Wade in the Water

At the start of the poem, the speaker is at a safe distance from the horrors of slavery. She is a 21st-century audience member at a performance by a group whose culture has retained a strong connection to their ancestors, ancestors who were once enslaved. Ironically, the Gullah Geechee have retained their closeness to their African roots as a result of their distance from the mainland and its pressures to assimilate and gentrify. Before bridges, air conditioning, and the development of beachfront condos, the Gullah did not have much opportunity to interact and assimilate with their mainland neighbors. Lack of bridges allowed the Gullah culture to remain strong.

As bridges were built from the mainland to the islands, the culture of the Gullah people became threatened by those who wanted to develop their lands for high-profit resorts and tourist dollars. But the Gullah transformed this interaction by taking control of their narrative. They recognized the need to build bridges not out of tourist dollars but out of art. Their “ring shout” performances are artistic bridges, showing the necessity of preserving culture and history. They refuse erasure by a materialistic culture but instead insist on their identity through the legacy of art.