Cultural Preservation of the Sea Island Gullah: A Black Social Movement in the Post‐Civil Rights Era

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Historians have long noted the existence of many rural Souths in lieu of the single rural monolith noted by Cash. Analysis, then, must be done on local and not solely on regional issues. Morris (1984) chronicled the emergence of the Civil Rights Movement. His thesis is that indigenous community groups were linked together by black church leadership and were recruited by national movement organizations (e.g., NAACP, SCLC). The thesis of this article is that after the Civil Rights Movement, small black social movements emerged to address issues in local areas. These new, emerging social movement organizations differed with the Civil Rights Movement in terms of leadership, formalization, goals, and tactics.

We treat the emergence of the Sea Island Gullah in South Carolina and Georgia as an example of one such movement. From Reconstruction to the Depression, the descendents of slaves lived in isolated settlements on the remote sea islands. During this time, they reestablished a culture with authentic African components and developed mechanisms to transmit the culture to other islands.

By the late 1970s, the land base for the culture (small farming and fishing) was threatened by land developers. A social movement organization was formed by movement entrepreneurs with the help of white and black volunteers. This movement has aided small farmers who have lost their land to tax reassessments. It has also sought to reestablish agriculture in the Sea Islands and promote the Gullah culture."

Smith, John P. “Cultural Preservation of the Sea Island Gullah: A Black Social Movement in the Post-Civil Rights Era,” Rural Sociology, Vol 56, No 2 (1991).