This episode of Folklife Today explores an important collection of Gullah Geechee sound recordings in the archives of the American Folklife Center. The collection features over four hours of Gullah Geechee people singing sacred music, preaching to congregations, and giving testimonies in 1955 and 1956. Courtney Siceloff, then-director of Penn Community Services, recorded this collection at community centers and churches across St. Helena Island, South Carolina. Dr. Eric Crawford, Interim Chair of the Music Department at Claflin University and the author of Gullah Spirituals: The Sound of Freedom and Protest in the South Carolina Sea Islands (University of South Carolina Press), joins this episode to contextualize these recordings and to inform listeners about the people who made them.

In the third episode of the Folklife Today subseries focusing on Community Collections Grantees, AFC Folklife Specialist Meg Nicholas interviews Laura Grant, the project leader for the CCG project “Returning to Our Roots: Documenting Traditional Nuwä Harvests.” Bringing together members of the diasporic Kawaiisu community in California, the project documented traditional gathering practices alongside the community’s efforts to develop language revitalization resources centered around plants used for food and traditional medicines.

In the second episode of the Folklife Today subseries focusing on Community Collections Grantees, AFC Folklife Specialists Nancy Groce and Meg Nicholas interview Neil Mellon, the Executive Director of the Habele Outer Island Education Fund and CCG project team leader Modesta Yangmog about their CCG project, “Warp and Weft of Yap’s Outer Islands: Backstrap Weaving in Micronesia.” The project documents the unique weaving traditions of 20 master lavalava weavers, and the cloth’s essential role in the region’s cultural traditions and community relations.