St. Helena celebrates Gullah-Geechee culture after shooting

ST. HELENA ISLAND — Cars trickled down Martin Luther King Drive in the minutes before the annual celebration of Gullah-Geechee culture. Drivers found spaces along the shoulder, on a walking path to the local library and in a restaurant parking lot.

Golf carts shuttled elders carrying folding chairs to their position along the road, where sea air twisted with scents from vats of grits, the beginnings of seafood gumbo and fried shrimp. A song, vaguely reminiscent of KC and the Sunshine Band, wafted from one sausage vendor.

“Shake shake shake

Shake shake shake

Shake your lemonade

Ice cold lemonade.”

Selling breakfast biscuits bound by lard and butter, Eve Fields has lived on St. Helena for 20 years. The 56-year-old Fields called Gullah heritage a “very powerful thing.”

“We know who we are. We know who we came from. And we know where we’re going,” she said. To her the celebration showed the community coming together and “People being able to talk it through versus violence.”

Bloodshed came to St. Helena Island just a month before, when 20 people were shot and four killed during an altercation outside Willie’s Bar and Grill, a restaurant just up the road. The Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office has not made any arrests for the killing.

For some, the carnage lingered during the Heritage Days Celebration. The three-day festival honors Gullah-Geechee culture, spawned among enslaved people taken from West Africa to toil along coastal Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

St. Helena has a long lineage as a bastion and epicenter of Gullah culture, which continued to shape the island after plantation owners fled Union forces capturing the area in 1861. In the weeks after the shooting, locals have leaned on their history as they processed the deadly event. Others have wanted to move forward.

“You can’t change what already happened. It’s sad that people lost their life, but you’ve got to move on,” said Julius Green, 57, as he seasoned smoked turkey wings. “This is healing. This is love.”

The parade began traveling down Sea Island Parkway just after 9 a.m., led initially by law enforcement in motorcycles, a fire truck and a wagon carrying a group, including Robert Adams, the executive director of Penn Center (among the first schools to educate freed slaves). It has since dedicated itself to advancing civil rights and preserving Gullah culture, in part by organizing the weekend’s pageantry.

The celebration has generated its own controversy. Historically, the route began at St. Helena Elementary School, before turning onto Martin Luther King Drive and finishing at Penn Center. Now, the event begins at Halifax Drive, just west of the school. Last year, community members voiced their displeasure to county council after the sheriff’s office allowed car traffic to drive along Sea Island Parkway, next to the celebrators. This year, as a compromise, cars formed a protective barrier in the middle of the road. Some still were unsatisfied.

“We should have the whole road,” St. Helena Island school board representative William Smith told a crowd after the parade. “But our culture can’t be erased.”

State Rep. Michael Rivers, a Democrat, has taken a step further. He has proposed legislation that would codify the original parade route into law. That bill was referred to the House Judiciary Committee in January.

Frustrations with the route aside, the event was joyful. A group of students from the local elementary performed a dance routine for adoring onlookers. One truck advertised a roofing company. Tennis pro Larry Scheper walked around with his racket and balls. Riders threw candy over to viewers, who rejoiced at the early morning sweets.

One woman, who did not want the newspaper to share her name, traveled from the Boston area to St. Helena for the celebration. She stood on the side chirping people who didn’t play music as they went by.

“You ain’t got pep!” she yelled, before changing her tune when someone brought rhythm. “That’s how you do it!”

Every participant in the parade drove past Willie’s, where a memorial commemorating the four people killed on Oct. 12 no longer sat. But their lives were not forgotten.

One group revved their all-terrain vehicles, wearing shirts that read “Guns down. Bikes up.” Riding, said Tyrone Black, was an alternative to gun violence. They decided to make the shirts after the shooting.

Soon after the parade ended, a series of speeches from a stage began with a moment of silence to honor the dead.

“As we reflect on the four lives that were lost, the 20 individuals that were injured, let us remember that we need to keep their names on our hearts,” said Adams, the Penn Center executive director.

“We need to make sure that never happens again.”