Dec. 07, 2003

Threatened by change, Gullah fighting to preserve their culture
BY AUDRA D.S. BURCH
Knight Ridder Newspapers

ST. HELENA'S ISLAND, S.C. - (KRT) - In the dusk of a late summer evening, James Bradley leans over the battered gunwales of his trawler and scoops his livelihood from the salty shadows of the Atlantic Ocean with a casting net big enough to catch the world.

He says little about this familiar and seasoned method of doing business, the bitter hours that rarely deliver time to sit for a spell, the Gullah way from which much of his life is carved, or his place in one of America's most distinct cultural landscapes.

"People say we talk funny," he says. "People say we live off the land and sea. But this is my culture. It's all I know. It's worth saving."

So in November, the National Park Service released a report on its first study of the Gullah, important because it is the first step toward establishing how the culture should be preserved with congressional support. This is only the second time a federal agency has measured the national significance of a people rather than a place.

As a Gullah (or Geechee in some regions), Bradley is a direct descendant of residents of West Africa's Rice Coast, his people first brought here as slaves to work the fertile coastal crescent from Florida to North Carolina.

For some 300 years, the Gullah have nestled in these low-lying pockets. They have lived simply, farming, fishing, roaming the land, speaking a lilted language, handcrafting sweet-grass baskets and intricate casting nets, far, far away from the rest of the world.

Once upon a time, the lack of bridges left this culture largely unspoiled, pure in its motherland influences - and in that way, embodying the missing link of Africa in African Americans more than any other place in the nation.

That way of life is threatened, mostly by its own haunting beauty and water view. Development of hotels and resorts, rising taxes, ancestral-land sales, aging natives and a bleak economic outlook for those still left - they all make the Gullah vulnerable to change and, in some cases, up for sale.

But not without a fight. The littlest moves - a meeting here, a call for action there - have become the backbone of a rising movement to save the Gullah and their cultural memory.

The Park Service study, conducted over three years, recommends establishing three Gullah cultural centers - two in South Carolina and one in Georgia. It also calls for creating a Gullah National Heritage Area, designed to celebrate their legacy. Another option involves adding Gullah features to existing parks or centers. Congress will review the study next year.

There is also Queen Quet (Marquetta Goodwine), the chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee nation, who spends considerable time touring the island, educating visitors on the community's ways. She says she is looking for something more meaningful than, say, a historic designation.

Almost any land or tradition still intact after 250 years is historic. Instead, she and others have waged a campaign to grant the community and its people the same protective status as American Indians and to look for ways to lift the fortunes and spirits of the island.

"Finally, the world is starting to see our culture; they are starting to respect it," says Goodwine, who spoke to a United Nations committee in Geneva three years ago about the threat of development.
"The key now is for us to be in control of our future, to be the ones to determine the legacy of the community."

Once the right preservation measures are in place, state leaders are also hoping to market the Gullah, mostly through heritage tourism. The Gullah have already plopped into pop culture through Pat Conroy's novels, countless movies and their most famous native son, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Now, the idea is to build from that foundation.

"It's critical that we get in touch with all of South Carolina's heritage," says U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., who requested the Park Service study. "You drive down the highways and see bumper stickers with the Confederate battle flag. There is more to our history than that. There is the Gullah, this special culture that we need to recognize and preserve."

Such efforts are urgent in the pantheon of preservation efforts - before the Gullah fade, lost to modernity and moneyed golf courses and resorts. In the last decade, the coastal areas in South Carolina were the fastest growing in the state. Beaufort County, which includes St. Helena's Island, had the greatest jump of all. Hilton Head Island, with its affluent resorts and golf courses, is also part of Beaufort County. The lesson of Hilton Head looms large in the Gullah community.

Until 1956, Hilton Head was accessible only by ferry. It had a population in the hundreds, mostly Gullah, but since the bridge to the mainland opened, almost 50,000 residents have moved in, bringing dozens of golf courses, resorts and condos. The 12-mile island is almost built out, which makes the surrounding coastal hamlets all the more desirable.

