The SC Lowcountry Gullah coming out of the shadows and into the mainstream

The 30th Hilton Head Island Gullah Celebration has special reason to celebrate this year.

Throughout this month, it offers many ways to appreciate the visual art, music, food and stories of the culture that runs deeper in the South Carolina Lowcountry than anything but a live oak or two.

Recognition has been slow to come. But it has come, and it is picking up speed.

It’s a big deal that the Hilton Head-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce honored the culture in two big ways this month, showing that efforts to see the unseen are now flowing in the mainstream.

Thomas C. Barnwell Jr., the 90-year-old island native who has for decades been a force for improved health care, workforce housing and Gullah land and historic preservation, was honored with the chamber’s top award at its annual ball on Feb. 7.

The Icon Award recognizes someone who has made an exceptional difference in the lives of others through their outstanding service and impact on the world around them.

And on Feb. 11, a documentary developed by the island Gullah community in partnership with the Chamber premiered at the Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park.

Island native Lola Campbell is the executive producer of “The Spirit We Move With,” along with director Andrew Maguire.

That’s progress.

Think of what was NOT here 30 years ago to recognize and honor the traditionally overlooked Gullah. The Gullah Celebration, created in partnership with the Native Island Business and Community Affairs Association, was started before:

The Gullah Museum of Hilton Head Island was founded in 2003.

The New Testament was translated into Gullah in a 26-year project led by Bible translators and local Gullah volunteers. “De Nyew Testament” was published by the American Bible Society in 2005.

The Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor was established by an act of Congress in 2006.

The National Park Service’s Reconstruction Era National Monument established in Beaufort in 2017 was redesignated as a National Historic Park and opened as the Reconstruction Era National Historical Park in 2019.

The International African American Museum opened in Charleston in 2023.

The Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park on Hilton Head evolved from a dream to a widely supported entity that preserves, documents and teaches the place where freedom began for the enslaved in America.

“Gullah Days: Hilton Head Islanders Before the Bridge 1861-1956” by Carolyn Grant, Emory Campbell, and Thomas C. Barnwell Jr. was published in 2020.

Volunteers at the nonprofit Heritage Library on Hilton Head brought genealogical and historic research to the fore, helping native island families trace family lineage, and document land uses, land ownership and Gullah cemeteries.

The Documentary “Hilton Head Island Back in the Day: Through the Eyes of Gullah Elders” commissioned by the Gullah Museum and produced by Butch and Carrie Hirsch debuted in 2014.

The Barnwell family of Hilton Head commissioned research about and preserved a tabby structure, now known to be the oldest building on the island.

The Cherry Hill School was included in the National Register of Historic Places in 2012 and an historical marker was erected there by the state in 2013.

The Hilton Head Old School Committee erected an historical marker at the site of the Robinson Junior High School building that served the Gullah islanders, and an historical marker was placed near the bridge on Spanish Wells Road named for Gullah icon Charlie Simmons Sr.

The University of South Carolina Beaufort ramped up its study of the Gullah Geechee culture through research, community partnerships and events, to include its Institute for the Study of the Reconstruction Era (ISRE) founded in 2019.

The Voices of El Shaddai community choir formed and received the Jean Laney Harris Folk Heritage Award from the S.C. General Assembly in 2020.

Native islander Louise Cohen received the same award, among many other recognitions, for her storytelling and historical preservation.

The Gullah Kinfolk musical performance group featuring “Miss Pearlie Sue” and dedicated to preserving Sea Island history and dialect was founded by Anita Singleton-Prather in Beaufort in 1999.

Most planned developments on Hilton Head dropped the word “plantation” from their names.

The Hilton Head Island Hall of Fame sponsored by the Rotary Club of Hilton Head and located on the Coastal Discovery Museum grounds honored, to date, Gullah community leaders Charlie Simmons Sr., Thomas C. Barnwell Jr., Emory S. Campbell and Isaac Wilborn.

The Project SAFE initiative involving the town, Hilton Head Public Service District and the Community Foundation of the Lowcountry helped bring sanitary sewer and water service to unserved people and unserved areas.

And the Town of Hilton Head Island, among other things:

Established the Gullah-Geechee Historic Neighborhoods Community Development Corp.

Established the Gullah-Geechee Land and Cultural Preservation Task Force.

Erected large, colorful signs noting historic Gullah neighborhoods.

Amended the Land Management Ordinance to accommodate family compounds and family subdivisions.

Supported the Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park, some of it in conjunction with Beaufort County, to include land acquisition, an annual budget allocation and support for specific projects in the park’s plans.

Added information at the Squire Pope Community Park about the Hilton Head Fishing Cooperative, which was located there, to teach its pivotal role in the 1969-1970 fight to fend off a BASF petrochemical plant that was planned for a site near Bluffton and was seen as a major threat to the local environment.

Planned neighborhood pocket parks commemorating contributions of native families or neighborhoods.

Much more has happened to bring the Lowcountry’s unique story to life.

Thirty years ago, things were happening. We had the Original Gullah Festival founded in 1986 in Beaufort, and the Penn Center Heritage Days Celebration on St. Helena Island.

The Hallelujah Singers founded by Marlena Smalls in Beaufort in 1989 was making national waves. Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor’s “Vibration Cooking, or the Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl” had been published by Doubleday in 1970.

The “Gullah Gullah Island” children’s television series aired on Nick Jr. and hosted by Ron and Natalie Daise, brought a lot of attention to the culture from 1994 to 1998, with reruns through 2000.

And the island celebration was born about the same time Beaufort County native Jonathan Green’s book “Gullah Images: The Art of Jonathan Green” was published.

Maybe nothing else did as much to splash a vibrant new perspective on his culture.

David Lauderdale may be reached at lauderdalecolumn@gmail.com.