1. Uncovering our African
American History
Research Presentation by: Bianca Ware
Faculty Advisor: Ferne Caulker Bronson

2. The unknown
 What I previously knew about my history…
 Slavery in the Southern states
 Harriet Tubman
 Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation
 Civil Rights Movement
 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

3. Discovering the Unknown
 The Slave Trade (three stages)
 The forced loss of Identity
 The enslaved Africans were not allowed to speak their
own language, to keep up with their traditions, or
practice their religion
 How slaves kept in touch with who they are…
 Oral traditions passed down through generations that
are meant to trace them back to their people

4.  A small population of African Americans completely isolated
on the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina up until
recently
 They have their own culture and language that survived for
hundreds of years
 Dr. Lorenzo Dow Turner and Amelia Dawley
 Discovered the connection between the Gullah people and
the Mende Tribe in Sierra Leone: the funeral song passed
down from generation to generation, from mother to daughter
 The Ring Shout
The Gullah (Geechee)
Culture

5. Going to Georgia
 Visiting Savannah, GA, the Sea Islands, and Charleston,
SC February 10 2013- February 18, 2013
 The Plan…
 Film shooting, tours of Savannah, GA, visit Sapelo Island,
archival research in Savannah and Charleston, SC, interview
Gullah individuals, and attend a black church service.
 My anticipations of this journey
 Uncovering more history/learning more about the Gullah
 A journey of self-discovery?

6. Factories in Savannah

7. Handmade canal

8. The First African Baptist
Church
 Oldest black church in
North America
 Freedmen built entire
church made out of African
wood used to build the
slave ships
 Doors were painted red,
means ‘Welcome!’

9. First African Baptist
Church

10. The Bottle Tree
 Used to capture evil spirits
who are attracted to the
colors
 Hear music when the spirit
is captured

11. Sapelo Island

12. Sapelo Island

13. Sapelo Island

14. The Indigo Plantation

15. The black church service
 We went to visit a Baptist church in Darien, GA.
 I grew up going to a church service similar to this one
in Havre de Grace, MD. They conduct the service
similarly
 The Call and Response and the more recent version
of the Ring Shout was present, which traces back to
some African religions
 The energy in the church was unlike what you
experience in a Catholic mass

16. Thirst to know more…
 My life’s purpose:
 Conduct my own research by visiting different countries
to learn about their deaf culture and their sign language
 Connect with other deaf dancers from around the
world, communicate with them using their language
 Develop the Ware Technique in dance (developed
through the use of the foreign sign languages)
 Open my International School of Dance for Deaf
Dancers
 Educate people about our history

17. Works cited
 Frazier, Herb. Singing for the Ancestors a Song that
made the Roundtrip to Africa.
 Ware, Bianca. History 313 Midterm Study Guide. p.2.
2011.
 Ware, Bianca. Research notes. February 11 2013.