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The Curious Roots podcast digs deep in the living earth of our personal, familial and communal lives to help us understand how we exist in the world today. Though the format of the podcast may vary from season to season, be it narratives, one-on-one interviews or panel discussions, the root line is the same. What are the stories from our family and community histories that travel with us into the present? How do we understand and work with these histories as both individuals and as collectives to create the world of now and the future?
Season one of the podcast begins with the maternal story of my own curious roots, still buried, but breathing and holding fast in Harris Neck, Georgia. Each week, in six short form episodes, I’ll share the story of my mother’s people and how it informs my life today.
Curious Roots is hosted by Michelle McCrary and is co-produced by Moonshadow Productions and Converge Collaborative.
Archival Audio
Margaret Baisden White: He used to spend the summers out here with Papa. So, and I didn't know him either. Oh yeah? No, but see he stayed out here and I was in the city. And the only times I came was during the summer and a lot of times he was either in the river or wherever he was. Uh huh. So I really, I seen him a quite a, you know I had seen him a quite a few times but I didn't know him.
Didn't know him at all. Yeah. And if Willie hadn't been coming and spending the summers out here with him, he wouldn't have known him either.
Uh huh. Because
Mama leaves him there in the city. And, and, uh, That's Effie.
Miss Mary Moran: Because Effie was your grandmother. Yeah. And, uh, she was married to Willis Hammonds. Yeah.
Margaret Baisden White: And see, I didn't know Papa. Because he stayed out here. Right. Well, but, uh, People died young. Shelby, um, Mama was sixty, had
it been sixty eight, sixty nine or something like that. Uh, uh, Maddie. No, my mother died three weeks ago. Before she was forty, before her forty fourth birthday. And her name was Mattie. Well, well, well. And Effie was her mother. Yeah, and she, I think she died when she was sixty eight or sixty nine.
Miss Mary Moran: Yeah, them people died young.
I'm older than my mother was. When she died she was seventy five. Yeah, well I'm older than both Mama and Daddy when they died. Mm hmm. She had just turned seventy five. Twelfth of December. She died. I justreached my seventy eighth. I’ll be seventy nine.
Margaret Baisden White: What's your name?
Miss Mary Moran: Mary. They call me Culey. Mama give me that little name, Culey. Oh, I'm Culey. Yeah, I've heard them talk about Culey. Culey, Culey, Culey. I was mama's only child. Culey. But my real name was Mary. Mary Ellen. Oh,you wouldn't believe it I had. thirteen children. I seven still living. Sweet! So and the grandchildren and the great grand when they have that
Michelle McCrary: Welcome to Curious Roots. I'm Michelle McCrary. I am so excited to share the first half of our final episode featuring my interview with Mr. Griffin Lotson. Mr. Lotson is the Georgia Commission Vice Chair for the Gullah Geechee Heritage Corridor Commission. Chief Executive Officer of the non profit Sam's Memorial Community Economic Mint, Incorporated, and Manager of the internationally acclaimed Gullah Geechee Ring Shouters.
Mr. Lotson’s work and his travels have brought the Gullah Geechee community to folks all over the world. He's done consulting for movies and television related to the culture, and he had a really, really huge part in unlocking the connection of a famous folk song to Gullah Geechee, uh, communities in McIntosh County.
So, I, I don't want to take up too much time telling you what a G he is, um, but you'll hear it when you listen to him talk. I appreciate his support. Time. Um, he's a busy, busy man and he is always all over doing many, many things for the community. So I hope you enjoy this, uh, talk with Mr. Griffin Lotson. Oh, and I almost forgot one more thing.
Mr. Lotson at the time I spoke to him last year was Mayor Pro temp of. Darien, the city of Darien in McIntosh County. So he truly, truly is a force. He's a G. We so appreciate everything that he does for, uh, Gullah Geechee people. And I hope you enjoy this interview. Thank you so much again for listening.
