Celebrating Gullah Culture at the Library by Cassandra Knoppel

The BDC (and the rest of the Lowcountry) is celebrating Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Month in October, and the BCL Marketing team asked me to write a short article on the topic to go up on the BCL Soundings Blog. I'm reposting it here so our followers may learn from it too! 

Some of the material may be familiar to long-time BDC patrons, as this post is based on the introduction to “Gullah Culture: A Selective List of Links and Materials” written by former BDC manager Grace Cordial, which itself uses material from former BCL Staff members Dennis Adams, Hillary S. Barnwell and Fran Hayes. - Cassandra

"Uncle Jim" Frogmore, S.C. from The Lucille Hasell Culp Collection.

Did you know that October is Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Month?  

The Gullah-Geechee people are a unique group of African Americans descended from enslaved Africans who lived on the sea islands of the Atlantic coast, between Wilmington, NC and Jacksonville, FL. African traditions, language and myths were better preserved along the sea islands, as those who were enslaved on the island plantations were allowed greater self-sufficiency and were relatively isolated.[i] This allowed them to retain their cultural memory longer and throughout many subsequent generations, fusing it with the other cultures of the Southeast to become Gullah-Geechee.

Gullah is also a language spoken throughout the sea islands of the coastal Southeast. Considered a creole form of English, the vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation mix elements of West African languages and English.[ii]

The contributions of the Gullah people have had a lasting impact on Beaufort County’s local culture and history. Sweetgrass baskets are a famous Gullah art form and common sights at farm stands and craft markets in the Lowcountry. Foods like red rice, gumbo, okra, and benne wafers are Carolina favorites that come from Gullah cuisine. Aspects of Gullah spirituality are also well known, like praise houses and spirituals, and even more so root doctors and hoodoo.

Gullah culture is not just tied to local history, but to national history as well. For example, the Penn School was established in 1862 to educate the formerly enslaved residents of St. Helena, many of them Gullah. 100 years later, Penn School became an important site in the Civil Rights Movement as a retreat for Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. It is even said that Dr. King wrote much of his "Where Do We Go From Here" speech there.[iii]

Frissell Hall, Penn Center from The Lucille Hasell Culp Collection.

The Beaufort County Library celebrates our local Gullah-Geechee community and promotes their unique culture throughout the year through our collections and programs. 

As Wilbur Cross noted in his book Gullah Culture in America, Beaufort County Library “has one of the South’s largest collections of materials on the Gullah language and the sea island culture.” The Beaufort District Collection is home to an extensive Gullah-Geechee historical collection of books, manuscripts, pamphlets, vertical files, videos and more. St. Helena Branch Library has a reference collection of Gullah-Geechee materials on-site in addition to a small Reconstruction Era reference collection. Hilton Head Branch Library has its own South Carolina Room which also has a section of Gullah-related resources. And, of course, every BCL branch library (including bookmobiles) has a Local History section where you can check out books on a variety of historical subjects. Here are some new Gullah-related titles that can be found in a Local History section near you!

• Descended: Searching for my Gullah-Geechee Roots by Keith Rushing (2025). Motivated to uncover the history of his family after learning the Gullah origins of a name, Rushing set out on a journey that led him through time to Hilton Head Island.
• Romancing the Gullah in the Age of Porgy and Bess by Kendra Y. Hamilton (2024). Hamilton documents the impact of Gullah culture on the Harlem and Charleston Renaissances.
• Gullah Culture in America by Wilbur Cross (2008). This title meticulously explores the history of the Gullah, from the arrival of African slaves in the New World to 21st century Gullahs traveling to West Africa to uncover their heritage.
• Gullah-Geechee Diasporas, edited by Muhammad Fraser-Rahim and Elizabeth J. West (2026). In this anthology, writers and scholars explore the African roots of the Gullah and their historic and contemporary impacts on American culture.

