St. Peter Claver Students Enjoy Author’s Gullah Stories

By PRISCILLA GREEAR, Staff Writer

Published: December 11, 2003

DECATUR—Award-winning children’s author Kim Siegelson read from her books “In the Time of the Drums” and “Dancing the Ring Shout!” during a visit to St. Peter Claver Regional School on Nov. 19.

Most of her work is about the Gullah people, descendents of slaves brought over from West Africa, who live on the Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina, and during her visit she also talked about how the history and unique culture is preserved there, said development director Lucia Sizemore. “She went over very well. Students had the opportunity to order books beforehand and got them autographed.”

Siegelson read from “Dancing the Ring Shout!” to those in kindergarten through third grade. Drawing upon the African-American tradition of circle dances accompanied by call-and-response singing, each family member brings something to play at the annual harvest celebration such as pots and pans that “speaks from his own heart straight to God’s ears.” Toby doesn’t want to go because he doesn’t have any instrument until he learns through his grandfather’s wisdom that just clapping his hands allows him to speak with all he has. “He celebrates with his heart,” said Sizemore of her message.

In an author’s note on the book, Siegelson explained that ring shouts were spiritual and sacred in nature but held as a separate activity to formal Christian worship. As early Protestant churches discouraged boisterous song and dance during worship, enslaved Africans, in an effort to garner church appeal while preserving tradition, replaced their traditional call-and-response songs with new ones inspired by Bible stories or hymns.

Students then did their own ring dance, using maracas and other instruments.

Siegelson also explained to them the significance of the harvest and described how a book is published and illustrated and how important it is to learn to write and express themselves.

With students in grades four through eight she read from “In the Time of the Drums,” which draws upon the Gullah legends of Ibo’s Landing on St. Simons Island. It tells the story of two slaves, a boy and his grandmother, who see a new ship of slaves arriving, prompting the woman to run into the water and beacon the newcomers. Together they break away from the slave catchers and disappear under the water, raising questions about the meaning and value of freedom.

Sizemore said students asked “great questions” and were very interested in learning about the slave trade and the conditions slaves had to endure on the ships.

In an author’s note, Siegelson said that the Gullah “were often credited with supernatural powers, the ability to work magic, to control inanimate objects, to fly. As the tale is typically told, the Ibo people chose physical death, or ‘a slave’s freedom,’ when they walked into the river. Indeed, for many Africans the appearance of physical death did not signal the end. Only then could the spirit find release to travel back across the Middle Passage to the shores of home. Enslaved Africans were people empowered by faith, conviction and hope.”

In her books, Siegelson draws upon a lifetime spent growing up in the South and listening to tales of traditional front porch yarn-spinners such as the account of Africans walking into the water near Georgia’s Sapelo Island, upon which “In the Time of the Drums” is based. In 2000 she won the Georgia Writer of the Year Award. Illustrator Brian Pinkney won the American Library Association’s Coretta Scott King Award in 2000 for his work on “In the Time of the Drums.” Siegelson, who is married and has two children, holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from Agnes Scott College and a master of science from Georgia State University. She was inspired to be an author in elementary school when the author of her favorite book “Queenie Peavy,” Robert Burch, visited her school and spoke on writing. “Seeing him and hearing him talk about writing made me believe I could be an author too, someday. Suddenly I realized ‘Queenie Peavy’ had begun as an idea in the mind of a man who took the time to write it down and then craft it into a book I loved. What a small but inspiring revelation!”