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Today only six thousand Gullah speakers remain and the majority live on St. Helena, a sea-island across the sound from Hilton Head, in Beaufort County, South Carolina. A combination of unique historical circumstances allowed them as freedmen and women to gain title to the land they once worked as slaves, and hence to preserve their culture. That cultural independence has enabled St. Helena, unlike its neighbor Hilton Head, to resist the allure of development.
The Kenyon Gullah Digital Archive collects the oral histories of Gullah people who live and work on St. Helena. A team of public school teachers from Cleveland, Ohio, working with Rutkoff and Will Scott of Kenyon College, conducted the interviews in the summer of 2011. The residents of St. Helena welcomed these teachers into their homes, places of work, and their churches. While the archive is a work in progress, it offers a unique window in the history and culture of a unique people.
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