips community in Charleston County has prompted a rebirth of the most important Gullah tradition banding together for the common

Marquetta (Queen Quet) Goodwine, Gullah advocate, St. Helena Island Through her leadership in the Gullah-Geechee Sea Island Coalition, Marquetta Goodwine was selected chieftess of the Gullah people. She goes by Queen Quet. Shes a tireless advocate of Gullah culture, quick to criticize those she thinks present an inaccurate portrayal. She has problems with the critically acclaimed film Daughters of the Dust. Thats a fictional film, and people think its a documentary. People come here looking for us to do things they see in the movie, expecting to see us in all white clothes. Thats not the way we live. People are buying into the commodifications of aspects of our culture, not the culture itself. Theyre making a minstrel show of what GullahGeechee culture is, when its a lifestyle. Goodwine conducts her own tours, taking people to her familys compound and historical sites on St. Helena. She talks about the expert net-makers and boat builders. All these things that people relegate to the past, theyre still around here.

FROM LEFT, KIARA JENKINS, Kiana Jenkins, Jermaine Ford and Kimberly Coleman race across busy S.C. 41 in the Phillips community in Charleston County. The road, built in the 1950s, cuts through one of the oldest intact black communities in the area, separating cousins and friends. Community leaders have used the preservation of the Gullah culture as one reason to prevent widening the road to four lanes.
Most of the homes are small, with a variety of wooden, brick and concrete block construction. S.C. 41 cut through the community in 1942, connecting Moncks Corner and the new Santee Cooper lake projects with U.S. 17 and Charleston. The road split families, forcing youngsters to dodge traffic to visit their cousins across the street. Back then, you couldnt complain, said Smalls, 60. You had no means of objecting to it. Nobody would listen to you. Since then, Charlestons suburban sprawl has overtaken Phillips. Now, the community is an island in a sea of upscale developments. RiverTowne on one side. Dunes West on the other. Park West and Planters Point nearby. Local officials want to widen S.C. 41 to four lanes so the people in those massive homes (starting at $200,000) can get to shopping centers in Mount Pleasant or jobs in Charleston faster. Widening the road will force the destruction of seven homes and put seven others precariously close to the zooming cars. This time, the community is speaking up. The preservation of Gullah culture is one of the arguments against the road, and theres some irony in that. Many older Phillips residents never considered themselves Gullah. They fled the area in the 1950s and 60s for better jobs in the Northeast or in the military, where the terms Gullah and Geechee were considered derogatory. Many returned to their roots in the 1980s and 90s. Those who didnt leave were too busy making a living to devote time to learn how to make sweetgrass baskets or cast nets. We never thought about being a Gullah community until recently, said Ford, 44. It was never like a culture to us. It was just home. Now Phillips is one of the few remaining intact Gullah communities in Charleston County. Several other Gullah enclaves have been torn apart by retail or residential development along U.S. 17. Surrounded by upscale developments such as Planters Point, Park West and Dunes West, Phillips could be the next to fall. Habersham is optimistic. Already, the road plan has been downgraded from four lanes to three. We recognize four lanes would be an incredible intrusion on the community, said Mac Burdette, Mount Pleasant city administrator. Three lanes is more reasonable and practical. Phillips has a long time to build its case. The S.C. 41 project is at the far end of Mount Pleasants 10-year master plan. Burdette said Phillips residents had ways to protect their community even if the road were built. They could vote to join the town of Mount Pleasant, which offers zoning protections that have kept Gullah communities such as Greenhill and Remleys Point intact. Or they could ask Charleston County to make it harder to convert property in the community from residential zoning to commercial. Those changes would make the land less valuable. It would be harder for developers to buy family land along S.C. 41 and convert it to shopping centers, or buy large sections off the road for upscale subdivisions. With the road widening and land values in that area going up daily, the pressure is on some of those heirs to sell, Burdette said. But if they want to, they can protect it by lobbying to make sure zoning designations dont change.

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Saving Gullah
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be built for every three acres. There had to be a specific law to protect the communities that were still Gullah-Geechee communities such as St. Helena Island, Goodwine said. Those that had lived here all their lives and were part of the legacy of this culture needed to be able to provide for their future generations. Competing desires of the preservation of history and the push for development no doubt will collide again. Developers will find it hard to make a profit if they can build only 333 houses on 1,000 acres, said Scott Sanders, an agent with Lowcountry Real Estate, whose family owns land on St. Helena. He wants the county to make exceptions for people who own large parcels, maybe several hundred acres or more. Beaufort County assessor Bernice Wright said about 60 percent of St. Helena is owned in large parcels, often held by timber or farming companies. Regardless of the outcome of those large parcels, there are enough small parcels that St. Helena is unlikely to turn into another Hilton Head or Mount Pleasant.

A PAST AND A FUTURE

But what will St. Helena, and Gullah culture, become? Gullah activist Goodwine doesnt want it to take the route of Native American culture out West. She thinks the federal government and mainstream society co-opted much of Native American culture, leaving only a shallow stereotype for public consumption. The National Park Service conducted a study of Gullah culture during the past two years. The recommendations of the study, which is to be presented to Congress next year, will be released for a final round of public comment in early October. The first draft called for building as many as three Gullah cultural centers/museums and setting up a Gullah heritage corridor in South Carolina and Georgia. Many Gullah advocates are excited about the possibilities. Goodwine is more cautious, saying she doesnt want others to present a minstrel show out of what GullahGeechee culture is when its a lifestyle. Katherine Wyly Mille, a Benedict College professor who has performed Gullah research, thinks Gullah culture will be more like the Basque in Spain or the Breton in France. Those cultures with different languages and customs have managed to thrive for centuries. So long as there is a sense of pride to keep those communities together and its economically and politically viable, theres a good chance the culture will stay alive, Mille said. Yvonne Wilson hasnt even given up on Daufuskie Island. Visitors and year-round residents in the resorts help support the island school, Mount Carmel Baptist Church and efforts to save the few remaining old buildings. If Wilson can help save those pieces of history, maybe she can maintain a vestige of the islands Gullah culture. Maybe the former island residents who fled a generation ago will return to their roots. I keep telling the young people to come back home, Wilson said. We need you to keep it alive.

LILLIE SIMMONS, above, was born on Daufuskie Island and has lived there more than 90 years. She has seen the island
transformed from a place where the small black population was mostly self-sufficient raising crops and harvesting seafood, to a fancy resort where most of the food is brought in by boat.

HELEN BRYAN,
far left, Michael Middleton and Denise Scott take an earlymorning boat to commute to their work at Daufuskie Island Resort. Daufuskie Island, which used to be a home to several hundred black people, now has only about two dozen natives. Many blacks now commute to the island for near-minimumwage jobs at the resort and its three golf courses.

THESTATE.COM
Read about the National Park Service study and previous articles on the Gullah culture.

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