Final Festival Event

Sunday afternoon the festival closed down with a program on the Gullah Gee Chee culture.  She talked some about the food and other aspects of their lives, but mostly it was about their spiritual lives.  She shared this with us, and I just loved it so much.

The lady who gave the program, Victoria Smalls, was so good. The program originally was supposed to be a man singing Gullah spirituals, but he got sick, so she filled in at the last minute. She did an amazing job. One of the really interesting things she talked about was that the churches were important to the slaves on the plantation, but the real center of both their spiritual life and the entire community were the Praise Houses – small buildings where they could gather in small groups to sing and dance. I just enjoyed listening to her so much.