Charleston SC and Savannah GA, Southern cities with important African-American history and Gullah heritage

Savannah Gullah tour
People of African descent have been in the southern US for centuries.  Although in the Georgia colony African captivity was initially forbidden, an act was passed in 1750 repealing the former prohibition and by 1760 the population of Georgia was more than one-third African, mainly slaves.  The Gullah/Geechee people are descendants of early African-Americans who lived on the coastal mainland and barrier islands of the Carolinas, Georgia and northern Florida.  They have a language still spoken today which is a mixture of English, creole, and African languages.  
I took a tour of Savannah focused on Gullah and African-American perspectives.  The tour, which ended up being a private one (lucky me!) on December 24, was led by a young scholar named Jamal Toure, who is an adjunct professor of history at a college in Savannah.  He shared many stories and even enacted some important historical scenes.  Highlights were the contributions by African-Americans to the building and running of the city.  A moving and most interesting half-day!

The first African Baptist Church built in the late 1770s at night by slaves who transported all the bricks by hand or wheelbarrow after their hard days work on plantations or other similarly difficult jobs. 
The floors of the lower levels were drilled with holes in meaningful patterns from Africa ended up allowing fugitive slaves hiding in the basement to breathe. 

 A monument honouring the contribution of 500 Haitian free Blacks who fought with the Georgian colonists for independence from England during the Revolutionary War in 1779.

 Slaves were warehoused on the waterfront in cells such as this one while awaiting sale or transport.  The sculpture of an embracing family symbolizes emancipation.

 Since their land was taken over by the City, many African-Americans have been forced to  live in social housing developments such as this one. Today, more than 27% of African-Americans in Savannah live below the poverty line.  A chilling sidebar is that the office building of the Social Service Authority which administers these projects was built in the image of a "great house" on a plantation.  It is located mere yards away from the apartments pictured here...


The McLeod plantation near Charleston

 The contrasting living quarters of the plantation owner and slaves.  Incredibly, the slave cabins were still being rented to African-Americans up to the 1970s....

 

The cotton industry....one of the rationales for slavery.