Michelle McCrary:Thank you again for being here. And I like to start off. These questions for my guests with who are you and who are your people
Griffin Lotson: Thank you. My name is Griffin Lotson. I'm a seventh generation Gullah Geechee and will explain some of that as we do this podcast. I hail from Crescent, Georgia, where I was born in the early 1950s, To be, uh, correct and did a lot of, um, ancestral tracing my roots, uh, even back to enslaved, uh, times as we call it.
And, uh, lives in the state of Georgia. They say we talk funny like we're from the islands, man, you know, or we say things like come Yuh dis yuh that day, which is the Gullah Geechee dialect. And it's just a language that's kind of a melting pot of the English. Uh, we learned from what we have, uh, back in time, the slave masters.
And then my, um, uh, in laws, uh, uh, up until today, we just carried it on to the next generation. I try to change it a little bit for my children and my grandchildren, they talk much different than I do, I wouldn't say better, when you use the word better in the Gullah Geechee culture, that means that your language is not good, or your dialect is not good.
And, uh, it's perfect now. But it took me years to realize how perfect it is. So I'll stop there.
Michelle McCrary: Hmm. Thank you for that. And, and thank you for sharing a little bit about the language and the language. I always feel like I need to learn how to speak Geechee. My Aunt Gladys Hayes was the last person in our family to speak it.
So I know, like, Little words here and there, and I can understand when folks speak to me, but I can't speak it. So I've been really thinking long and hard about what I'm going to do about that, especially for my kids. But I can also understand, um, speaking like, uh, of people from the islands, I can also really understand Jamaican Patois, and I don't know that at all, but there's something to it that sounds very familiar to me.
Yeah. Yeah. So thank you for that. And I'm going to jump around a little. I know I sent you some questions, but I have a ton of them, but I want to follow that question up, um, and ask you a little bit about where you grew up. And also, um, if in your travels, you knew people from Harris Neck.
Griffin Lotson: Yes, as I said, I grew up in McIntosh County and, uh, Harris neck is in McIntosh County.
And I love to say this whenever I do lectures. I just did one at a national conference in Florida. And, uh, I say it all over the country. And even when I traveled to foreign soils like Africa, I'll be in the Caribbean next week. I'm very excited about that because Transcribed Uh, we are connecting with a memorandum of understanding, uh, in the Caribbean in Barbados.
So we have a kind of a partnership. So I'm very excited. I push for that, being the vice chairman of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage. Commission, which was authorized by Congress, and so we're in full operation. But yes, Harris Neck is, uh, definitely a part of, uh, my own culture. I use this phrase, and allow me to say this a little bit, uh, dramatizing it, uh, for the effect.
Uh, there's James Napoleon Rogers, which was born into enslavement, and he lived in Harris Neck, Georgia. He had a son by the name of James Monkey, uh, Rogers. Uh, he was not born into enslavement, but his father did. And the monkey Rogers is what we call nickname. Uh, but they call it basket names, uh, back in the day.
So you have James Napoleon Rogers. Then you have James Rogers, his son. And then James Rogers son, uh, name was Leon Rogers. And Leon Rogers had a nephew by the name of Griffin Latsin, which is doing this podcast now. So yes, I have a lot of rich connections to the Harris neck community, including the very, very famous song.
Woka Mona. Kum ba a la lei, uh, James Rogers sung this song. Also, uh, most people don't know that Liberty County. And Macintosh County was one county at one time back in the 1700s and the later part of that, then it broke off into two counties. So all of this is recorded. I'm kind of a geek in the history of my culture.
So I study a lot. I travel a lot, different parts of the world from Africa back to America. So I've done an extensive research. On my own heritage and my own connection going back seven generations. Thank you.
Michelle McCrary: Can you talk a little bit more about, um, what you learned about your family history and about, um, McIntosh County?
Griffin Lotson: Yeah, the one I've been saying the most, I'm going to say now, whoo, 50 plus years. Uh, first heard it and then psychologically. I always remember that and that's why I say I'm proud of my culture now because it once was a time I was not proud of it. And I said this in West Africa and, uh, to a friend of mine that we, he was living over there at the time, Joe Apollo.