The Gullah community is beautiful in its simplicity. Long, fickle roads run through the island, shouldered by errant crops and modest homes and the occasional storefront. The people are friendly, in a cautious way. So many outsiders have come here with slick talk and big dreams. Or they have come looking for the magazine descriptions of people who seem just a little quirky, folk who leave old water pitchers on the graves, because the dead are thirsty, too. The people grew tired of the questions and cameras long ago.
"People come here looking for ghost stories," Goodwine says. "They come here looking for a place that functions without electricity and running water. It's offensive."

There's a line of sorts running north from the St. Johns River in North Florida all the way to the Cape Fear River in North Carolina, where the air turns salty, the language dances from English to Gullah and potatoes become rice.

On the hottest day of the summer, Vera Manigault is unfazed by a sun that rose too early and undistracted by the cars that zoom by, the dust that whooshes from their speed. Making magic from the wisps of sea grass and longleaf pine needles, weaving the baskets: This Gullah tradition has been her life since she was just a baby girl. It was passed down from her mother, who learned it from her mother, and so on back to the slaves who delivered this art to the Low Country.

She sells the baskets, magnificent in intricacy and hue, from a roadside stand in the shadow of a Presbyterian church on U.S. 17 in nearby Mount Pleasant.

"I was taught how to do this as a toddler, along with good manners and doing right," says Manigault, 55.
She says her livelihood is as much about heritage and the nimble hand that reaches back to West Africa as the skills required to do it.

"When I was a kid, I really didn't go out and play," she recalls. "I was inside, learning the art of basket-weaving because that was our culture. People used to laugh at the way we talked; they made us ashamed of who we were. Now, that is finally starting to change."

Those who study the history of humans often compare the Gullah story to that of the Cajuns (first referred to as Acadians) of Southern Louisiana. In the 18th and 19th centuries, both groups were stripped of their homelands and forced to live in isolated patches. From these bleak conditions, they bore rich cultures that faced the threat of extinction, and both got support from the Park Service.

Because of the Gullah's low profile, their exact numbers are difficult to determine. Estimates range from 200,000 to 750,000. Much of the population is concentrated between Charleston, S.C., and Savannah, Ga. - where the original indigo, rice and cotton plantations flourished. Isolation bred distinct cultural differences from the mainland, including creolized language, an engaging blend of vintage French, English and African dialects - first spoken as the slaves' second language.

For the three years of the Park Service's Low Country Gullah Geechee Special Resource Study, Cynthia Porcher shuttled between Charleston and the Gullah communities along the coast and 30 miles inland.
"My first thoughts were how are we going to take our white faces in here and have any kind of success, but I found out we were very welcomed," says Porcher, the study's field investigator. "We also found out the community was working to save itself, but they were working with little time and resources."

It's not that Porcher didn't know about the Gullah; it's just that few spend enough time to grasp the quiet depth and resilience of the people.

"This is a not a piece of land or building that you look at and decide if it should be saved," she says. "It's a living, breathing place that is trying to move forward. We found ourselves doing a lot of watching and listening. You walked away with a better understanding and an appreciation that their connection to the land cannot be denied."

Ezekiel Johnson, a proud third-generation Gullah, rises well before the temperature. Too early to know the time for sure. Without benefit of a cup of coffee, he heads straight for his two-acre okra farm, just steps behind his house on Storyteller Road. With the rhythm of time, he picks and plucks and plops the okra into a bucket hoisted onto his shoulder until it is full. Until he has 30 pounds that he can sell for $22.

"This isn't easy living, but I own the land," says Johnson, a former truck driver. "My father worked hard to keep this land, and I am not selling it. Everybody keeps coming in here talking about buying up the property, but if we sell, what will we give back to our Gullah children?"
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THE GULLAH
_The Gullah people are direct descendants of slaves brought from West Africa to work the coastal lands from Florida to North Carolina.
_Over the years, the community has been threatened by development. Congress next year will review a National Park Service report on how to preserve the Gullah culture.
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© 2003, The Miami Herald.