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[i] Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. (n.d.). The Gullah Geechee people – discovering legacy of African cultures. Retrieved October 2, 2026, from https://gullahgeecheecorridor.org/the-gullah-geechee/

[ii] Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. (n.d.). The Gullah Geechee people – discovering legacy of African cultures. Retrieved October 2, 2026, from https://gullahgeecheecorridor.org/the-gullah-geechee/

[iii] Power, J. T. (1993). I will not be silent and I will be Heard: Martin Luther King Jr., the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Penn Center,1964-1967. South Carolina Department of Archives & History.

Note: This post is based on the introduction to “Gullah Culture: A Selective List of Links and Materials” written by former BDC manager Grace Cordial, using material written by former BCL Staff members Dennis Adams, Hillary S. Barnwell and Fran Hayes.

September 2026 Facebook Recap

In case you don't follow us, here is a recap of our Facebook posts from the month of September:

September 2: Black History Note: Anyone who has watched The Devil Wears Prada and heard Miranda Priestly's "Cerulean" monologue knows that the fashion industry affects all of us, even when we think it doesn't! The clothing we wear has an impact on our sense of self and can indicate our culture, values, and the era we lived in. The BDC is certainly not a fashion archive, but we do have a very interesting book, "New Raiments of Self:" African American Clothing in the Antebellum South, by Helen Bradley Foster (1997), that I'd like to highlight today.

True to its title, New Raiments of Self details the styles of both enslaved and free Black people throughout the South, including South Carolina. Foster draws heavily from the Federal Writers' Project's Slave Narratives to source descriptions of clothing, jewelry, and hairstyles worn by Black men and women during that time.

One woman quoted in the book is Rebecca Jane Grant, a 92-year-old woman living in Lena (Hampton County) at the time of her interview, who remembered the style of both Black and white women in Beaufort before the Civil War. I found Grant’s full interview transcribed on the Library of Congress’s website and wanted to share some fashion-related snippets for you, too!

“... There was a lady, Miss Mary Ann Baker, whose husband had been an organist in the church. ... She'd take any old coat, or anything, and make it over to fit her children, and look good, too. She was a great seamstress. You'd see her children when they turn out on de street and they looked the same as some rich white people's children. ...

Dey used to make de clothes for de slaves in de house. Had a seamstress to stay there in de house so de mistress could supervise the work. De cloth de clothes was made out of was hand woven. It was dyed in pretty colors - some green, some blue, and pretty colors. And it was strong cloth, too. ...”

Source: Federal Writers' Project: Slave Narrative Project, Vol. 14, South Carolina, Part 2, Eddington-Hunter. 1936. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

September 4: Fun Friday: For the month of September, BCL is highlighting humor. We will admit that this was a bit of a tough prompt for us... Alas, this is the perfect time to highlight Animals in My Mailbox: (And A Bunch of Other Silly, Satiric & Testy Commentaries on the Quirky, Heroic or Dumb Behavior of Human Beings) by Joseph Golden, 2003.

Joseph Golden and his wife, Lucy, moved to Beaufort in 1996 from the Northeast. Golden embedded himself into Beaufort’s community by becoming a columnist for the Beaufort Gazette in 1999. His sardonic articles quickly caught the attention of Beaufortonians and became a staple in their weekly readings.
Animals in My Mailbox is a conglomeration of various articles that Golden has written over the years. It contains satirical narrations of the appealing and alarming things that humans do in their day to day lives. From navigating the chaos that is the supermarket to being stuck on hold with a dreaded automated phone service, Golden provides his own humorous take on how he copes with this funny little thing we call life. If you would like to read Joseph Golden’s witty work for yourself, his book is only available to view within the Beaufort District Collection’s research room.

September 9: Black History Note: This month, BCL is highlighting books that make you laugh out loud. What a perfect time to highlight Step it Down: Games, Plays, Songs, and Stories from the Afro-American Heritage by Bessie Jones (1987.)

Jones was raised in the South and would spend many hours working in the field to then have to care for the young children around her. She would play games with them, sing songs, propose riddles; anything to make them laugh and take their minds off the hardships of the day. She would even let them stay up past their bedtime to frolic and dance while most people were sound asleep in their beds.