And, uh, he is the gentleman that did the work on the research of the, uh, Mende song that we all know. That Amelia Dawley sung in America, and also the African, West African, that Bindu Japati, that sung it in Africa. But we met at the National Theater in Sierra Leone, not theater, but a museum. And I give this phrase, BBC News was there, but I do this at all media.
So I'm going to do it in this podcast now. And, uh, they would say this to me, Boy yuh too Geechee, uh, which hearing it at first is very difficult. But simply, they said, boy, you are too kitschy. Now, what they meant by that, they were saying, young man, you're getting older and you need to move away from your cultural heritage.
Um, now, they didn't say the words that I just said then, and they certainly wasn't saying you need to lose your culture. They knew they were wrong. I would grow up. They knew if I'm going to do better in society, you need to start practicing what we call the buckra or the American way of speaking proper English.
Okay. And, uh, I kept that up until I became a young adult. So everywhere I went, when I left home at the age of 18, 19 years to go to Washington DC, which I lived there for 12 years. I tell people I went through the ritual of making up a language, so my Gullah Geechee would always come out and I would say, Umma, which I should be saying, I am, but I would say, Umma gonna, which I should be saying, I am going to, it would always slip out and I'll try to cover it up.
Most people didn't know what I was doing was covering it up. If I say, you know, I'm a goner, then I instantly, right after I say that, which takes less than one second, I would switch and say, I'm a goner. I am going to the store and opposed to say, I'm going to go to the store. Uh, I hear it. Then I would switch it.
Then I learned to sing my words. I had relatives, which were Gullah Geechees, uh, that lived in New York. So they, they picked up that. New York twang, that New York accent. So I just learned to sing my words and doing this podcast, I would say words similar to this, uh, to make people think that I was refined and not of my Gullah Geechee heritage, and I would just make these fake languages up to impress people.
Or to make them think that I'm not Gullah Geechee. Now, was that a bad thing to do? At the time, I didn't think so because in Washington, DC, folks couldn't understand my dialect. Wherein you couldn't get a very good job, you know, talking to individuals, legislators, or even in business, uh, it would be difficult.
So I did that for a number of years. And then I changed and started learning about my own culture. And who would have ever thought for me the hunger of learning about my culture. And I might've had this, whether you love him or hate him. I like using him because everybody knows about him. Clarence Thomas, uh, Supreme court justice.
He's only about five or six years old and I am, and I started listening to other individuals. And I found out that I wasn't isolated. Uh, just about everybody in the Gullah and the Geechee culture, uh, tried to hide or run away from their own culture. When they were young and all of my great heroes, like Dr.
Emory Campbell, I call him the godfather of the Gullah Geechee, uh, culture. And, uh, people like Supreme court justice, Clarence Thomas, they started saying, well, you know, it wasn't good to be Gullah Geechee back in the day, now, both of them honor their culture and I certainly honor mine. So that's a little bit of, uh, of my background and I can give another two hours on my history of being a Gullah Geechee.
Well, that just means we're going to have to have you come back and just let, and let you rip. So, um, yes, a lot of people don't know about Clarence Thomas, who is from pinpoint, Georgia. He is a controversial figure. Um, but you know, I know that my grandmother would say we're all God's children and I'm going to leave it at that.
So, and I would say, I would say controversial. So. To some, and the most controversial person I know is Jesus Christ. Some love him and some don't. And most politicians are controversial. I tell everybody, every president have about 50 million people that don't like them. I don't know if I know that. Uh, because 50 million people voted for them.
51 million may have voted for them, but 50 million did not, especially the one that lost. So, I just wanted to add that little piece in there, because a lot of people do love, uh, Clarence Thomas. And as you said, he is controversial, uh, to many, many individuals.
Michelle McCrary: Absolutely. And speaking of politicians, you are the mayor pro tem of Darien. And you also, um, work very closely with the Gullah Geechee Heritage Corridor. Can you tell me, uh, both, about both those states, um, and how, if at all, they're connected?
Griffin Lotson: Yes, both is connected. And, uh, many years ago I set a goal in my life and I was able to accomplish them. A lot of times you don't accomplish your goals.
