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By Veronica D. Gerald
In the days before Interstate 95 made its way down the Atlantic Coast, travelers heading south to the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida often drove along Highway 17, a long rambling roadway that connected hundreds of small towns and hamlets, including the region that has become known as Gullah/Geechee country, home of one of the oldest living cultures in the United States.
Although few travelers wander this corridor today, those who do are greeted by colorful scenes. The outdoors are an intricate part of this culture: Residents line the streets, walking to and from local shops, gathering in groups under trees, meeting on the sidewalks, or sitting on their porches, speaking their unique language, and watching the cars go by. Brightly colored houses-their windows trimmed in blue to keep out evil spirits-cluster together, forming family compounds where multiple generations live in the tradition of their African ancestors. Small restaurants, beauty shops, and funeral homes line the streets, along with humble vegetable stands and craftspeople selling their trademark baskets.
The mixture of mobile, traditional brick, and "shotgun" homes are tucked among ancient, moss-draped oaks that speak in whispers on quiet nights, or so the natives claim. In some areas, cascading tree branches seem to form tunnels over the streets, as if holding hands to shelter those who live beneath them-caretakers of the Gullah story.
John Henrik Clarke, a noted scholar of African and African-American history, once said that the survival of African people away from their ancestral home is "one of the great acts of human endurance in the history of the world," and the Gullah are a shining example of that resilience.
Today, Congress is considering legislation that would recognize this corridor as a historic district, an attempt to highlight and preserve this unique culture. Many believe that this is a long overdue salute to the descendants of slaves who made significant contributions to the growth and development of the region.
In the early 16th century, the Sierra Leone/Liberian coastlines and the Kongo-Angola region supplied the Charleston slave markets with large numbers of Africans. By the mid 1700s, Africans from these regions dominated the slave labor force along what was known as the rice coast. The Gullah people played an important role in rice cultivation in the region. They developed the earliest method of water control and shared their milling techniques, utensils, and knowledge of agronomy with their captors, setting into motion one of the most profitable industries in the history of this country. With nothing more than hand tools, oxen, and their own sweat, Gullah people cleared hundreds of acres of dense forests and built ten- to 12-foot dikes, working among alligators and dangerous snakes, often standing ankle-deep in mud, all to make their owners some of the wealthiest businessmen in pre-Civil War America.
As rice became the cash crop of preference, demand for their labor and know-how increased their numbers so quickly that they soon surpassed the white population, maintaining a black majority in Georgia and South Carolina well into the 20th century. Their relative isolation in these regions, their large numbers, and the absence of strong outside influences solidified and blended their cultures in ways unparalleled by slave communities in other regions.
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