PRJ 1010 Sounds of South Georgia
This series includes administrative files for an NEA Access Grant from 2003-2006 that looked at the traditions of new and old cultural groups in South Georgia. The series includes new field documentation with Mexican, Creek, Asian Indian, Lebanese, Saltzberger descendents, and Russian Jewish communities in South Georgia and built on previous fieldwork with Swampers, Primitive Baptists, Gullah, and African American farmers and Civil Rights Movement Freedom Singers. All are now included in this series. The fieldwork resulted in 12 radio programs of 5 to 8 minutes in length were broadcast on Georgia Public Radio's news magazine show, Georgia Gazette in 2005 and 2006. The series took an inclusive approach to the traditional arts of the region by looking at the traditional arts of the major groups who have migrated to the region. Programs included the following topics: 1) Ham and Egg Shows (food and agricultural traditions of black farmers, auctioneering, Lowndes County and Ft. Valley, GA); 2) Lebanese Easter Traditions (foodways such as Lenten ka'ak cookies and Easter customs, Valdosta, GA); 3) Chesser Homestead Homecoming (Swamper foodways, sacred harp, hollering, ballad singing, Charlton County, GA); 4) Old Timey Harvest Day and the McIntosh County Shouters (ring shout, Gullah traditions, Riceboro, GA); 5) Las Posadas (Mexican Christmas customs, food, villancicos, Douglas, GA); 6) Russian Jewish Traditions and Seder (migration stories, foodways, family customs, Lowndes County, GA); 7) A Family of Freedom Singers (Rutha and Emory Harris, freedom songs, Albany, GA); 8) Creek Traditions (Bobby and Joseph Johns, woodcarving, stories, customs, Okefenokee Swamp and Southeast GA); 9) Primitive Baptist Big Meeting (dinner on the grounds and lined hymns, Cracker traditions of SE GA, Rome Primitive Baptist Church, Ware County, GA); 10) Diwali (Asian Indian Festival of Lights, food, rangoli, bhajan, Valdosta and Perry, GA); 11) Fiddlin' Bud Zorn (fiddle, black and white musical interchange, Valdosta and SW GA); 12) Migration Stories (various).
Sounds of South Georgia is a 12-part series produced by Laurie Kay Sommers and aired on Georgia Public Radio in 2005 and 2006. It focuses on the traditions of diverse cultural groups living in South Georgia. This project was supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Creek Traditions with Bobby Johns
Chesser Homestead Open House
This website is supported in part by the Georgia Council for the Arts (CGA) through the appropriations of the Georgia Assembly. GCA also receives support from its partner agency, the National Endowment for the Arts.