Gullah Geechee culture is not something that exists only in history books, museums, or stories about the past.
Gullah Geechee people are here today.
Across communities in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, people continue to carry Gullah Geechee culture through family, language, food, music, faith, art, storytelling, traditions, businesses, celebrations, and everyday life.
Some traditions may look different today than they did generations ago. Families may live in different places, work in modern careers, use new technology, and create new ways to express their culture.
That does not mean the culture disappeared.
Living cultures are not frozen in time.
They change, adapt, and grow as each generation decides what traditions to continue, what knowledge to preserve, and how to express their identity.
A Gullah Geechee person today might be a:
👩🏾🏫 Teacher
👨🏾⚕️ Doctor or nurse
👩🏾💼 Business owner
🎨 Artist or basket maker
👨🏾🍳 Chef
🎵 Musician
⚓ Fisher or waterman
🌱 Farmer
🏠 Real estate professional
💻 Technology professional
…and still carry traditions, stories, family connections, and cultural knowledge passed down through generations.
It is our present—and the next generation is part of its future. ❤️
Living culture can be found in the things people do every day.
It may be heard in the way family members talk, tell stories, sing, laugh, and share wisdom.
It may be tasted in foods prepared from recipes and techniques passed through generations.
It may be seen in art, baskets, celebrations, churches, family gatherings, and communities throughout the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor.
🗣️ Language & Storytelling — Gullah language, expressions, oral histories, family stories, and sayings can carry knowledge from one generation to another.
🍚 Food & Foodways — dishes such as red rice, along with seafood, vegetables, rice, peas, and other foods, can connect families to history, place, and tradition.
🧺 Art & Craftsmanship — sweetgrass basket makers and other artists continue creating works inspired by cultural knowledge, history, family, and the Lowcountry landscape.
🎶 Music & Movement — spirituals, rhythm, singing, dancing, and other musical traditions have long been important forms of expression and community.
⛪ Faith & Community — churches and faith communities have played important roles in worship, education, leadership, gathering, and community life.
🌊 Land & Water Traditions — fishing, crabbing, shrimping, oystering, farming, gardening, and knowledge of the coastal environment continue to connect people with place.
❤️ Family & Community — perhaps one of the most important places culture lives is within families: cooking together, gathering, telling stories, remembering loved ones, teaching children, and simply spending time together.
Sometimes we think a tradition has to be part of a festival or museum before it counts as culture.
But culture may already be happening at Grandma's house, around the dinner table, on the fishing dock, at church, in the kitchen, at a family reunion, or during a conversation with an elder.
It lives in people.
It lives in families.
And it lives in what we choose to pass on. 🌾
Music and faith have long played important roles in many Gullah Geechee communities.
During slavery and in the generations that followed, African-descended communities created and preserved ways of worship, singing, gathering, and expressing themselves that reflected both African cultural influences and Christian traditions.
Over time, distinctive traditions developed and continued throughout parts of the Gullah Geechee Corridor.
The ring shout is a sacred African American tradition with deep African cultural roots that has been preserved in Gullah Geechee communities.
Traditionally, participants move together counterclockwise in a circle using rhythmic shuffling or stepping movements while singing in a call-and-response style. Handclapping and percussion—sometimes created by beating a wooden stick on the floor—help create the rhythm.
Despite its name, a ring shout is not simply about shouting. It is a spiritual tradition involving music, rhythm, movement, worship, and community.
The tradition was practiced during slavery, later in praise houses and churches, and has been carried forward by generations of culture bearers. Ring shout traditions continue today in religious settings as well as cultural demonstrations and festivals.
In some Gullah Geechee communities, small buildings known as praise houses became important places for worship and community gatherings.
People could gather there for prayer, singing, religious services, and community support.
Some historic praise houses still remain today, serving as physical reminders of generations of faith and community life.
Songs could carry faith, sorrow, hope, strength, and community memory.
Gullah Geechee sacred music traditions include spirituals and other forms of religious singing that developed among African-descended communities in the coastal South.
And remember the song we learned about earlier?
“Come By Yuh”—connected to the song now widely known as “Kumbaya”—was recorded from Gullah Geechee singer Henry Wylie in Georgia in 1926.
Churches and faith communities have also served as places where people could organize, teach, gather, support one another, celebrate, mourn, and strengthen community connections.
👣 A movement can carry a tradition.
❤️ And a community can carry both forward. 🌾
A Culture Keeper is someone who learns, remembers, protects, practices, or shares culture so that knowledge can continue from one generation to the next.
You don't have to be an expert to help keep culture alive.
Culture Keepers can be the elders who tell family stories, the cooks who teach recipes, the basket makers who teach their craft, the people who care for family land, and the parents who make sure their children know where they come from.
And children can be Culture Keepers too.
You can:
👂 Listen when elders tell stories.
❓ Ask questions about your family's history.
🗣️ Learn words and expressions your family uses.
🍚 Help prepare a family recipe.
📸 Save old photographs and learn who is pictured in them.
🌳 Learn where your family comes from and the places important to its story.
🧺 Respect cultural arts and the people who create them.
🌊 Care for the land and water connected to Gullah Geechee communities.
📖 Share what you learn with the next person.
Ask someone in your family:
What is one tradition you want our family to never forget?
What is something your grandparents taught you?
What do you want my generation to know about where we come from?
What story should I make sure I pass on someday?
Someone is teaching you.
One day, you may be the one doing the teaching. ❤️