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mallwood@beaufortgazette.com
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Amadu Massally hasn't been back to his native Sierra Leone in more than 20 years, but he felt right at home when he visited a Hilton Head Island beach in 2006 with Gullah historian and community leader Emory Campbell.
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"I was struck by the similarity to my country's beach, and I'm a guy who hasn't gone home in two decades," said Massaly. "I can't explain it, but something came over me at that beach that made me want to reconnect with my Gullah brothers and sisters. The impact I felt that day is what has made me do what I do."
That same year, Massaly founded the Sierra Leone-Gullah Heritage Association to maintain and enhance the connections between Sierra Leone and Gullah communities in the American South, specifically South Carolina and Georgia. Also in 2006, SLGHA was presented the key to the City of Beaufort at a ceremony conducted at Penn Center.
This year, the association will be participating in Penn Center's annual Heritage Days celebration, taking place Nov. 6-8 at Penn Center and at various locations around town. The theme of this year's event is "Promoting Tolerance in a Changing World."
SLGHA co-sponsor an exhibit on Bunce Island, a British slave castle in Sierra Leone that has been called the most important historic site for African-Americans outside of the United States.
Massaly explained that slave castles such as Goree in Senegal and Elmina in Ghana are more popular attractions for African-Americans, but those castles sent more slaves to the West Indies than North America. Bunce Island, on the other hand, was a chief supplier of slaves to the ports of Charleston and Savannah, where slaves were sent to work in the Lowcountry's lucrative rice industry.
Massaly said slavers targeted Sierra Leone because it was a rice-producing area, and it is this reason why many people in the local Gullah community trace their roots back to Sierra Leone.
"Bunce Island is a place where history sleeps, and what I mean by that is since it was bombarded in the 1800s, no one ever went back to live," said Massaly, who serves as SLGHA's chairman. "The ruins are still there. They have not been rebuilt (like Goree and Elmina). Bunce Island has been untouched."
Dr. Kent Germany is a professor in the African-American Studies Department at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. He said that the importance of events like Penn Center's Heritage Days cannot be underestimated.
"It's important, because without them, the memories would slip even further away," said Germany. "These events are important for bringing more attention to issues and to something as complicated as the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the cultural ramifications of that. These conferences are important for raising awareness of those things."
For Massaly, he would also like to see Sierra Leone expand its tourism industry like Ghana's, which he said brings in $3 billion a year, much of it coming from African-Americans looking to reconnect with their roots.
"In 2011, Sierra Leone will be celebrating its 50th anniversary of its independence, and we're working in conjunction with the government of Sierra Leone through the Embassy of Sierra Leone," said Massaly. "We want to take thousands of African-Americans back to Sierra Leone so we can have a big celebration and reconnection, and we can officially open up the heritage tourism industry that year."
Many Sierra Leonians also have visited Penn Center throughout the years, including a 1988 visit by the country's then-president, Joseph Momoh. In addition to a variety of speakers at Heritage Days, the Bunce Island exhibit will include historic drawings of the island, photographs of Gullah people who visited the island and a 10-minute video shot in Sierra Leone.
The exhibit was partly built by Joseph Opala, an American who lived in Sierra Leone for 17 years conducting extensive research on Bunce Island and exploring the connection between the Gullah community and Sierra Leone.
"For me, especially in the global economy that we operate in today, it's important that African-Americans connect back to the continent of Africa," said Massaly. "Wealso want to bring our African-American and Gullah brothers and sisters back to Sierra Leone.
"We're hoping that will translate into some sense of self-esteem and self-identity, so that when they come back to the United States, their lives will be changed forever, because they know where they come from and they know they have a place they can go back and call home."
IF YOU GO
What: Penn Center Heritage Days; theme: “Promoting Tolerance in a Changing World”
Where: Penn Center, 16 Penn Center Circle, St. Helena Island, as well as other locations
When: Nov. 6-8
Cost: Some events are free while others are not
Details: 843-838-2432; www.penncenter.com/images/heritage.pdf; info@penncenter.com
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