THE FOUR SIERRA LEONE - GULLAH HOMECOMINGS

An introduction of the symposium, agenda, and an overview of the Homecomings will set the tone for a better understanding of the discussions. Each of these four homecomings to Sierra Leone is unique in its own way and contextualizing them gives a clear understanding of each event.

PHOTO: Depicts the transfer from Sierra Leone to SC, GA, and FL. The red shows the Black Seminoles’; and the green, Black Loyalists’ routes. Credit Joseph Opala and his students at James Madison University.

In 1988, President Momoh of Sierra Leone visited Penn Center, a Gullah Geechee community on Saint Helena Island, SC. Having learned about the similarities in culture, language and diet even, Momoh saw it fit to visit them. He was hosted by Emory Campbell who was the Director of Penn Center at the time. Momoh invited the Gullah Geechees to visit. Emory Campbell will reflect on that day and especially what it meant to him to host a sitting President of an African country visiting Penn Center based on family connections alone. More importantly, what that meant to the Gullah Geechee people.

PHOTO: President Joseph Saidu Momoh who became the first African President to visit the Gullah Geechees based on their family ties alone. It had a lot to do with renewed energy among Gullah Geechees.

When Emory Campbell led the Gullah Homecoming to Sierra Leone in 1989 it happened to be the first time Sierra Leoneans were experiencing a group of Gullah Geechees to who they have been told they were related. People followed them everywhere around the country and it became a national sensation. SCETV in Columbia, South Carolina, followed this visit to Sierra Leone and documented “Family Across the Sea.” One of their best-selling documentary films in history. Four of the participants on that ground-breaking trip will share their experiences; first-hand.

PHOTO: The first Gullah Geechees to visit Sierra Leone/Africa on a homecoming trip poured libation to their common ancestors at Bunce Island (1989).

The 2nd Gullah Homecoming to Sierra Leone was based on a song in the Mende language Linguist Lorenzo Turner had recorded a Harris Neck, GA, woman, Amelia Dawley, who sang the song in 1937. In 1997, sixty years later, Mary Moran, Amelia’s daughter, who could still sing the song, visited Sierra Leone and went to the very specific village in which the song was originally from. That five-line song historians have claimed, is the longest text preserved in an African language by a black family of slavery origin. A documentary film named “The Language You Cry In” illustrates this amazing story and visit.

PHOTO: Mary Moran and her granddaughter sing the “Awaka” song. As Baindu Jabati, whose family had the song, listens keenly as you can see in the film “The Language You Cry In” too. Was she listening for accuracy?

After the first few sessions, the audience would have learned how all of this started and what happened in those original stages thirty-odd years ago. At first Sierra Leoneans were impressed with the Gullah Homecoming. But shortly after that they would stop Joseph Opala, who was key in planning the first one; if he could find a specific family that may have come from Sierra Leone? Well, as it turned out there was a family with clear roots to Sierra Leone. And that was discovered through language. “You know a people by the language they cry in.” A discussion around the subject matter as shown in the subtitle of this symposium will take us to a 30-minute break!

PHOTO: Gullahs and Sierra Leoneans at Old Yagala, where the Limba people of modern-day Sierra Leone showed resistance by moving their village atop a mesa that could give them sight for a distance. (2019)

During the Next Step Homecoming, we made a stop at a village in Sierra Leone called Rogbonko. It is known historically to be the only place in the country where these “shuku blays” (pronounced shook-ooh-blyze) are made. They are coiled baskets like the sweetgrass baskets and yes they “sew” them.

Nakia Wigfall, a 5th generation Sweetgrass basket maker from Mount Pleasant, SC took a “starter” basket already started…she will reveal the finished product at this event.

PHOTO: Showing is an unfinished version of the basket that has become the world’s first Transatlantic Sweetgrass basket. It will be displayed at the event.