With more than seventy total activities including plays, riddles, and songs, readers are bound to chuckle while also finding awe in Jones’ ability to reveal the joy that shines through all the pain. If you would like to take a look at Step it Down for yourself, it is available to view within the Beaufort District Collection’s Research Room.

September 11: Finding Aid Friday: 25 years ago, the United States suffered an immense tragedy. In subsequent years, citizens have come together to mourn the lives lost, to recognize heroes, and to recall their experiences of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. As a child in the early 2000s, "Where were you on 9/11?" was a question I asked my parents for school assignments nearly every year. I myself was not yet three years old when the tragedy occurred, too young to have any real memories of the event we were taught about in history class.

9/11, their recollections of the events, and its aftermath haunt many Americans. Three years following the attacks, Beaufortonians participated in the nationwide September Project. Thirteen residents of Beaufort County were recorded answering the question, "Where were you on September 11th, 2001?" These oral histories are first-hand reflections on the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Flight 93, and the consequences of the terrorist attacks on American freedoms, with a lapse of three years to process one’s grief, emotions, and reactions.

The Reflections on 9-11 and Our Freedoms archival collection can be found in the Beaufort District Collection. You can learn more about it on our WordPress Blog.

September 14: Independence (Mon)Day: Have you read The Carolina Lowcountry, April 1775-June 1776 and the Battle of Fort Moultrie by Terry W. Lipscomb (1994)? It's a short read but packed full of Revolutionary history!

This book details the beginnings of the Revolution in South Carolina, highlighting key events from the first year of the War. These events include the capture of British ships and their cargo off of Daufuskie Island by Patriots (some being from Beaufort, too). If you want to check it out, the BDC has a physical copy to view, while a digital version of the book can be freely downloaded from the SC State Library’s Digital Collection.

September 15: Happy National Hispanic Heritage Month! If you are wondering why the month long celebration begins mid-month and/or wish to learn more about Beaufort District's Spanish Legacy, check out our new Research Room display and Connection's Blog post.

September 16: Black History Note Wednesday: After the Civil War, formerly enslaved people of Beaufort and the Sea Islands found themselves in the position to become landowners. Tax sales of confiscated property allowed Black men and women to purchase land, and their families often held on to that land and passed it down through the generations! The BDC has copies of Civil War-era tax sale land certificates on microfilm for researchers to explore if they are curious about the history of their property.

However, "Heirs' property" along with the increase in tax prices created vulnerabilities in their ownership. The BDC's vertical file "African Americans - Land Issues" has collected articles related to these struggles and documents both the loss and the resilience of local Gullah-Geechee landowners.

More recently, effort has been made to assist landowners and to help prevent the creation of new heirs' property through the writing of wills. If you are interested, visit the BDC to learn more about the history of these issues, and perhaps attend BCL's next Law Talk: Wills, Trusts, and Estates program, scheduled at the Beaufort Branch for Sept. 22, 5:30 PM.

September 18: Fun Friday: A title that had library staff laughing out loud recently was Toads on the Porch & Lizards in the House by Katie Callahan, 1983. Callahan and her husband retired to Hilton Head Island and lived there for more than 25 years together. She was an editor, feature writer, and journalist, even becoming a columnist for the Hilton Head Island Packet in her retirement. Many of the essays in this book come from her publications in the Island Packet from 1976 to 1983.

Though any article of Callahan’s is sure to make you chuckle, we wanted to share some small snippets of “Cry a Bucket, Vidal.”

Let me set the scene: It’s the 1970’s, Katie and John have just retired to Hilton Head and Katie is worried about the rapidly approaching recession. To save some money, Katie is attempting to make her own hair conditioning mask of Hellmann’s mayonnaise and a squirt of lemon juice. In enters John -

“My God in heaven, what is that thing they’ve dug up from the Sea Pines sewer system and planted here in the heart of my home.”

“It’s I, it’s Katie,” the thing replied meekly. “I’m conditioning my hair while I wait for the recession.”

...

