My Gullah Is

Watching Bad Voodoo.

I am constantly seeing how everything—every experience, every story, every interaction is more blended than we could ever know.

I have never discussed the topic of roots on my page but have grown up with all the stories as well as lived ones. Us Gullah know of the power of roots, the weight of a hag riding you, the protection of blue glass bottles and porch ceilings, and the telephonic messages heard by putting your ear up to seashells, and everything in between. Whether through prayer, fasting or burning sage, the daily goal is to ward off evil. For me, it’s an unspoken practice to be aware, vigilant and (unfortunately) keep it all hidden (as not to be considered crazy by outsiders who may not understand).

This weekend, I attended the premiere screening of Bad Voodoo, which is the debut feature film of my Haitian-born fiancé, has been a long time coming as he had just wrapped up production of the movie when we first met back in 2022.

And since that time, I have been supportive, but (honestly) not as much as I could be given the film’s tabooed title. You see, “voodoo” or “hoodoo” was always “bad” in my family—bad to say or even utter as to do so was like an invitation to trouble. Roots/Voodoo was something that no good ever came from. Shoot, I can just recall all the stories my dad told me growing up. For him, the concept alone made living in the impoverished conditions of a black single-parent household in Burton that much more difficult. Putting cultural significance aside, it could wreak havoc on one’s identity—realizing that you are a pawn and no match for the one “putting roots on you”.

movie explores this dynamic smack in the middle of a story about grief. What is good and what is bad? Who is right and who is wrong? At what cost will you go to find out and who ultimately decides?

Although a delicate topic for our community, kudos to my love for all of his hard work and dedication to telling stories like these that are more necessary than we know, no matter how dark they appear to be or uncomfortable as they make us feel!

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Sowing.

I don’t sell anything here…

I haven’t actively engaged with this platform in a long time…

But, some “How Sway?!?!?, I’ve amassed many new followers. For that, I am MOST humbled beyond words and reminded that there is an audience for things of interest to me—the weave of our past, present, and future life experiences as a people.

This past year, I’ve been coming out of my cocooning shell of 2024 and showing up for me, which is an evolving ritual—staying sharp on my full-time job as a telecom attorney, living and sorting through grief and loss of my ex-husband and son’s father, raising a teenager (my most important role), planning a wedding and being present for it all and more in love, daily prayer, and gratitude.

It hasn’t been easy at all and I’m amazed that I have managed to “keep my mind” but for Him! I’m still curious, stay researching, and even more grounded than the day before. Whether old (as in posts I wrote but never posted) or new ones or recycled ones from my personal archives, I have much to share with ya’ll — my utmost hope being that what I do put out into these inters-of-nets resonates with your intellect and spirit in a meaningful and encouraging way that adds value to our community, culture, and perspectives on life.

Stay tuned and in the light!!!

- Amanda

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📸: Selfie of me (aka Yardie) doing what I do (happily) in my backyard

📖: Excerpt (pg. 11) from “African Cosmos: Stellar Arts: African Cultural Astronomy from Antiquity to the Present," edited by Christine Mullen Kreamer and published by Smithsonian National Museum of African Art (2012).

🖼️: “Sowing the Seeds” (1992) by Darrell Loy Scott (Louisiana/Arkansas, 1946-2023) caught my eye.

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The annual Penn Center Heritage Day Parade in South Carolina celebrates the Gullah Geechee people. But after several years of traffic complaints, the parade has been scaled back. Black residents say a new route makes it feel as if their legacy is vanishing. https://nyti.ms/43p4c30

Buildin’ [US] a Home.

A quick escape out of New Orleans, LA to Mobile, AL and, as soon as my office closed for the July 4th weekend, I was OFF (logging out with the quickness) and ON the heritage trail.

By God’s grace, I returned to Africa Town to visit the recent addition of the . A lot of it hit differently for me now, as I’m smack in middle of balancing grief, connection, truth, opportunities, and memory. Kossola’s undying yearning for home is what tugged at me then in 2018 when I first visited Africa Town and still does now, as I recall using “all within me” to facilitate the return of Stephen home last year. “I gotta get him home” was the vow and to see full circle the blessing of having our teenage son back in Ghana for an entire summer to enjoy the home of his father is something we don’t take for granted as it was a dream of many…the dream of home.

But for Kossola, his dream took shape not in his beloved ‘Affika’… despite it all, he and others from the Clotida built a home right where they were — on the Alabama ground their feet were touching.

My next pre-planned stop was the Historical Avenue Cultural Center where I was gifted (really no way to describe it) a thorough, one-on-one tour by Ms. Sheila, who shared with me the rich legacy and meaningful contributions of blacks in Mobile to the civil rights movement, which I was not previously aware of. She also sent me across the street to the Isom Clemson Civil Rights Memorial Park, a ground zero location for movement, and to see the ‘Angel of the Avenue.’ Many thanks Ms. Sheila!!!

All of what I saw today reminded me that it takes a constant rotation of builders. I’m talking generational dedication, the acceptance that the completion of the build may not be realized in our lifetime (yet you continue), and the understanding that even after completion, you still need to build to preserve it.

