The Gullah are a subgroup of the 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.
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.
Ntozake Shange was an American playwright and poet. As a Black feminist, she addressed issues relating to race and Black power in much of her work. She is best known for her Obie Award–winning play, for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (1975). She also penned novels including Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo (1982), Liliane (1994), and Betsey Brown (1985), about an African-American girl run away from home.
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.
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.
for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf is a 1976 work by Ntozake Shange. It consists of a series of poetic monologues to be accompanied by dance movements and music, a form which Shange coined the word choreopoem to describe. It tells the stories of seven women who have suffered oppression in a racist and sexist society.
A choreopoem is a form of dramatic expression that combines poetry, dance, music, and song. The term was first coined in 1975 by American writer Ntozake Shange in a description of her work, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf. Shange's attempt to depart from traditional western poetry and storytelling resulted in a new art form that doesn't contain specific plot elements or characters, but instead focuses on creating an emotional response from the audience. In Shange's work, nontraditional spelling and African American Vernacular English are aspects of this genre that differ from traditional American literature. She emphasizes the importance of movement and nonverbal communication throughout the choreopoem so that it is able to function as a theatrical piece rather than being limited to poetry or dance.
Thulani Davis is an American playwright, journalist, librettist, novelist, poet, and screenwriter. She is a graduate of Barnard College and attended graduate school at both the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.
spell #7, or spell #7: geechee jibara quik magic trance manual for technologically stressed third world people, is a choreopoem written for the stage by Ntozake Shange and first performed in 1979.
nappy edges is a collection of poetry and prose poetry written by Ntozake Shange and first published by St. Martin's Press in 1978. The poems, which vary in voice and style, explore themes of love, racism, sexism, and loneliness. Shange's third book of poetry, nappy edges, was met with positive reviews and praise from critics, like Holly Prado of the Los Angeles Times who said of it that "this collection of poems, prose poems and poetic essays merges personal passion and heightened language."
Dianne McIntyre is an American dancer, choreographer, and teacher. Her notable works include Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Dance Adventure in Southern Blues , an adaptation of Zora Neal Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, as well as productions of why i had to dance,spell #7, and for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf, with text by Ntozake Shange. She has won numerous honors for her work including an Emmy nomination, three Bessie Awards, and a Helen Hayes Award. She is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and the Dramatists Guild of America.
lost in language & sound: or how i found my way to the arts: essays (2011) is a collection of 25 personal essays written by Ntozake Shange. Explored in the collection are topics such as racism, sexism, jazz, dance, and writing. The essays function as autobiography, music and literary criticism, and social critique. While some pieces were written specifically for the collection, many were written over the span of over 30 years.
Liliane: Resurrection of The Daughter is a novel by Ntozake Shange. It was originally published by St. Martin's Press in 1994. The novel tells the coming-of-age story of a young Black woman, Liliane Parnell, through the numerous voices of childhood friends, family, lovers, acquaintances, conversations between Liliane and her psychoanalyst, and Liliane herself. Liliane is the daughter of a wealthy and prominent African-American judge, Lincoln Parnell, and his beautiful wife Sunday Bliss Parnell who is working towards reconciling her life as an artist in the present with both the secrets and the expectations of class ascendance from her family's past.
if i can cook / you know god can is a culinary memoir by Ntozake Shange. It was originally published by Beacon Press, in Boston MA, United States, in 1998. The piece is both memoir and cookbook. Short essays precede recipes written in personal vernacular, and these recipes cover locations such as Cuba, Nicaragua, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and the United States.
Cornelia Walker Bailey was a storyteller, writer, and historian who worked to preserve the Geechee-Gullah culture of Sapelo Island, Georgia.
Black lesbian literature is a subgenre of lesbian literature and African American literature that focuses on the experiences of black women who identify as lesbians. The genre features poetry and fiction about black lesbian characters as well as non-fiction essays which address issues faced by black lesbians. Prominent figures within the genre include Ann Allen Shockley, Audre Lorde, Cheryl Clarke, and Barbara Smith.
Margaret Rose Vendryes was a visual artist, curator, and art historian based in New York.
Emily Meggett was an American Geechee-Gullah community leader, chef, and author who co-wrote Gullah Geechee Home Cooking: Recipes from the Matriarch of Edisto Island in 2022. She lived on Edisto Island, near Charleston, South Carolina.
Benjamin "BJ" Dennis IV is an American Gullah Geechee chef and caterer from Charleston, South Carolina who is known for preserving Gullah Geechee cooking and culture. Additionally, he is also notable for his discovery of hill rice in December 2016 in Trinidad, which was thought to have been extinct.
Mecca Jamilah Sullivan is an American writer and professor, best known for her debut novel Big Girl (2022). Her short story collection Blue Talk & Love received the 2018 Judith A. Markowitz Award for emerging LGBTQ writers from Lambda Literary. Sullivan is currently an associate professor of English at Georgetown University, where she teaches courses in African-American poetry, Black queer and feminist literature, and creative writing.
