CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) – U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, who was key in establishing the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor in four Southeastern states, is urging corridor leaders not to be discouraged.
Clyburn tells The Associated Press that in today’s political climate, it will be tough to get resources to support the corridor’s goal of preserving the culture of slave descendants of the sea islands from the Carolinas to Florida.
The Democratic congressman was meeting with the corridor commission at the Penn Center on the South Carolina coast Friday.
“What they are attempting to do is something that is not universal and is hard to get universal support for,” he said. “What I will be saying to them is not to be discouraged because it seems a lot of people who are in charge of things these days do not seem to have an appreciation for the history.”
Clyburn called for a study 15 years ago of Gullah and Geechee resources and the corridor, one of almost 50 heritage areas nationwide, was established by Congress in 2006 along with a commission to oversee it.
Heritage areas are places where natural, cultural, and historic resources combine to tell an important American story.
Known as Gullah in the Carolinas and Geechee in Georgia and Florida, the culture is based on farming and fishing and has its own creole language, history, cooking and crafts. It survived for decades because of the isolation of the islands but now is threatened by development.
A management plan envisions educating people about the culture, documenting and preserving significant sites and developing economic opportunities so the culture survives.
But Clyburn, South Carolina’s first black congressman since Reconstruction after the Civil War, says getting resources won’t be easy.
“We’re experiencing that all across the country. Especially in South Carolina when you see what is going on at South Carolina State today,” he said.
Clyburn said some state leaders wanted to close financially troubled, historically black university in Orangeburg, although for years the state has given the school less money to match federal grants than Clemson, the state’s other land grant university.
He said he is pleased with the progress in creating the corridor but “I understand what they are up against. I understand the reluctance you get from people.”
While Clyburn himself is not Gullah, he became acquainted with the culture at an early age when his father preached at churches in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Emily, his wife of 53 years, is Gullah.