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Gullah Culture ‘Hangs On’ at Weekend Institute in Denver
By Dominique Johnson
Jul 5, 2007, 04:25

DENVER
The “Mile High City” may be considered an unlikely location to hold a conference on Gullah culture, but more than 100 scholars, students and local residents came together last weekend to participate in the First Annual Gullah Studies Institute, sponsored by Metropolitan State College of Denver and spearheaded by Jacquelyn Benton, visiting assistant professor in the African and African-American Studies Department at MSCD.

The Institute, themed “The Water Brought Us: Gullah History & Culture,” was in response to an overwhelming interest expressed in the Gullah/Geechee people after Benton, who has researched Gullah culture for more than 10 years, took a group of students from MSCD and the University of Colorado to St. Helena Island off the coast of South Carolina.

“People were transformed by the richness of that island, the culture, and the people who live there,” says Benton, who also serves as director of student services and community outreach at MSCD. “When we got back to Denver virtually everybody that went said they wanted to go again…and soon!”

One Metro State student, Lashanta Ase, who came to appreciate the richness of Geechee culture while on that trip, was so affected by her experiences on St. Helena that she returned to Denver and began making plans to move back to the islands permanently. And less than a year later she did just that. 

As word about the 2005 trip spread, people began to inquire about going on the next trip. And so last year, Metro State students, as well as 25 Denver-area residents, traveled to St. Helena and participated in the Penn Center’s annual Heritage Days Festival. Participants said that they were deeply moved by the experience and the knowledge they acquired on the trip, but were regretful that the conversations they had and connections they made were not available to others back in Denver. As a result, Benton responded by laying the groundwork for an opportunity for purveyors of Gullah culture to come to Colorado and share the abundance of that culture with people who may not have the opportunity to travel to the Sea Islands.

The Institute opened with Gullah storyteller and entertainer Ron Daise, known for his work on the television show for young people, “Gullah Gullah Island.” Joseph A. Opala, a history professor at James Madison University, followed with a lecture on the connection between Africans brought to the Sea Islands off the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, and Africans in Sierra Leone.

The second day was replete with workshops, presentations and crafts. Participants, many of whom were educators, and students from elementary to post-secondary, were presented with a wide lens of history that included a presentation on the Black Seminoles and Gullah freedom fighters who waged a war against the United States to establish “Negro forts” and free zones in the late 1800s. 

The Institute also provided opportunities for participants to learn about the Gullah language, which is a hybrid of English and African languages, the food, and the customs, that, according to noted historian Emory Campbell, a fourth-generation Gullah family member and former executive director of the Penn Center on St. Helena Island, “seem to hang on.”

Despite historical deletions and misrepresentations, Gullah culture does hangs on. It shows up in the sweet grass baskets that are endemic to the culture, which participants learned how to make under the guidance of Henrietta Snype, Gullah artisan and basket weaver, who learned to make the baskets from her grandmother and who is now teaching the art to her granddaughter.

The Institute concluded with a Sunday morning service at Park Hill United Methodist Church with readings from The New Testament in the Gullah language and impromptu performances by storytellers and musicians alike.

Organizer Benton says Opala summed up the event best.

“Outside the low country, there has never been this many Gullah people in one place at one time,” Opala said.

Indeed, Gullah culture hangs on, and plans for next year’s Gullah Institute are already underway.

- Dominique Johnson