Po(sey) Sessions

The Civil War’s Enduring Influence on the Gullah People The end of the Civil War marks the beginning of isolation for the freedmen of the Sea Islands. The individuals emancipated from the coastal islands of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida are now called Gullah. During Reconstruction those on the Sea Islands rarely saw visitors imposed on their isolated space. Many of the residents would travel to the mainland to take care of various aspects of business, but few outsiders came to visit them. The survival of Gullah culture and language is fully dependent on the Civil War. It is a mistake to think of slavery as having a single origin point or homogenous experience from one slave to the next. Experiences of slaves on the Sea Islands, and throughout South Carolina, significantly differed from other slave experiences in the South. Gullah culture emerged from the interactions between Africans, African Americans, Native Americans, and Europeans combining different cultures, tradit...

Four semesters ago I returned to Souther Utah University to finish my undergraduate degree. I started on a new major. This time around I am a Sociology major and I am focusing on the topic of food whenever possible. Annually the school holds a conference where students can present the academic experience they have participated in. This year I had the opportunity to present on my work connected to a  series of trips I took to South Carolina. I chose to do a PechaKucha presentation to take advantage of the photos I took throughout my travels. What is a PechaKucha? It is a presentation style in which 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each (6 minutes and 40 seconds in total). PechaKucha is a Japanese word that means chit-chat. The focus of this type of presentation is to simultaneously be less formal and present concise information. The hope is that a presentation like this can start a conversation. The following are the slides I used and the notes I wrote to accompany them....