My latest novel, Revelation on the Sea Island, involves a exploration of Gullah roots in the American South. To write this book, my husband and I traveled to the South twice, visiting Black heritage sites in Georgia, South and North Carolina. I went to learn about the past, and the people of the present.
I am a beginner. I am not an expert on Gullah culture, but I’m glad I’m learning. Although I studied American history in public school, and later became certified to teach American history, grades 6-12, I would say my understanding of the plantation system, the Jim Crow laws and the new Jim Crow laws have been a slow awakening for me. I would not say I am “woke”, but I am awakening and I think it’s an important part of my journey as a child of God.
I do want to applaud the many tourist sites in the South that have helped teach me. Quite a few years ago, I visited Brookgreen Gardens, with some friends who liked to spend a month at Myrtle Beach every winter. This remarkable place includes the land of four plantations. Anna and Hyatt Huntington of New York purchased the property, when Anna’s doctor recommended she spend time near the sea. They were determined to turn the former slave plantations into a place of beauty, employing local Gullah people, and telling the truth about the days of slavery. As a sculptress, Anna’s vision included an outdoor sculpture garden, now one of the largest in the country. Their house, built on the beach, Atalaya, is designed of Scottish moor, She kept live animals on the property, and her studio provided areas where they could live and be live models for her.
I remember being so impressed with their ingenuity and their creativity, starting this venture when they were both in their 50s. At the time, it gave me hope I could do more creative ventures as I aged. I loved walking through their gardens in February and see spring coming, several months before it would come back home in Ohio.
And then, I went to a presentation by Ronald Daise, their creative director at the time. He was once an actor on a Nickelodeon program, “Gullah, Gullah Land” about the Gullah people. He became the Director of Creative Education at Brookgreen. In a game show format, he taught us about the Gullah Geechee people, the enslaved Africans, kidnapped and brought to the sea islands. They already knew how to cultivate rice in the marshes of the South, so similar to their native land of Africa. He awakened in me a desire to learn more. I remember purchasing an artistic rendition of a Gullah woman and framing it for a friend, keeping a photo for myself. Daise has since retired, but he left his mark in the educational programs there.
And the seeds planted by Ron’s presentation continued to grow in me. A few years later, I aspired to write about the Gullah people. The MAMs (The Magnificent and Marvelous Book Club) who starred in my first novel, Revelation in the Cave (2012), started recovery/re-entry group homes in my second novel, Revelation at the Labyrinth (eLectio Publishing, 2017), In their next adventures, I decided to explore genealogy and DNA, and they discovered that some of the MAMs and their group home members had a variety of ethnic DNA. The fictitious MAMs wrote a grant to take their recovery individuals to the lands of their DNA. This led to Revelation in the Roots: Emerald Isle (All Things that Matter Press, 2022), an exploration of Ireland and their Irish roots, and then to my new novel Revelation on the Sea Island (All Things that Matter Press, 2025) exploring their Gullah/African DNA.
We visited Georgia, exploring the various tourist sites, with an eye to learning about Black history. We learned from a “Journey by Faith” Black history walking tour in downtown Savannah, seeing the places of the slave trade and hearing harrowing accounts of life for the early enslaved people. Visiting the auction building, the holding cell by the port, described as a place where grain was stored, where in fact, Africans were held with little ventilation or sanitation, makes the story come alive.
Near Savannah, we visited the Pin Point Museum, a place that free Blacks worked in the early days after emancipation, etching a good life for themselves in their Pin Point community, where many were able to purchase coastal land, unwanted by the plantation owners in the days after slavery.
From there, we landed on Hilton Head Island. Although this has become quite an upscale and expensive tourist attraction, it also still includes Gullah heritage sites. There, we enjoyed a Gullah Heritage tour, led by the Campbell family, descended from the Gullah people. It’s quite remarkable to see the Gullah neighborhoods that have survived and thrived, in spite of widespread development. We visited the site of Mitchelville, an early settlement of freed people, and also visited the Coastal Museum, as well as a sunset cruise, imagining life for the early Gullah residents there.
We learned that after slavery, before bridges and development, the Gullah culture thrived, as it did during slavery. Island life, removed from the mainland, provided a place for the Africans to maintain their culture. They continued speaking their native language, enjoying traditional food and social traditions, practicing spirituality, and making music in ways learned in their homeland.
In Charleston, South Carolina, we visited the Angel Oak, once part of a plantation, as well as went on a Gullah bus tour of the town, learning about the influences of Gullah culture and art on Charleston. Near Charleston, we visited the Boone Hall Plantation, which also told the story of the early Gullah people. And also, Cypress Gardens in Monck Corners. Most of these plantations have been turned into gardens, but also tell the story of the enslaved people who once lived there.
Our final stop on our way back north was Wilmington, NC, the northmost part of the Gullah Sea Island Corridor, which extends south to Florida. Here the freed Blacks thrived in the late 1800s, with their own newspaper and professional people, until the whites burned their houses and businesses down in 1898. Learning about the violence they faced and discrimination with Jim Crow laws, keeping them from full citizenship, is very disturbing to me.
The discrimination didn’t stop after the Civil rights movement. What has been called the New Jim Crow has incarcerated more Blacks that were once enslaved in a very intentional political movement. It is for that reason that I wanted to write about the Sea Islands and the Gullah people. I want to lift up the history of hatred and discrimination that has affected them. I also want to lift up the gifts of their culture that ripples into American life in so many ways.
I offer Revelation on the Sea Island, hoping that it will encourage others to visit and learn, and celebrate the Gullah culture and the African Americans among us.