Continuity and Change: African American Life and Culture on a Barrier Island of Georgia, 1760-1980

FAIN: BK-50054-07

Ossabaw Island Foundation (Savannah, GA 31401-3726)
Paul Moffatt Pressly (Project Director: September 2006 to February 2008)

Consultation with scholars and interpretive experts to examine the history of African American life on Ossabaw Island and in the Georgia Lowcountry.

The Ossabaw Island Foundation seeks a consultation grant of $14,935 to create a research agenda to explore themes about the experience of Africian Americans on Ossabaw from 1760 till the 1980s. From 1760s onwards, Ossabaw holds an important story about the African American of the Georgia Lowcountry and their unique culture. The experience of African Americans on Ossabaw will be a vehicle for understanding the black experience in the Georgia Lowcountry as well as its connections to the unfolding of American history- the American Revolution, the rise and fall of the Southern plantation economy, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the evolution during the 20th century of a traditional community into the mainstream of American life. Funding will allow the holding of two roundtables for academic and interpretive specialists to work together with the Ossabaw Island Foundation staff. These will build on the work conducted at our first roundtable held April 5, 2006.