DAUFUSKIE ISLAND: Sallie Ann Robinson proudly stands in the front yard of her grandmother’s South Carolina home. The sixth-generation native of Daufuskie Island, a once-thriving Gullah community, remembers relatives hosting meals and imparting life lessons to the next generation.
“I was born in this very house, as many generations of family have been as well,” said Robinson, a chef and tour guide.”I was raised here. These woods was our playgrounds.”
Long dirt roads were once occupied by a bustling community that had its own bartering system and a lucrative oyster industry. “There were at one point over a thousand people living on this island,” Robinson said. Now, she and several cousins are the only ones of Gullah descent who remain.
Historic Black communities like Daufuskie Island are dying, and descendants like Robinson are attempting to salvage what’s left of a quickly fading history. “The towns are the authentic source or sources of much of our culture, our history, our physical expression of place,” said Everett Fly, a landscape architect who uncovered more than 1,800 Black historic settlements through his research.
Scholars define a historic Black community or town as a settlement founded by formerly enslaved people, usually between the late 19th- and early 20th-century. The enclaves often had their own churches, schools, stores and economic systems. Fly and other researchers estimate there are fewer than 30 incorporated historic Black towns left in the United States, a fraction of more than 1,200 at the peak between the 1880s and 1915.
“The ones that do remain are extremely rare. They’re extremely important,” Fly said.
… [additional content not included]