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Emory S. Campbell of Hilton Head Island tried to explain things to the Beaufort County Historical Society meeting Thursday at the Baptist Church of Beaufort.
Campbell is in a position to know about these things that often confuse us "come yahs." That's what the Gullah call newcomers. Almost all of us are come yahs to the Gullah -- the descendants of slaves who were brought by the thousands to the South Carolina and Georgia coastline, in large part to cultivate Carolina Gold rice.
Campbell would know because he's chairman of the Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission. The corridor was designated by Congress in 2006 to preserve and explain one of America's most unique cultures. We live in the heart of the corridor, which stretches from Wilmington, N.C., to Jacksonville, Fla., from the ocean to 30 miles inland. Campbell warned that it needs more money to reach its potential.
Campbell also would know because he was the longtime executive director of Penn Center on St. Helena Island, home of the South's first school for freed slaves. It still works to preserve the Gullah way of life.
Mostly, Campbell knows because he grew up Gullah, he just didn't know it. It was in one of the tightly knit family compounds of farmers, fishermen and craftsmen on an island isolated from the world.
Campbell said that when his older siblings left home to attend Penn School, they came home different. They had been taught to speak proper English.
"I thought I talked funny because I ate rice," Campbell said. "So I stopped eating rice."
Now he would pile his rice high with okra, tomatoes, shrimp and a little bacon gravy too.
Campbell now relishes his Lowcountry and West African culture that was almost deliberately erased. It took him many years to realize that his forebears, his odd language, and even the rice they bought in 100-pound bags, are real Carolina gold.
