Emory Campbell is a community leader among the Gullah people , African Americans who live in the coastal low country region of South Carolina and Georgia. The Gullahs have preserved more of their African linguistic and cultural heritage than any other black community in the US. [1]
Campbell was born and raised on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina before that island — now an internationally famous resort area — was connected to the mainland by a bridge. When he went to high school on the mainland in the 1950s, he discovered that his Gullah language was so "deep" that even his African American teachers had trouble understanding him and the other children from the islands. Campbell would later earn a bachelor's degree in biology from Savannah State University and a master's degree in environmental engineering from Tufts University in Boston. [2] Throughout his adult life he has been a peacemaker within his community and a bridge-builder between the Gullahs and the outside world.
Campbell began his career in the 1970s as a community development activist, working to implement public health measures in impoverished rural areas and to preserve traditional Gullah communities threatened by out-of-control resort development on the sea islands. Later, as the Executive Director of Penn Center, Inc. on St. Helena Island, South Carolina Campbell helped lead the movement to preserve Gullah culture and make Gullah people in the rural areas more aware of the importance of their uniquely rich African cultural heritage. Campbell was a member of the committee that translated the New Testament into the Gullah language.
Beginning in the 1980s, Campbell helped spearhead the efforts to reestablish the family connection between the Gullah people and the West African nation of Sierra Leone. [3] Campbell hosted Sierra Leone's President Joseph Saidu Momoh for the "Gullah Reunion" at Penn Center in 1988, and led the historic "Gullah Homecoming" to Sierra Leone in 1989. These events took place in the capital, Freetown, and the Mende village of Taiama. [3] The Sierra Leoneans made Campbell an honorary paramount chief with the royal title of Kpaa Kori I. These events are chronicled in the South Carolina Educational Television documentary video "Family Across the Sea" (1990).
In 2005, Campbell received the Carter G. Woodson Memorial Award from the National Education Association for his lifelong work preserving Gullah heritage, the environment, and improving the Gullah community's living conditions.
In 2008 Mr. Campbell was elected Chairman of the Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission, an organization empowered by the U.S. Congress to develop a program to commemorate Gullah culture in the low country region from Wilmington, North Carolina to Jacksonville, Florida.
Campbell is author of Gullah Cultural Legacies (2008), a synopsis of Gullah traditions, customary beliefs, art forms and speech. Campbell is the director of Gullah Heritage Consulting Services based on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, and he manages the Gullah Heritage Trail Tours on Hilton Head.
Gullah is a creole language spoken by the Gullah people, an African-American population living in coastal regions of South Carolina and Georgia as well as extreme northeastern Florida and the extreme southeast of North Carolina.
Pin Point is an unincorporated community in Chatham County, Georgia, United States; it is located 11 miles (18 km) southeast of Savannah and is part of the Savannah Metropolitan Statistical Area. Pin Point is 1 mi (1.6 km) wide and 1.6 mi (2.6 km) long, and lies 13 feet above sea level. The town is best known as the birthplace of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and for its longstanding Gullah-speaking community.
The Gullah are an African American ethnic group who predominantly live in the Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, within the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. Their language and culture have preserved a significant influence of Africanisms as a result of their historical geographic isolation and the community's relation to their shared history and identity.
St. Helena Island is a Sea Island in Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States. The island is connected to Beaufort by U.S. Highway 21. The island has a land area of about 64 sq mi (170 km2) and a population of 8,763 as of the 2010 census. It is included as part of the Hilton Head Island-Beaufort Micropolitan Area. The island is renowned for its rural Lowcountry character and being a major center of African-American Gullah culture and language. It is considered to be the geographic influence behind the children's television program Gullah Gullah Island.
Daufuskie Island, located between Hilton Head Island and Savannah, is the southernmost inhabited sea island in South Carolina. It is 5 miles (8 km) long by almost 2.5 miles (4.0 km) wide – approximate surface area of 8 square miles (21 km2). With over 3 miles (5 km) of beachfront, Daufuskie is surrounded by the waters of Calibogue Sound, the Intracoastal Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean. It was listed as a census-designated place in the 2020 census with a population of 557.
The Lowcountry is a geographic and cultural region along South Carolina's coast, including the Sea Islands. The region includes significant salt marshes and other coastal waterways, making it an important source of biodiversity in South Carolina.
Marquetta L. Goodwine is an author, preservationist, and performance artist who serves as Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation.