“You look like you should be spread between two pieces of bread with thick slices of onion,” he growled as he settled down with coffee and the newspaper.

For the full story, you can view Toads on the Porch & Lizards in the House by Katie Callahan inside the Beaufort District Collection or check it out from a Beaufort County Library branch.

September 21: Independence (Mon)Day: September 23rd will be the 281st birthday of Isaac Hayne. Hayne, born in 1745, was a wealthy South Carolina planter and horse breeder. Hayne held property throughout the state, including 5 lots in Beaufort.

Hayne enlisted in the Colleton militia at the start of the Revolution but was subsequently captured and paroled by British forces. Part of the terms of his parole were that he could not "take up arms" against the British in the future. However, when he was called up to serve in the British army, Hayne broke the terms of his parole and re-enlisted as a Patriot. He was captured again by the British in 1781, and soon after was executed for treason. As a result, Isaac Hayne has been remembered as a martyr of American Independence.

You can learn more about Isaac Hayne's life and death in The Execution of Isaac Hayne by David K. Bowden (1977) in the BDC.

September 22: Come see our newest display! The BDC put up a display in the lobby of the Beaufort Branch Library to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15 - Oct. 15). It features a copy of the SC Archaeology Month poster from 2016, which details the archeological discoveries made at the Santa Elena site on Parris Island. We also have some other related resource flyers on the table. Be sure to check it out on your next trip to the library!

September 23: In today's "Black History Note," we're highlighting an educator from Beaufort's past - W. Kent Alston.

Alston was principal of Robert Smalls High School, retiring in 1962 after 24 years of service. Alston was a dedicated principal, most known for setting high expectations for his students well outside of the norm for that time. Alston wanted his students to achieve greatness, and brought in many famous Black performers, athletes, and other educators to inspire Robert Smalls students.

In this photograph from the Lucille Hasell Culp Collection, Alston stands alongside a few of his students at an event in 1962. W. Kent Alston died in 1962 from cancer, but his legacy lives on!

September 25: Fun Friday: Another (fun)ny title within our collection is Big Scare, Little Scare, and Humorous Epitaphs with stories and illustrations by Mary L. Collum, 1969. Not only is it full of silly stories, but it also contains some terrifying tales to get you in the spooky spirit!

This title contains amusing stories such as “Godfrey Died but Came Back to School” and “Voices in the Graveyard,” but the story we want to share today is titled “They Left Their Shovels.”

“Victor and Jacob each bought a new shovel and went to an old haunted house to dig for money. When they saw what they presumed to be a pot of money they heard a frightful noise. They looked toward the house and on the porch they saw a man, a woman, a girl, a boy, a cat, and a dog with no heads. This scared them out of their wits. They dropped their shovels and ran for home. So instead of getting a pot of money, they lost two new shovels on their venture.”

If you would like to read more of Collum’s funny, but eerie stories, Big Scare, Little Scare, and Humorous Epitaphs is available to view inside of the Beaufort District Collection.

September 28: Independence (Mon)Day: One of my favorite Revolutionary War resources in the BDC is Figures of the Revolution in South Carolina: An Anthology by the University of Southern Studies Program. These volumes were created as part of the Bicentennial Celebration of 1976 and include reprinted passages of biographical sketches for South Carolinians who participated in the American Revolution. Sourcebooks were created for multiple counties/cities in SC, including Beaufort.

The BDC has sourcebooks for: Beaufort County, along with ones for Aiken, Anderson, Florence, Georgetown, and Spartanburg. Come on down to the BDC to see one of these sourcebooks for yourself!

September 29: Thank you to everyone who attended Raul Galvan's program, "The Gonzalez-Elliott Family of Beaufort District," at the Beaufort Branch. We learned about the unlikely love match between a Cuban revolutionary and a young girl from a prominent Beaufort family. Though Ambrosio and Harriet faced many trials, their legacy lived on through their children and their many triumphs.

September 30: Black History Note: Tomorrow is the start of Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Awareness Month! So, for the month of October, the BDC's Wednesday posts will highlight the rich culture of the Gullah, along with a few local Gullah people.

