400 Years of Being Who We Be--The Gullah Geechee Connection to the Mississippi Delta

Dr. C. Sade Turnipseed Announcement
Location
Mississippi, United States
Subject Fields
African American History / Studies, African History / Studies, Cultural History / Studies, History Education, Slavery

8th Annual Sweat Equity Investment in the Cotton Kingdom Symposium:

400 Years of “Being Who We Be”—The Gullah Geechee Connection!

 

(Itta Bena, MS-October, 2019) The 8th Annual Sweat Equity Investment in the Cotton Kingdom Symposium is dedicated to the 400 Years of making a way out of “knowing who we be," as informed by the Gullah Geechee tradition. This year’s Symposium features South Carolina-based historian/storyteller, actress, singer and comedian Anita Singleton Prather AKA Auntie Pearlie Sue; world-renowned Griffin Lotson and the Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters from Georgia; and Gullah Ambassador, Artist, Lecturer and Legacy Preservationist John Jones; among many other notable Mississippi Delta-based scholars. The tradition of the Gullah Geechee is significant for this year’s symposium because it reveals how over time, place and space their forefathers and mothers developed a language as a means of communicating with each other and enabled them to preserve many African practices through the arts, crafts, cuisine and spiritual practices. This evolving story of self-determination, persistence, resilience, innovation, isolation, and enslavement captures the theme for the 8th annual Sweat Equity Investment in the Cotton Kingdom Symposium on The Mississippi Valley State University campus November 6-7, 2019. The BrownBag session kicks off the two-day event at 12:00 noon on Wednesday, Nov. 6. Later the same afternoon the organizers shall officially open John Jones’ exhibition, Confederate Currency: The Color of Money, Images of Slavery in Confederate and Southern States Currency, at 3:00pm. This fine-art exhibit will be housed in the J. H. White Library thorough May 2020. On Thursday, Nov 7, the 8th annual Symposium will commence from 9-3pm in the Social Sciences’ Carver Randle Auditorium.

Contact Information

Dr. C. Sade Turnipseed

 

Contact Email
cassie.turnipseed@mvsu.edu