So I often say if I left today, I would have accomplished most of. of my goals. A lot of failures in the middle because a lot of young people want to hit his podcast and usually with no success. Uh, you don't have failure first. I want to encourage them because you feel and something never give up, never quit is my philosophy.
But yes, uh, besides my religious work, uh, I love doing humanitarian efforts. I always wanted to do that, and I did it in Washington, D. C. as a Gullah Geechee, and I brought that back, uh, to Georgia. I moved back in 1985, and still live here, plan to die here. Uh, yes, I wanted to work in the city, uh, just, you know, setting the pace for the city, and wound up running for office, uh, lost a lot of elections, but now I serve as the second highest position in the city of Darren, Georgia, as the Gullah Geechee.
Uh, mayor pro temp. Ironically, I also serve in the second highest position in the United States of America. I am the vice chairman of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission. I usually tell people Niagara Falls, which about a billion people know about, definitely millions travel there. We have the same designation from the federal government as Niagara Falls.
Thank you very much. We're just not as popular yet as Niagara Falls, but we're moving up that chain very, very, very fast, very, very fast, I should say, and we're, we're proud of it that now many are owning the culture instead of shunting it away.
Michelle McCrary: And, and I thank you for mentioning that. And I don't know, people will know from the intro that you are a big deal.
But you are very much a big deal, and, um, I thank you for your work with the Gullah Geechee Heritage Corridor. Um, and I think a lot of people who are kind of reconnecting, and I would include myself in that, even though my process started in the 90s, just kind of like having my grandmother talk about Harris Neck for the first time in my life.
life, like we would go there and she would say we're going to the country and that was about it. And it wasn't until, you know, I was adult, an adult, a young adult in the nineties that she started to talk about it. Can you tell me, um, for folks who are looking to reconnect, what is the best way to do it?
What kinds of programs or what kinds of, uh, guidance or information does the Gullah Geechee Heritage Corridor offer for that?
Griffin Lotson: Uh, yes. I'm very proud to say I've, uh, wow. I've worked with it. And some of the other names that you mentioned, like Mr. Wilson Moran and so many others. Uh, we were a part of the Gullah Geechee culture.
Um, before it was cool. We'll say it that way. We go way back because we were birthed into it. Uh, but when they were trying to plan it in the early 2000s, uh, when they just had the thought of trying to put it together, wasn't even offered for legislation purpose yet. Through Congressman Clyburn, we were involved.
So I go back to the, um, the real, real history of that quarter in its infancy, late nineties. I think when the idea was thought of. So yes, I've been involved in that. And what, what it does now is all those groups, all those Gullah Geechee, I should say within the quarter, which start in the, uh, Pinto County, uh, which is in North Carolina all the way down to ST John's County in Florida, that 30 miles inland and, uh, Most people don't know.
It kind of mimics that what if people talk about the 40 acres in a mule, which is Field order 15, which was conducted right there from the government after the Civil War and land all of the islands, all of them, the sea islands, you name them, we had on them all. Hilton Head, Jekyll Island, Sin Simon Island, all of the islands, we owned it all.
Sapelo Island, all of it we owned. All of the Harris Neck area was owned by the Gullah Geechee slash African American, but then Lincoln died and the new president converted it back to the plantation owners. So, since that time, all those individuals that still live in the area and have traveled to the four corners of this earth now.
So Gullah Geechees just don't live within the quarter because we have children and grandchildren and many of them were traded to various plantations outside of the four states. Most people don't, uh, give that recognition. So those traditions and the way we talk, come Yuh dis yuh dat day, and all of those things.
Came into play all over America and on foreign soils because slavery was still going on. But today, 21st century, what it does now, there's a lot of festivals. There's a lot of individuals that's within the Gullah Geechee culture, the basket weavers, the ring shouters. Uh, the corridor itself has been a Mecca for information.
Now we're beginning to give some seed money. Uh, to, uh, these organizations so that when they once had a little festival, they might've had 25 to 45 people to show up. I've lived long enough to see to the point now that thousands show up. That does my heart good to see when it grows from zero. Now it is known, uh, many parts of America and the world.
