WILMINGTON — The North Carolina Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Festival of Learning Friday and Saturday offers two days of programs highlighting the Gullah Geechee community and its traditions.
The two-day festival begins Friday with an exhibition at the Wilmington Arts Council. There will be lectures Saturday at University of North Carolina Wilmington on Gullah Geechee culture and history, challenges to the preservation of Gullah culture, films and exhibits.
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To register for the festival, email gullah.geechee.ILM@gmail.com.
The Gullah Geechee people are descendants of Central and West Africans from different ethnic and social groups enslaved together on the isolated sea and barrier islands of what has been designated the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor along the southeastern United States.
The corridor is from Pender County to St. Johns County, Florida, according to the corridor’s website.
The corridor is a federal National Heritage Area established by U.S. Congress to recognize the unique culture of the Gullah Geechee people. The creole Gullah Geechee language developed as a means of communicating with each other and they were also able to preserve many African practices in their language, arts, crafts and cuisine.
