An Intertwining of Cultures: The Missing Link in The African Diaspora The Caribbean played a vital role in the transference of African traditions to the West, due to the families' prior occupation in the Caribbean before Southern colonization. The transformative events across the Atlantic, to the Caribbean Sea, and finally the Southern Coast of the US are all connected to the birth of the Gullah culture. Each transmission led to an adaptation, influenced by the differing landscapes. By presenting architectural, geographical, cultural, and political similarities between the two regions, this project explores the role of the Caribbean in structuring this unique cultural manifestation in the lowcountry. | ||||||
Brer Rabbit: Using the Language of the Sea Islands in Written Form Storytelling is historically an important form of communication on the Sea Islands. Folktale stories, personal stories, musical stories, are all a representation of life, and oral tradition is used to repeat this representation for generations. This project focues on folktales, where the fantastical world becomes an imprint of the real world. The fantasies reflect the life and hardships of the people’s everyday lives, and the dynamic nature of these fantasies reflect the change a culture must undergo. This project takes the story of "Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby", looks at its transformations from its original form, and explores the dynamic nature of the story. It also raises questions regarding the language used to tell folk stories. These questions are critical for the larger debate surrounding Gullah language as a literary form. Is this strictly an aural tradition or should it be captured on page as a form of preservation? | ||||||
The Song that Takes Me Home - The Music of the Sea Islands as a Collection of Memories Gullah music, traditionally performed in Praise houses, with shouts, hand clapping, and feet stomping is rooted in African traditions. Some of the Gullah songs and slave spirituals, as for example "I will overcome", have profoundly influenced songs of the Civil Rights movement. This project explores the uniqueness of Gullah music. By witnessing performances as well as through conversations with performers it tries to understand the meaning of Gullah music both, by looking at the structure of the music itself, as well as the context in which it is performed and for what purpose. | ||||||
The Land Will Remember: Holding onto Property, Passing on History Land and land ownership play an important role in the history of African American communities in the Low Country of South Carolina. Development and tourism act as counter forces and land retention becomes central issue in the civil rights struggle today. Heirs property laws, under which land is being inherited by all the descendants, who then have to agree on its use and future, complicate the picture. Both first and second generation African Americans decide to move back to South Carolina and inhabit the land they own there. This project attempts to unravel a small part of this complex issue and tries to understand what holding on to land means to past and future generations: the memory of the struggle to hold on empowers the next generation to do more than simply hold on. | ||||||
"I am my brother's keeper": The Teachings of Esau Jenkins Kind, committed, visionary, seeker-of-knowledge, fearless - these are just a few words that have been used to describe a man who has uncharacteristically and undeniably changed the lives of all those he came in contact with: Mr. Esau Jenkins, who believed in empowering others so they learned how to empower themselves. Today, his name has become synonymous with Mrs. Septima Clark and their activism during the Civil Rights Movement in galvanizing disenfranchised African-Americans to register to vote in spite of the institutionalized and rampant racism that stood in their way. Over fifty years have passed since the Civil Rights Movement, and the nation has irrefutably changed from what it as once. This project tries to explore Mr. Jenkins' legacy and what it means for youth and education today. | ||||||
More than Living Landmarks: Resources and Values of the Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor The Gullah Geechee National Cultural Heritage Corridor is a unique endeavor to put African American History on the map. It is the first National Heritage area dedicated to African American History. A commission is responsible for the development and implementation of a management plan. Their mission is to make sure a democratic process in which public's input is taken under advisement. The corridor encompasses four states and involves many stakeholders with various concerns. The project seeks to explore how they come together in this effort. | ||||||
Gullah/Geechee Culture and Lowcountry Cooking: An Inseparable and Telling Relationship It is widely accepted today that Gullah/Geechee people have had an immeasurably large influence on Lowcountry cooking. This project examines cookbooks from the area in order to understand the ways that influence has historically been ignored, romanticized, and ultimately celebrated and by whom. Additionally, it attempts to give the reasons that other aspects of the culture--namely literature in the form of memoir, autobiography, and folklore--so often use cookbooks as their forum. | ||||||
Presenting History: Understanding Slavery Through the Lowcountry Plantation Tour The tourism of historical places in the South Carolina Lowcountry has emerged over the last century as one of the regions largest industries. This project centers on the ways in which methods like restoration, preservation, and imagination are used to convey the significance of the past and life on an ante-bellum plantation, particularly for enslaved African-Americans. How do these presentations reflect and inform the way we relate to our past? This question is addressed through an analysis of different presentations of the history of slavery at several Lowcountry plantations, from Boone Hall in South Carolina to the Savannah Wildlife refuge in Georgia. This project attempts to shed more light on what about the plantation era is important and relevant to today and how that legacy is best presented. | ||||||
Swimming With the Fish: The Dilemma of Preserving Music Individuals perform their personal identities, histories, and memories day to day. But how might we analyze this process through a study of the performance of traditional African American music? By looking at how different people connect with music through many and varied embodiments of performance, this project seeks to understand how performances are born through a rehearsed sense of memory, spirituality, and connection to place, which may provide a sense of solidarity for all individuals and groups in some meaningful way. What does performance mean to individuals, and how might their connections to this specific type of performance reveal important notions of self identity, and cultural identity? By juxtaposing the experiences of three performers with sharply different backgrounds -- each one performing traditional African American music -- this project teases out the common ground between them, as well as illuminate the apparent points of difference. | ||||||
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