We still have a long ways to go, but being that I'm on the commission, I get an opportunity to talk with people like Mr. Gates. I get an opportunity to work with film production, uh, like the movie Roots. I had a major, uh, part in that movie, not just a tiny piece, a major part, which came from our culture dealing with the ring shout.
Uh, Oprah Winfrey, uh, Queen Sugar did some writing for them from Our culture, one of the songs they wanted to use in many other people. That's a part of the culture. I've got opportunities now that was never, ever thought of. Uh, but because of the Gullah Geechee commission, it has went to a higher level. And I still say we haven't scratched the surface yet.
I think it's a long way to go, but I'm very grateful since 2006. And we're close to, uh, 2026. Uh, it has grown tremendously and I hope we continue to see success in that area to help. Those individuals that want to keep their culture alive. Thank you.
Michelle McCrary: I appreciate that. And you brought up two things, actually three things I want to talk about.
One, I know you also manage the Gullah Geechee ring shouters. That's one thing. And then another piece of that, as you mentioned, all your work kind of being a consultant for a different, you know, Films, um, TV, uh, about the culture. You were one of the people who was responsible for uncovering the true meaning of the song Kumbaya.
And I would love for you to talk about the ring shouters and also, um, about Kumbaya
Griffin Lotson: again, that's another two hours. I love doing these things and what happened is, and you'll find this out when you talk to some of you. Other individuals you're going to be interviewing Rutherford and Wilson and Moran and others.
Uh, we actually love what we do. We don't do it for the money, uh, but because of our expertise, sometimes people are willing to fly us to different places. I've went to, uh, Central Africa, Congo by invitation. Can you believe that? And, uh, in the midst of Uh, the coronavirus. So I guess I'm a little crazy, too.
You know, we love the culture so much that we do things that normal or most people don't do. I won't tell people that that that climb Mount Everest that they're not normal, but I have zero interest in trying to climb Mount Everest. But I say it in this contents. For me, the Mount Everest is Sharing what I have learned and learning from my travels and talking to people that are older than I am, and sometime younger, I've traveled the length of this earth for the Kumbaya.
I was in Dubai doing interviews. I was in Germany with some German friends of mine that filmed us locally at my local church, uh, in Darien, Georgia, Sam's Memorial Church of God in Christ. And they were from Germany. Years later, I went to Germany to film them because of the kumbaya. They were taught this in Germany from a book that's called The Trumpet.
And, uh, I could not believe it because the same sound kumbaya, which I'll give a little bit now, which derived from the Galageti culture, we did extensive research for about a decade, and they were being taught it in Germany. And we were not being taught it in America. I just thought that was fascinating to me.
So we traveled there to talk with them in, in different, uh, Seoul, Korea, just interviewing individuals. Have you ever heard of the song Kumbaya? Oh yeah. Kumbaya, Kumbaya, Kumbaya. China, uh, everywhere who don't know that song or that phrase, which a billion people know, what the public did not know is that.
The first known recording in the world was done within the Gullah Geechee culture, put your seatbelts on, in a little town called Darien, Georgia. I certainly didn't know it. Uh, the world didn't know it. So I dedicated my life, I had a great mentor, uh, which is, I never met this mentor, but I feel like I know him, which is Lorenzo Dow Turner.
Uh, they call him the godfather of linguistics in the African American culture because he's African American. He took 20 years of his life traveling here in America within the Gullah Geechee culture and in Africa. So I had a great mentor. If he can dedicate that much time in his life, I can dedicate some time.
So my claim to fame is Georgia has its first historical song, which is Kumbaya. Now, Uh, the Library of Congress and Congress has recognized this particular song that's coming from the Gullah Geechee culture. We had to work hard and, uh, we made it happen. Of course, not by myself. I used the legislators and other individuals and we pushed, we pushed, we pushed.
And now the first book in the world has been written on my research. Uh, because when my days are all over and I go to be with the ancestors, I want this knowledge to be here on planet Earth for another individual can pick up where I left it off and perhaps find some more information concerning that same kumbaya.
Thank you.
