Jacqueline Smith, a teacher from Dillon School District Four in Dillon, is one of 80 local teachers from around the United States selected as a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Scholar who will participate in a Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshop focusing on one of the early African-American cultures in the U.S. in a program developed by scholars from the University of Connecticut and funded by a grant from the NEH.
“Gullah Voices: Traditions and Transformations” is a week long workshop for K-12 teachers which will run in two sessions, July 7-12 and July 14-19, in Savannah, GA and provide historic insight in the Gullah community in the corridor between North Carolina and Florida, where many people from West Africa, many from Sierra Leone were enslaved to work on rice plantations. Mary Ellen Junda and Robert Stephens, professors of music in the School of Fine Arts at Uconn conducted research and developed the curriculum for the workshops under an NEH grant. Through the workshop, teachers will experience Gullah culture directly as they are given opportunities to hear performances by groups and participate in traditional activities with visits to sites such as The Penn Center, a national historic landmark of Gullah culture, in St. Helena, SC and Hog Hammock, Sapelo Island, GA, the last Gullah community on the Sea Islands. The workshop faculty includes a cross-section of scholars, cultural historians, artists, and musicians who specialize in Gullah culture. Teachers participating in the “Gullah Voices” workshop were selected as an NEH Summer Scholar from a national applicant pool and receive a $1,200 stipend to help cover their travel, study, and living expenses. The “Gullah Voices” workshop is one of 21 NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshops on a variety of subjects offered this summer for 1,680 teachers who will teach more than 210,000 American students this fall.
