Remembering Cornelia Walker Bailey, A Giant Of Gullah Geechee Culture
Bailey, who died Oct. 15, was considered the Geechee "griot," a West African term for storyteller, and fought to keep alive the community's history and way of life, especially its food culture.
On the coastal edge of Georgia sits a small, dwindling community known as the Gullah Geechee. The people in the community are direct descendants of enslaved West Africans who settled on the barrier islands there. The Gullah Geechee's unofficial historian and vocal advocate for the preservation of the community, Cornelia Walker Bailey, has died. She was 72.
Bailey died on Oct. 15 in Brunswick, Ga. She was considered the Geechee "griot," a West African term for oral historian