Michelle McCrary: Can you translate that for folks? Cause people say kumbaya. But it's Kambaya, I am, and my pronunciation is probably even off, but can you just translate for folks that may not know what that means?
Griffin Lotson: Yes, I'm going to give you three versions of what it is. The most famous version, which was, um, famously recorded, Joan Baez, she's still alive.
Peter Sagal and many others. Even B. B. King did a version of it, I guess, because it was so popular. He wanted to get in on it, make some money too, but he did a version of it. And we all know now thousands and thousands of groups sing that sound. The most famous, and I'm going to give it in order down to what the, uh, Enslaved and the Gullah Geechee The most famous version is Kumbaya.
Now I explain it since we have a little bit of time and let me know when I'm talking too long, but the Kumbaya by those famous singers, most people don't know they went to the Library of Congress with their professionals. They're looking for new material. And for whatever reason, they go and research and look, and they found some of these songs.
They did not know they were going to be famous. Uh, they just sung it and it took off like a rocket and I say that about the ring shouters and we'll give some more about that later. We did the same thing for about Eight to ten years, the same script, kind of like a politician, they say the same thing. So we say the same thing about the dialect.
And we would say the dialect, and while we, one would interpret it in English, and then we would say the dialect side of it in, in the, uh, in the, uh, in the, in the way that we talk. Come y'all this y'all that day, and somebody would explain it, uh, on the English side. Come here, this here, that over there. We would explain it.
And it took off. We didn't know it was going to take off. We've hoping to get 50, 000 hits or 25, 000. The last count that we had, it went over 3 million. Nobody in the Gullah Geechee culture ever gotten 3 million hits that went viral, but we did same thing with the, uh, Kumbaya, uh, those famous singers sung the song and it just, everybody was buying it.
So that's the most famous, which everybody know Kumbaya. They thought it was recorded in Africa. Uh, that's where they were singing it. No, some missionaries took it to Africa, and then the Africans started saying it in their patois, kumbaya, which the next most famous words before it was, uh, kumbaya, the most famous one before that was in the hymn books.
And this is what the missionary took, which is come by here. And in the sixties, that same sound, come by here, was in the civil rights movement. And they sing, come by here my lord, come by here, and the rest of the verses. Now, I saved the best for last. And remember this, all those that will be listening to your podcast, the original word was not kumbaya, and it was not come by here.
It was come by ya. If my parents were calling me. They'll say, Hey, Griff, come. Yeah, boy, come. Yeah, we would use the word. Yeah, we would not use the word here. And then the Gullah dialect when the recording the first known recording. I got my hands on it because they said this guy has a little bit of knowledge.
I used to pay for material at the Library of Congress. Once they saw I had a little bit of knowledge. I didn't have to pay for anything after that. They gave me the material. Because I was of the Gullah culture in closing with that same Kumbaya, but the original words that come by. Yeah, I listened to it.
And the hair stood up on my arms. I had purchased a house that was owned by a former slave, Ma Jane, that's in the drums and shadows. And I purposely said, I want to listen to it with my earphones on, and I placed it on the bed. I recorded all of this because I didn't know what I was going to experience, but I thought I was going to experience something great.
And I did.
Michelle McCrary: Thank you so much for listening to Curious Roots. Learn more about Harris Neck at HarrisNeckWantTrust. org. and find out more about their work with the African American Redress Network at redressnetwork. org. Learn more about Black coastal communities from North Carolina to Florida at gullahgeechecorridor.org. You can support Gullah Geechee communities on St. Helena and Sapelo Islands by following ProtectStHelena at ProtectStHelena. com and SavingOurLegacyOurselfSolo at SavingOurLegacyOurself. org All links are in our show notes. Thank you to my relatives who are now with the ancestors, Miss Mary Moran, Cousin Evelyn Greer, Cousin Bob Thorpe, Cousin Chester Dunham, my father, Rodney Clark, my grandfather, Rufus White, and my grandmother, Margaret Baisden White.
Season two of Curious Roots is produced by Moonshadow Productions and with the generous support of Converge Collaborative. Thank you so much for listening.