To start us off, we recommend you watch this Beaufort History Moment about the Gullah Language with Emory Campbell, former director of Penn Center and author of Gullah Cultural Legacies and Gullah Days (copies available in the BDC and Branch libraries).

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Be sure to follow the Beaufort District Collection on Facebook for updates on local history programs and weekly local history posts!

Materials from the Crypt by Cassandra Knoppel

It's officially the greatest time of year - it's Fall y'all! October brings an amalgam of my personal - and professional - favorite holidays: Halloween, International Archaeology Day, Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Awareness Month, and, of course, American Archives Month. The BDC has lots to acknowledge this month, and it can be hard to find the common ground between all of these different community celebrations. But there is one for-sure connection, the one constant in life...

And that's death!

Unfortunately, we will all experience it. It is a fact of life. "Nothing gold can stay," as Robert Frost once wrote. It is such a constant in the human experience that every culture has their own customs for caring for the dead, for honoring them and supporting their families through grief, as well as ideas for "where we go" in the afterlife. History and cultural heritage preservation is a process that tries to staunch the flow of time and the inevitability of information loss caused by death (of both people and things). 

While death is a constant generally, death feels more present in an archive, as most of our historic material comes from or discusses people who have departed this plane. Deaths show up often in records like diaries and newspapers. Obituary requests are some of our most common reference requests. So, for this month's display, I chose to showcase "Materials from the Crypt" which document funerary and burial history and customs in the Beaufort District. I made sure to pull materials that intersected with the related October holidays and celebrations, too!

Shelf One: The Deceased

Archivists in a history-based collection like the BDC gather and share evidence of both life and death on a daily basis. Evidence of life varies - birth records, marriage records, diaries, deeds, listings in city directories, etc., etc. Evidence of death is a little more cut-and-dry, but it can also come from a variety of sources. In the BDC, death records include:

• Obituaries - The BDC has both a card catalog and Online Obituary Index of more than 24,000 people whose deaths were noted in Beaufort County newspapers from 1862 to approximately 2000.
• Beaufort County Coroner Inquisition Books - These two microfilm reels hold copies of all proceedings at inquests into violent or mysterious deaths held by the coroner for the years 1888-1898, 1932-1951. Information includes names of decedent/witnesses/jurors, circumstances surrounding the death and other evidence, and verdict of the coroner/jury.
• Published indexes of death notices - Similar to the obituary index, these books compile lists of death notices first published in state newspapers in the 18th and 19th centuries.
• Mortality schedules - In the 1850 to 1880 censuses, a mortality schedule was included in which the enumerator recorded persons who had died in the prior year. Information could include name of the deceased, age, sex, race, whether free or enslaved, marital status, place of birth, month of death, cause of death and number of days ill.

Examples of each of these materials can be found on the shelf.

Shelf Two: Beaufort County's Funerary Customs

The prevalence of death and related rituals means that trained funerary professionals are a necessity. This shelf showcases the funeral industry of Beaufort County in (relatively) recent history. 

In the center, we have Waking Up Dead: A Loose Collection of Anecdotes from Life as the Son of a Funeral Director and Coroner, Among Other Things by Ryan Copeland. In his memoir, Copeland writes about being raised by the local funeral director and coroner. The memories he shares balance both the humor and grief of the profession along with the impacts this line of work can have on an entire family.

I pinned copies of ads that ran in the Beaufort Gazette behind it. First is a 1915 ad for "Coffins and Caskets" and "Undertaker Supplies" from Morrall Furniture & Company. I also added a second one (not in the picture) for "James Riley, Undertaker" from 1904. Riley was a "Dealer in coffins, caskets, and funeral supplies" whose office was located at 209 Craven Street, "between Scott and West" streets.

Below the ads on the left is the June 1993 issue of "The Southern Funeral Director" magazine, “the national funeral service journal with a Southern accent since 1919." The cover features a photo of the magazine's new office at 1605 North Street in downtown Beaufort. In her editor's note, Mary Y. Cronley gives part of the reasoning behind the move of their office to Beaufort from Atlanta, stating “To deepen the attraction for this area, my mother’s family is buried on Daufuskie Island .... In a way, I’ve come home.”

