Dr. J. Herman Blake shares how celebrating Christmas on the South Carolina sea islands brought him closer to his African roots.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It’s time now for StoryCorps. J. Herman Blake is a member of the Gullah community. The Gullah are descendants of enslaved West Africans who worked on coastal plantations from North Carolina to Florida. The Gullah still have strong ties to their African roots. At StoryCorps, Blake told his wife, Emily Moore, about a holiday celebration he attended in 1969 on Daufuskie Island off the South Carolina coast. The celebration was called Making Christmas, and it cemented his relationship to the Gullah…