Use Your Senses
Exploring Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage down on the
Carolina coast
Dating back to the mid-1700s
when West Africans were
enslaved on the barrier islands
SUMMER 2021 | LAKE OCONEE LIVING 71
DSTORY BY JUDY GARRISON
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SEEING SOUTHERN
| backyard traveler |
and coastal plantations along the eastern
coastline of the United States, the Gullah
(islanders of the Carolinas) Geechee (islanders
of Georgia/Florida) brought with them
traditions and skills from Liberia, Ghana,
Angola, and Sierra Leone. The culture—
rich in language, food and art— can still be
found along the coast.
If you don’t visit this stretch of land, you’ll
miss the story of haints, ghosts or restless
spirits roaming free. And those painted
blue windows and porch ceilings that scare
away those spirits. And the sweetgrass
baskets with the scent of palms and earth.
And the fried okra and pork chops so thick
with crust it will make your jaws tired from
crunching. Or walk into tiny clapboard
praise houses where those enslaved once
worshipped. And the tabby remains of the
Chapel of Ease built in the mid-1700s. And
see where people fought for civil rights
when equality was only a dream. Or the
beautiful blue of indigo brought from West
and Central Africa.
Unless you travel the 400-mile Gullah
Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, which
runs from Wilmington, North Carolina, to
Jacksonville, Florida, chances are, you will
likely miss its wealth of history and culture
that has shaped much of who and what we
are today.
Learn the story
In a grove of live oaks on St. Helena Island
sits the campus of Penn Center, one of the
country’s first schools for former slaves.
Classes were first held at the adjacent Brick
Baptist Church on Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr Drive on St. Helena Island in 1862 until
additional land was purchased across the
road where Penn School would eventually
be erected in 1865. After a multitude of
adversities— including financial hardships,
changing political climate, and questionable
mainland access—Penn School became
Penn Center and began training midwives
and providing community health care.
Considered the epicenter of the Gullah
Geechee people and Civil Rights, Penn
Center is where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
stayed (Gantt Cottage) and began scripting
his “I Have a Dream” speech. He returned
across the street to Brick Baptist Church,
built by slaves in 1855 for white plantation