Belle Marsh. Lumber Landing. Shell Hammock. Raccoon Bluff. The names of the slave and freedmen communities on Sapelo Island are as poetic and picturesque as the canopy of Spanish moss that covers this oblong-shaped island off the central coast of Georgia.

The names speak to a way of life shaped by a spiritual connection to nature. But they also echo with heartbreak and upheaval handed down by slave owners and industrialists whose actions helped erase those communities from the island…

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Geechee community endures on Sapelo Island, but just barely

Tags: Gullah-Geechee culture, Hogg Hummock, Sapelo Island history