At this point, two hours into the event we will take a break. Those who have paid for their lunch packages can pick them up in the student lobby which is reserved just for that purpose. We regret to announce that eating in the Auditorium is forbidden. We will take 30 minutes for “lunch” and another 5 minutes to reconvene. We will get into the second half of the program by listening to two more homecoming groups and we will have a broader discussion like what we did after the first two. We appreciate your cooperation in following these simple guidelines.

PHOTO: The Gorboi is a spiritual masquerade predominantly found in the Mende groups of Sierra Leone. In 2019, our Gullah Geechee guests were able to see a performance of masqueraders, which we will share on another page.

In 2005, another sensational visit took place in Sierra Leone when a middle-aged woman from Charleston, SC visited. Thomalind Polite is the seventh generation descendant of a ten-year old-girl that was taken from Bunce Island, Sierra Leone to Charles Towne (now Charleston), SC. This story is one of an unbroken paper trail and has been described as a case where lightning struck three times in the same place. Slave ship records; sales records in Charles Towne; and plantation records match up. “Priscilla’s Legacy” is a documentary film that depicts this fascinating story. Antawn Polite, who traveled with his wife to Sierra Leone, will be there to talk about his experiences too.

PHOTO: A Minister of the government of Sierra Leone explains to Ms. Polite what the kolas in a calabash she holds, signify. (2005)

The “The Next Step Homecoming” documented by SCETV as Gullah Roots also saw about fifty Gullah Geechee people go to Sierra Leone on a historical study tour. It was different in a few ways. It was organized by ordinary citizens of Sierra Leone and their Gullah Geechees guests were encouraged to try a new approach of roots tourism based on three elements: Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. And the visitors were able to also experience specific historic and cultural attributes of the Gullah Geechee people. For example, the sojourners went to the remote village, where the Mende song originated; visited a sweetgrass basket village, and went to Freetown and saw the statue of Thomas Peters, a Wilmington, NC resident; including a visit to the first tertiary institution in sub-Saharan Africa that had a Gullah as the first principal.

PHOTO: The Minister of Tourism and Cultural Affairs invited our guests to a lunch buffet and made all Gullahs present, Ambassadors.

The symposium, besides telling the stories that led to them by those who have them, will give us the opportunity to keep the narratives going and also highlight an unexpected new development in the Sierra Leone-Gullah Connection: the fact that it was a two-way connection. Many enslaved Africans were taken from Sierra Leone to the Lowcountry, but some Gullahs also returned to Sierra Leone. Kevin Lowther, a former US Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone, will summarize the research he has done on John Kizell, an enslaved man from Sierra Leone taken to Charleston who later escaped and joined the British Army during the Revolutionary War. Kizell was among the 1,200 black British troops taken to Nova Scotia after the war, and then later, in 1792, to Sierra Leone. Lowther’s research is ground-breaking, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

PHOTO: The cover of the book written by Kevin Lowther.

The “The Next Step Homecoming” documented by SCETV as Gullah Roots saw about fifty Gullah Geechee people go to Sierra Leone on a historical study tour. Some of them represent the impressive new public history efforts now underway in the Gullah region that came about, in part, because of the success of Family Across the Sea. Some are members of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission, a public history project supported by the US National Park Service; and others are staff members of important institutions in the Lowcountry. These people are on the cutting edge of the many powerful efforts now underway to educate the public on Gullah Geechee heritage, and they are now using what they saw in Sierra Leone in their work, which includes telling stories, creating exhibits, and other educational methods here in the US.

PHIOTO: Gullah Geechees atop Old Yagala. A place of resistance in Africa.

We would conclude with a brief parting message and we will continue with a dinner at some other location. Some people have communicated their desire to break bread with others in a network, singing, and up to dancing engagement(s). In other words, we can feel free to celebrate after successfully completing an event that will stand the test of time; just like the others before it that are linked to this special relationship between the Gullah Geechee people of Coastal South Carolina, Georgia and some parts of North Carolina and Florida. It doesn’t stop there as Sierra Leoneans have relations with Black Seminoles too and the Black Loyalists that returned to Africa in 1792. Onwards…

PHOTO: Children from a village school in Senehun Ngola line up to welcome their relatives in January, 2020