The topic of cemeteries on Daufuskie brings me to the next book on the shelf: The Death Care Industry: African American Cemeteries and Funeral Homes by Roberta Hughes Wright and Wilbur B. Hughes III. This book describes the history of burial practices in African American communities across the nation, beginning in slavery and continuing into the present. Chapter 2 of the book is titled “The Sea Islands and Southeast” and leads with descriptions of Gullah funerals and cemeteries on Daufuskie Island. Wright and Hughes included inventories of the graves found in Bloody Point, Cooper River, Haig’s Point, Maryfield, and Webb Tract cemeteries.

Shelf Three: Burials in Beaufort

As I mentioned before, every culture has its own burial customs. One of the most consistent is marking a grave in some fashion with available materials and returning to the site with offerings to show that our loved ones have not been forgotten despite the passage of time.

In Beaufort County, floral arrangements are a common sight at funeral services and graves. However, flowers started going missing from cemeteries in Beaufort in 1897. According to the March 18th Palmetto Post article I pinned to Shelf Three with the bold headline "Desecration," graves were being robbed of flowers and other greenery shortly after funerals. In the broad daylight, just after friends and family had left the cemetery, a mysterious marauder plucked the wreaths and bouquets from the gravesite! The columnist wrote that "it is evident that the vandals are afraid to enter the grounds when darkness covers the earth, and when the poets say the graveyards yawn." I do not know what became of the grave(side) robber - that's research for another day!

Postcards of Beaufort churchyards, which may have once been struck by the caper, are on the shelf below the article. One features the gate and churchyard of St. Helena Episcopal Church, while the other is of the National Cemetery's entrance. A similar postcard to the latter can be found on LCDL.

To fit the theme of cemeteries on this shelf, I added two related titles. The first is “Gone but not forgotten": African American cemeteries on the United States Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina by DePratter, Legg, and South. This is an archaeological study of graves on Parris Island, which was once a working plantation before the Marine base was established. We also have Beaufort County Cemetery Inventory Survey by the Historic Preservation Department of SCAD (1996). This is an incomplete inventory of identified cemeteries in Beaufort County. We have a related collection in the BDC archives featured on the last shelf.

Shelf Four: Death in the Archives

The BDC also holds archival collections that tell the story of burial customs in Beaufort County. Our two most recently processed collections are:

• St. Helena Island Cemetery Survey 
• Bloomsburg University professor Sandra Kehoe-Forutan conducted research on Gullah cemeteries on St. Helena Island (and some adjacent areas), from 2011 to 2014, documenting their locations and conditions. Her collection includes surveys, maps, and notes collected during the course of her research.
• Geneva Betties Collection of Funeral Flyers 
• Geneva “Vernell” Moultrie Betties (1949-2021) was a Gray’s Hill, Beaufort County resident who attended many funerals within her community. She collected the flyers created for these funeral services and donated her collection to the BDC. The collection contains late 20th and early 21st century funeral flyers for African Americans in Northern Beaufort County. These flyers and programs include photographs of the deceased, obituaries, and information on their funeral services. An index of all the flyers is included in the finding aid.

Sydney and I always teased Grace about her "obsession with death," yet here I am having made a whole display with that theme! I hope that this display is not too morbid, but I also don't wish to make light of the seriousness of death. Besides being informative to BDC patrons (my first priority always), this display was also an opportunity for myself to come to a better understanding of death in Beaufort's past and present. I find it comforting that even after so many centuries, great effort is made to honor and remember those who have passed on. I hope that this display and the materials within it informed, and perhaps helped, you all, too.

As always, you are welcome to visit the BDC Research Room to see the display in-person. If you would like conduct research in the BDC, please know that walk-ins are sometimes accepted while appointments are always encouraged. To make an appointment, send an email to bdc@bcgov.net or give us a call at 843-255-6468. We hope to see y'all soon!