South Carolina' Gullah Festival

Ebony, May, 2004

IT'S a food fest, a family outing and a Black history extravaganza all rolled into one. It's the Beaufort, S.C., Gullah Festival which is celebrating its 18th anniversary this month, from May 28-30.

The celebration of the rich Sea Island Gullah heritage includes authentic arts and crafts, Gullah presentations, music, workshops, nonstop entertainment and more.

"Education: A Journey From Africa to the Sea Islands" is the theme for the 2004 festival says Charlotte Pazant Brown, the festival's second vice president of organizations and operations. Plans for this year include a teen summit and pageant, fine arts exhibits, academic symposiums and concerts.

The annual festival which has become a beacon for tourism in Beaufort and in South Carolina, celebrates the unique culture of the Africans enslaved on South Carolina's rice, indigo and cotton plantations.

"This nonalcoholic, award-winning festival showcases local, regional, national and international artists, a diversity of music, a fine arts display, a variety of ethnic foods and Sunday morning worship" says president and Festival co-founder Rosalie F. Pazant.

This year, she adds, the festival also include the rededication of a marker in memory of the ancestors, a scholarship pageant, awards for the "Gullah Family of the Year" and a Gullah Golf Tournament on various festival sites, including the Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park, Beaufort High School football stadium, Tabernacle Baptist Church and the Lybenson's Gallery.

Pazant, who used her car and living room furniture as collateral for a $4,000 bank loan to finance the second festival in 1987, says the main goals of the festival are "to help arts in education, to provide scholarships, and to reclaim for future generations the love, knowledge and understanding of their heritage and culture."

Each year the festival attracts a national and international audience from 32 states, Europe, Africa, Haiti, Canada and Australia. Recent festivals have hosted more than 70,000 people in a three-day period.

"Each year the Gullah Festival grows bigger and better," Pazant says. "It is important for the festival to get across the message that everyone has a culture and that no one culture is better than another."