Gullah-Geechee cultural commission to meet

Michael Allen, NPS Community Partnership Specialist, announced to Historic City News yesterday the upcoming 2012 Quarterly Business Meeting of the Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission.

This will be the first meeting for the commission who oversee the four-state Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, and Historic City News readers are invited to attend.

Local resident and multi-cultural heritage advocate, Derek Boyd Hankerson, who can trace his own relations to the Gullah community in South Carolina, has promoted the idea that the corridor should rightfully be extended beyond the existing limits of Jacksonville to include St Augustine.

Hankerson says he’s having some success and is hopeful that more St Johns County historians and genealogists will work with him to promote what he believes are clear bonds to the underground railroad, freedom trail, Fort Mose, freed slaves and indentured servants in St Augustine as an integral part of the Gullah-Geechee story.

The meeting will be held in downtown Jacksonville on February 24th, from 9:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. at the Ritz Theatre and Museum located at 829 North Davis Street.

Highlights will include final decision points for the Management Plan, including discussion of the public review process; election of officers; launch of the Corridor’s official website; and transitioning from development phase to the implementation phase.

The Commission plans to submit the Management Plan to the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, by mid-April 2012.