Collecting Survivals: Sapelo Island Georgia and the Search for Gullah Folk

Melissa Cooper, Associate Professor of History, Rutgers University-Newark Noted historian Melissa Cooper, who specializes in the study of African American cultural and intellectual history and the history of the African Diaspora, discusses her research on the emergence of "the Gullah" in scholarly and popular works beginning in the 1920s and the 1930s. Using Georgia as a case study, Dr. Cooper explores the forces that initially inspired interest in Black southerners’ African heritage and the legacies of early research and publications that made Sapelo Islanders famous, including historic fieldwork and documentation materials that are now part of the AFC Archive. The Botkin Lecture series is part of AFC's ongoing public programming activities highlighting the fields of folklife, ethnomusicology, oral history and related disciplines; foregrounding its archival holdings; and fulfilling its congressionally mandated mission.
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