Dr. Marlena Smalls | |
---|---|
Born | Ohio, U.S. |
Nationality | American |
Marlena Smalls is an American educator and musician of Gullah origin. [1] She is the founder and director of the Hallelujah Singers.
Smalls was born in Ohio to parents from South Carolina, [2] one of their eight children. [3] She attended Central State University in Ohio. [4]
In 1984, Smalls founded the Gullah Festival in Beaufort, South Carolina. [5] Five years later, she formed the Hallelujah Singers to preserve the Gullah culture of the Sea Islands of South Carolina. [4] [6] The group has been designated a Local Legacy of South Carolina by the Library of Congress. [7]
Smalls played the mother of Bubba in Forrest Gump (1994). [4] [8]
She retired from touring and performing in 2024. [9]
After divorcing, Smalls relocated from Dayton, Ohio, [9] to Beaufort, South Carolina, with her six children in 1982. [8] [3] She began working as Arts Coordinator for the City of Beaufort. [9] She and her mother (who grew up in Honea Path, South Carolina) [9] also established the Lowcountry School for Music, where they provided piano and vocals lessons to students in the Beaufort area. They had almost two hundred students in their early years. [3] The parents of some of her students became the original version of the Hallelujah Singers. [1]
Smalls was inducted into the South Carolina Black Hall of Fame in 2004. She received an honorary doctorate from the University of South Carolina. [9]
Beaufort County is a county in the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2020 census, its population was 187,117. Its county seat is Beaufort and its largest community is Hilton Head Island.
Beaufort is a city in and the county seat of Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1711, it is the second-oldest city in South Carolina, behind Charleston. Beaufort is known as the "Queen of the Carolina Sea Islands". The city's population was 13,607 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Hilton Head Island–Bluffton metropolitan area.
The Gullah are an African American ethnic group who predominantly live in the Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida 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 a non-sovereign, elected monarch who serves as Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah Geechee Nation. She is an author, preservationist, and performance artist.
Robert Smalls was an American politician, publisher, businessman and maritime pilot. Born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina, he freed himself, his crew and their families during the American Civil War by commandeering a Confederate transport ship, CSS Planter, in Charleston harbor, on May 13, 1862, and sailing it from the Confederate-controlled waters of the harbor to the U.S. blockade that surrounded it. He then piloted the ship to the Union-controlled enclave in Beaufort–Port Royal–Hilton Head area, where it became a Union warship. His example and persuasion helped convince President Abraham Lincoln to accept African-American soldiers into the Union Army.
Julia Peterkin was an American author from South Carolina. In 1929 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Novel/Literature for her novel Scarlet Sister Mary. She wrote several novels about the plantation South, especially the Gullah people of the Lowcountry. She was one of the few white authors who wrote about the African-American experience.
Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor was an American culinary anthropologist, griot, poet, food writer, and broadcaster on public media. Born into a Gullah family in the Low Country of South Carolina, she moved with them as a child to Philadelphia during the Great Migration. Later she lived in Paris before settling in New York City. She was active in the Black Arts Movement and performed on Broadway.
The history of Beaufort, South Carolina, is one of the most comprehensive and diverse of any community of its size in the United States.
Sallie Ann Robinson is an American cookbook author, celebrity chef, and cultural historian. A native of Daufuskie Island, South Carolina, she is noted for her knowledge of Gullah traditions and history.
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 March 7, 2000. The show was hosted by Ron Daise – now the former 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.
The Reconstruction Era National Historical Park, formerly Reconstruction Era National Monument is a United States National Historical Park in Beaufort County, South Carolina established by President Barack Obama in January 2017 to preserve and commemorate activities during the Reconstruction Era that followed the American Civil War. The monument was the first U.S. National Monument dedicated to the Reconstruction Era. The John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, signed March 12, 2019, by President Donald Trump, re-designated it as a national historical park. It is administered by the National Park Service.
The literature of South Carolina, United States, includes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Representative authors include Dorothy Allison, Daniel Payne and William Gilmore Simms.
Cool John Ferguson is an American blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He has released five albums under his own name and played on around twenty others. He is the Director of Creative Development for the Music Maker Relief Foundation, and plays his guitar "upside down".
Ranky Tanky is an American musical ensemble based in Charleston, South Carolina. It specializes in jazz-influenced arrangements of traditional Gullah music, a culture that originated among descendants of enslaved Africans in the Lowcountry region of the US Southeast. Apart from lead vocalist Quiana Parler, four of the group's members, Quentin Baxter, Kevin Hamilton, Clay Ross, and Charlton Singleton, previously played together in the Charleston jazz quartet The Gradual Lean in the late 1990s.
Haint blue is a collection of pale shades of blue-green that are traditionally used to paint porch ceilings in the Southern United States. Hex #D1EAEB is a popular shade of haint blue.
Rachel Crane Rich Mather established the Mather School for daughters of freed slaves in 1867 in South Carolina. The school eventually became the Technical College of the Lowcountry.
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.
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