Atlantic Creole is a cultural identifier of those with origins in the transatlantic settlement of the Americas via Europe and Africa.
McLeod Plantation is a former slave plantation located on James Island, South Carolina, near the intersection of Folly and Maybank roads at Wappoo Creek, which flows into the Ashley River. The plantation is considered an important Gullah heritage site, preserved in recognition of its cultural and historical significance to African-American and European-American cultures.
Joseph A. Opala, OR is an American historian noted for establishing the "Gullah Connection," the historical links between the indigenous people of the West African nation of Sierra Leone and the Gullah people of the Low Country region of South Carolina and Georgia in the United States.
The Penn Center, formerly the Penn School, is an African-American cultural and educational center in the Corners Community, on Saint Helena Island. Founded in 1862 by Quaker and Unitarian missionaries from Pennsylvania, it was the first school founded in the Southern United States specifically for the education of African-Americans. It provided critical educational facilities to Gullah slaves freed after plantation owners fled the island, and continues to fulfill an educational mission. Leigh Richmond Miner photographed students and activities at the school.
Sierra Leonean Americans are an ethnic group of Americans of full or partial Sierra Leonean ancestry. This includes Sierra Leone Creoles whose ancestors were African American Black Loyalists freed after fighting on the side of the British during the American Revolutionary War. Some African Americans trace their roots to indigenous enslaved Sierra Leoneans exported to the United States between the 18th and early 19th century. In particular, the Gullah people of partial Sierra Leonean ancestry, fled their owners and settled in parts of South Carolina, Georgia, and the Sea Islands, where they still retain their cultural heritage. The first wave of Sierra Leoneans to the United States, after the slavery period, was after the Sierra Leone Civil War in the 1990s and early 2000s. According to the American Community Survey, there are 34,161 Sierra Leonean immigrants living in the United States.
The Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor is a federal National Heritage Area in the United States, representing the significant story of the Gullah-Geechee people for maintaining their cultural traditions, and for being a reflection of the values of ingenuity, pride, and perseverance. The intent of the designation is to help us to preserve and interpret the traditional cultural practices, sites, and resources associated with Gullah-Geechee people. Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, and the federal Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission established to oversee it, were designated by an act of Congress on October 12, 2006 through the National Heritage Areas Act of 2006.
Sea Island red pea is an heirloom landrace of cowpea from the Gullah corridor of the Sea Islands. They are an integral part of Gullah cuisine and have been listed on the Ark of Taste.
Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo is a 1982 novel written by Ntozake Shange and first published by St. Martin's Press. The novel, which took eight years to complete, is a story of three Black sisters, whose names give the book its title, and their mother. The family is based in Charleston, South Carolina, and their trade is to spin, weave, and dye cloth; unsurprisingly, this tactile creativity informs the lives of the main characters as well as the style of the writing. Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo integrates the whole of an earlier work by Shange called simply Sassafrass, published in 1977 by Shameless Hussy Press. As is common in Shange's work, the narrative is peppered with interludes that come in the form of letters, recipes, dream stories and journal entries, which provide a more intimate approach to each woman's journey toward self-realization and fulfillment. The book deals with several major themes, including Gullah/Geechee culture, women in the arts, the Black Arts Movement, and spirituality, among many others.
Gullah Gullah Island is an American musical children's television series that was produced by and aired on the Nick Jr. programming block on the Nickelodeon network from October 24, 1994, to April 7, 1998. The show was hosted by Ron Daise - now the vice president for Creative Education at Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina - and his wife Natalie Daise, both of whom also served as cultural advisors, and were inspired by the Gullah culture of Ron Daise's home of St. Helena Island, South Carolina, part of the Sea Islands.
Hog Hammock is an African-American community on Sapelo Island, a barrier island of the U.S. state of Georgia.
Cornelia Walker Bailey was a storyteller, writer, and historian who worked to preserve the Geechee-Gullah culture of Sapelo Island, Georgia.
Griffin Lotson is an African-American historian, born in Crescent, Georgia. He is a seventh-generation Gullah Geechee. He serves as a councilman and the mayor pro-tem in Darien, Georgia. He also manages the Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters. He is the national Federal Government vice-chairman and former treasurer of the federal Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission.
The Gullah are African Americans who live in the Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, in both the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. They developed a creole language, also called Gullah, and a culture with some African influence.