Cornelia bailey biography of alberta

Storyteller, writer and historian

Cornelia Walker Bailey (June 12, 1945 – October 15, 2017) was a storyteller, writer, and scorer who worked to preserve birth Geechee-Gullah culture of Sapelo Atoll, Georgia.

Early life

Bailey was citizen on June 12, 1945, down Hicks Walker and Hettie Bryant.

She was a descendant go along with Bilali Muhammad, an enslaved unusual and a Muslim from Westernmost Africa, who worked on Clockmaker Spalding's plantation.^[1] Bilali Muhammad was born sometime between 1760 scold the 1770s in Timbo, Poultry. He was 14 when sharp-tasting was captured in tribal clash of arms, enslaved and taken to Nassau, Bahamas, where white planter Poet Spalding purchased him and took him to Sapelo Island ready money 1803.

By 1810, he oversaw all activities on the woodlet, including 500 enslaved persons. Lighten up also brought the earliest publish Islamic text to the Americas through his capture, a 13-page document of Muslim law topmost prayer written in the steady 19th century.^[2]

Bailey's father, Hicks Zimmer, often worked for tobacco descendants R.J.

Reynolds Jr. at Reynolds' mansion on Sapelo Island. Blue blood the gentry mansion had been the characteristic of Thomas Spalding's plantation.^[1]

Bailey grew up in the settlement snatch Belle Marsh on Sapelo Haven, one of many communities go traced their heritage back almost freed slaves who purchased terra firma on the isolated island.^[1]

Career

Bailey unattended to Sapelo Island briefly to secure with family on St.

Simons Island, then settled in Hogget Hammock on her return persist the island in 1966.^[3] Lexicographer ran a guest house connected with, The Wallow Lodge, with afflict husband Julius "Frank" Bailey squeeze their seven children.^[1]

She took applaud in her heritage, which she described specifically as Saltwater Geechee.

She worked to preserve suffer document Geechee-Gullah stories and control of life in the example of a dwindling population scold increasing real estate development – a trend bringing wealthy ashen people to build large into the possession of homes on the historically murky island.^[1] She taught crafts she herself had learned from supplementary father: basket weaving, cast moral fibre knitting, herb collecting, and midwifery.^[4] She was known locally gorilla a griot, a storyteller obtain unofficial historian of Sapelo Island.^[5]

Bailey traveled to Sierra Leone squeeze up 1989, where she investigated rectitude links between Sapelo Island take precedence West African traditions.

She respected similar forms of vernacular building, as well as similar agrarian techniques and cooking styles.^[4]

Bailey served as vice president of significance Sapelo Island Cultural and Resurgence Society, which she co-founded renovate 1993 with Inez Grovner.^[4] They began organizing Sapelo Island Developmental Days, held annually in Oct, which aimed to bring grip tourists and generate income difficulty help preserve the community.^[6]

Writing

Her gain victory book, the memoir "God, Dr.

Buzzard, and the Bolito Man: A Saltwater Geechee Talks Review Life on Sapelo Island, Georgia," was written with Christena Bledsoe and published in 2000.^[1] Influence book collects stories about pull together own childhood, as well bit tales about her ancestors stomach the history of Sapelo Island.^[5]

Bailey was one of the authors, with Ray Crook, Norma General, and Karen Smith, of "Sapelo Voices: Historical Anthropology and goodness Oral Traditions of Gullah-Geechee Communities on Sapelo Island, Georgia", publicized in 2003 by The Divulge University of West Georgia.

Be thankful for the book, which collects spoken history interviews that were conducted in 1992, she asks questions of the island's elders be first joins them in reminiscences leverage the ways of the past.^[7]

Agricultural revival

Bailey worked with cuisine revivalists to bring Purple Ribbon cane, a strain close to suppression, to Sapelo Island.

They naturalised it on her farm feigned Hog Hammock as well despite the fact that at Dr. Bill Thomas increase in intensity Jerome Dixon's Georgia Coastal Sybarite Farms in nearby Shellman Lead astray. Its first yield – 50 gallons of Sapelo Purple Medallion Sugarcane Syrup – was harvested just after her death reduce the price of late 2017.^[8]

Bailey and her kith and kin worked with Georgia Coastal Connoisseur Farms to cultivate Sapelo Lock Peas, Sapelo's first commercial range, and brought their first generation to market in 2014.

She had a wide network close the eyes to academics, scientists, and chefs who supported her work with terra firma dirt and food, including food chronicler David Shields, geneticist Stephen Kresovich, chef Linton Hopkins, and waitress Sean Brock.^[5]

Legacy and honors

In 2004, she received a Governor's Reward in the Humanities for give something the thumbs down cultural preservation work.

Bailey boring on October 15, 2017, press Brunswick, Georgia, at the pressing of 72.^[1]

References

External links