Date: Fri 17-Nov-1995

Publication: Bee

Author: AMYD

Quick Words:

Georgia-Sea-Island-Singers

Full Text:

schools Georgia Sea Island Singers

w/2col.photo:Doug Quimby ....

Bringing alive African-American chants, work songs, stories and spirituals,

Frankie and Doug Quimby of the Georgia Sea Island Singers recently visited

students at Head O'Meadow and Sandy Hook schools.

The Georgia Sea Island Singers have been performing at schools for the last 20

years in order to introduce students to the unique music and culture of the

Georgia Sea Islands and African-American heritage.

The only two remaining members of the group, started by the late Bessie Jones,

are the Quimbys.

Together, they taught Newtown students about the language, Gullah, a mixture

of English and an African dialect that bears the characteristic rapid

enunciation of some African tribes.

The students also learned the art of hand clapping, and some of children

joined the Quimbys on stage for performances.

The sea islands in Georgia have long been home to African-Americans. Once the

site of large plantations, the islands became a refuge for freed and fugitive

slaves.

When the Civil War ended, many African-Americans remained there.

They are now known as a vital storehouses of African-American history because

blacks living have been cut off geographically from the mainland.

Frankie Sullivan Quimby was raised on the islands. She comes from one of the

few families who can trace their ancestry to a tribe in Africa. The family,

taking the name Sullivan after the Civil War, came from the town of Kianah in

the district of Temourah in the Kingdom of Massina near the Niger River.

Mr Quimby, also born in Georgia, has been performing since childhood and

joined the singers in 1969.