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📜 in first 2: Roche, Emma Langdon. Historic sketches of the South. New York, The Knickerbocker Press, 1914. Pdf. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, .

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Ms. Frazine Taylor, much gratitude for your work!!! Echoing your words, “Who else will do it if not us?”

Definitely here to help anyone wanting to find out more about their family history so if that is Y-O-U, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me and I’d be more than glad to assist you.

How one genealogist helped thousands of Black Americans trace their family history Genealogist Frazine Taylor of Montgomery, Alabama, made it her life's work to help African American families piece together their history, sifting through re...

A Master Teacher.

I’ve been holding back on y’all…for many, many, and a “MANY” years but God has been molding me. A wiggly line here, one here, a zigzagging mark up and down in an image still incomplete but all coming together perfectly in his vision, his own purposed shape, and his time alone.

Today, I decided to look back at my goodies of Gullah books, which I have been collecting over a decade now and have been fortunate to amass some first editions like this one here.

As I glanced through it today, what caught my attention was a caption to a photo of a black man on a horse on a dirt road in front of a large Palmetto tree; it read “AT PEACE WITH THE WORLD ON ITS OWN TERMS”. That sounds like absolute serenity and acceptance, and freedom, and I’m on such a path to find it.

…

📖: Gullah: Negro Life in the Carolina Sea Islands by Mason Crum, Department of Religion, Duke University. [Duke University Press. 1940].

🌱: Sansevieria cylindrica (aka African spear plant)

🧱: one of my 100 years old quadruplets (as the old black man who delivered my washer/dryers said years ago—“that’s your $ right there (in regards to the house) soon in need of masonry repair (help- lol)
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A beautiful piece!!!

I always get a big ole’ fat smile on my face when I see folks (👏🏾10 Million Names ) doing the work to preserve the stories of “us” and highlighting the often ignored reality that the past is living through us today and enslaved people should not be seen as a “different” group of people totally unrelated to people of the diaspora living today! We are their legacies.

Rare audio of enslaved people connects history to the present ABC News’ Alex Presha examines rare audio of formerly enslaved people to preserve their stories, and interviews one of their descendants, in partnership with...

FULL!

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“What’s more important?”

🔲 A plant

✅ The soil that grew it!!!

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A fulfilled birthday wish of visiting and revisiting my roots and hopping here, there, and everywhere (well almost…will catch my Jasper Co. folks next time) that matters most to me:

THE LAND
@ Baynard Road in front of 60 acres purchased by Barnwell Brown, my 2nd paternal great-grandfather in 1895 with Robert Smalls signing as grantor in his capacity as the Law of Beaufort Co.

THOSE BEFORE ME
@ Jericho Cemetery, the burial grounds of the majority of my paternal ancestors

FAMILY
@ Burton, SC where my uncles gifted me a combo of fresh blueberries from the bush I fondly remembered on the side of my grandmother’s house but despised as a child on the side of my grandmother’s house because I didn’t like blueberries (love them now), a pear from the tree growing in a ditch, and fresh gigantic tomatoes (and a secret stash of freshly canned tomatoes-thanks Unc Sandy)!

HISTORY
@ the historic Penn Center on St. Helena Island! —a necessary fixture of our culture so please let’s continue to support!!! (not pictured here)

PERSEVERANCE
@ Frampton Plantation to see the traveling sculpture of Harriet Tubman: Journey to Freedom!

LEGACY
@ the newly opened International African Museum in Charleston, SC! Amazingly done—please let’s begin supporting (if you haven’t already) by visiting or donating!

* Special Shoutout to my beau for “Driving Ms. Manda” (👉🏾me👈🏾)all around on my birthday and for all the love and consideration and timekeeping to make sure that I saw, explored, and digested all I needed!

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42!!!

Today on my birthday, as I sat in the car re-reading some of my research items on my way to Beaufort, SC, I saw that this same day nearly 120 years ago, my 3rd great-grandmother, Katie Brown (Fields) began her deposition for the widow benefits’ pension application saying “I can’t tell how old I am.”

Well, I’m 42 because of you so that makes us:

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✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨
✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨
✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨
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🥳

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#42

There [and Here]. On June 23, 2018, with the release of this overdue literary treasure (the life story of one of the last known survivors of the Middle Passage), I jumped in a car and rode down to visit Africatown with my son and niece. The words of Kossula (aka Cudjoe Lewis), as captured by our most prized gatekeeper, Zora Neale Hurston, are haunting. From the annihilation of his communal life in ‘Affica’, to his capture and ship haul, life as a slave, isolation as an “African” among American born blacks, and the cycle of loss after loss after loss due to racism and socioeconomic inequities. He didn’t say it but I believe that his memory of ‘Affica’ kept him alive through it all…the longing for home…one would think it could defeat you but he relied on his memory of ‘there’ to define his life ‘here.’ ————————————————— #mygullahis #gullah #geechee #genealogy #lowcountry #barracoon #ancestors #africa #homebound