2023
GULLAH GEECHEE CULTURAL HERITAGE CORRIDOR COMMISSION
PUBLIC MEETING SCHEDULE:
- Florida – upcoming – September 20, 2023 – Jacksonville, FL
- North Carolina – past
- Georgia – past – Saturday, December 3rd, 9:00 a.m. (click to view)
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- Meeting password: Pn5pyhjx
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- South Carolina – past – Saturday, March 12th, 10:00 a.m. (click to view)
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- Meeting password: uMWPDrp3
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- Florida – past – Saturday, June 4th, 10:00 a.m.
Links for future dates will be posted in the week prior to the meetings.
New programming will be announced as soon as it is available. In the meantime, please enjoy these recordings of some of our previous programs. We also have created free guides to helping you experience Gullah Geechee heritage from home with books, podcasts, films and traditional music.
Gullah Language Summer Series with Dr. Jessica Berry
Dr. Jessica Berry knows firsthand the challenges that Gullah Geechee communities face in the classroom. Berry, raised in Huger, South Carolina, struggled as a child with the language in classroom settings and has since then tied much of her work as a speech language pathologist to dismantling negative connotations about the Gullah Geechee language, culture and community. This four session virtual summer series will provide an in-depth exploration of the origins, modernizations, and implications of Gullah language!
Session 4: August 4
This session will provide an exploration of modern Gullah
language studies and their similarities and differences to past work.
KrakTeet: Book Talk and Signing with Trelani Michelle
August 17 | 6:00 p.m. | 502 E. Harris Street, Savannah, GA
Register Now!
Trelani Michelle is an award-winning writer, oral historian, and teaching artist.
Crowned Savannah’s Best Local Author in 2021, Trelani published a catalog of Black Savannah’s biographies called Krak Teet. Trelani describes her work as “Zora Neale Hurstoning” by teaching the history that textbooks overlook and putting an end to code-switching.
Art in the Arsenal: Corey Alston Sweetgrass Baskets – A National Treasure
August 12 | 11:00 a.m. | 713 Craven Street, Beaufort, SC
Register Now!
Known nationally for his “Poppa and Big Momma” baskets currently traveling around the country in the Acres of Ancestry art exhibition, Corey Alston is a 5th generation Sweetgrass Basket Weaver who manages the family business at the Charleson City Market! Join Corey as he takes you on a storytelling journey of this rare art form of weaving through his historical lens and familial knowledge! Attendees will also enjoy a hands-on crafting activity following Corey’s presentation!
Presented by the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor NHA in partnership with the Beaufort Arts Council and Freedman Arts District!
Freedom’s Eve Charleston Celebration
Saturday, December 31, 2022
WATCH A RECORDING OF THIS PROGRAM HERE.
Tracing the African Diaspora: Colonoware
Saturday, May 17, 2020 | 10 a.m.
WATCH A RECORDING OF THIS PROGRAM HERE.
Join us for a virtual, streamed talk to explore the African diaspora and the colonial heritage of the African ancestors of the Gullah Geechee people through Colonoware pottery. Archaeologists from the Clemson University/College of Charleston Graduate Program in Historic Preservation and Drayton Hall will introduce you to “Colonoware”: a formed, hand-built earthenware pottery made by enslaved Africans and Native Americans between the 17th and 19th centuries. “Colonoware” pottery served as daily cooking, storage, and serving vessels for most enslaved people living in colonial-period settlements and plantations in coastal South Carolina. Often these pieces are viewed as “plain”, but recently discovered fragments in the Charleston area demonstrate the uniqueness in the African decoration style created by using a braided palm leaf.
Gullah Geechee Children’s Storytime: “Who Dem Gullah … Asks Princess Anyika”
Saturday, June 20, 2020 | 10 a.m.
WATCH A RECORDING OF THIS PROGRAM HERE.
We kick-off our summer Gullah Geechee children’s storytime series with Kyndra Joi, author of “Who Dem Gullah.. Asks Princess Anyika: Tales of a Gullah Princess.” We’re pleased to partner with the Charleston County Public library to bring Gullah Geechee children stories about themselves — told in the Gullah Geechee language. Children’s literature is an important way to share culture and preserve language. We hope the series encourages many more Gullah Geechee community members to create children’s and Young Adult books about the culture. Born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, Kyndra is affectionately known as “Gullah Girl” in the community and actively educates and creates awareness of the Gullah culture through her interactive workshops of language, dance, and song.
Gullah Geechee Storytime | Anita Singleton-Prather
August 1, 2020 | 10 am
WATCH A RECORDING OF THIS PROGRAM HERE.
Gather the kids and join us for another in our Gullah language storytime series. In August, we welcome Gullah Geechee storyteller Anita Singleton-Prather, who is known to schoolchildren across the Corridor as “Aunt Pearlie Sue.”‘ Based on her grandmother, Aunt Pearlie Sue’s character has entertained audiences with Gullah-flavored folktales and she will share with us the tale of “Three Lee’ Pigs.”
Virtual Tour: Lives of the Enslaved on Kingsley Plantation (Jacksonville, Florida)
August 8, 2020 | 2 pm
WATCH A RECORDING OF THIS PROGRAM HERE.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many people traveled South to Florida from the Carolinas and Georgia. Some, like Zephaniah Kingsley, sought to make their fortunes by obtaining land and establishing plantations. Many others were enslaved and forced to come to Florida to work on those plantations, their labor providing great wealth to the people who owned them. Some of the enslaved would later become free landowners or maroons, struggling to keep their footing in a dangerous time of shifting alliances and politics as control over “La Florida” was sought by the Native Americans, Spanish, British and Americans. Join us as Ranger Ted Johnson of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve (U.S. National Park Service) introduces to the history of Kingsley Plantation and shows us the well-preserved. tabby cabins of the enslaved that still stand and have important stories to tell.
Preserving Traditional Arts | Gullah Geechee and African Basketmaking
NEW DATE September 26, 2020 | 2 pm
HOW TO WATCH | A recording will be posted shortly.
Save-the-date to join us for a small-group conversation with a fifth-generation Gullah Geechee basketmaker. Sweetgrass basketry, one of the most well-known of Gullah Geechee craft traditions, is an extension of cultural continuity from West African rice cultivation and agriculture. Sweetgrass artistry is prominent in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, where the creativity of the local artisan basketmakers, and the sweetgrass basketmaking tradition has been recognized nationally by the Smithsonian and other institutions for its intrinsic artistic value. Roadside sweetgrass basket stands are the most visible aspect of Gullah Geechee culture displayed along U.S. Highway 17. A portion of the highway was designated as the Sweetgrass Basket Makers Highway in 2006, the same year the sweetgrass basket became South Carolina’s official state craft
