Gullah Museum of Georgetown

The ape insult: a short history of a racist idea European scientists used evolution to justify their view of Europeans as genetically superior - especially with the erroneous view that Africans were somehow an intermediate step between apes and Euro...

Learn more from this article on “The ape insult: a short history of a racist idea.” theconversation.com/the-ape-insu...

And those who want to other and demean us have never stopped. These dehumanizing associations were used to justify brutal treatmen and murder, such as lynching, and continue to fuel racist violence and systemic prejudice today.
Last night, it was used to distract from the E-files.

Let’s get into why ⚪️’s became depicting people of African descent as monkeys. The origin is rooted in a centuries-old, systematic effort to dehumanize Black people, dating back to early European colonial to justify slavery, colonialism, and white supremacy.

FREE EVENT: SINO Speakers Series: Safeguarding Our United States History, Saturday, Feb 21, 2026, 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM, 150 Meeting St, Charleston, SC 29401.

THIS EVENT WILL ALSO BE LIVE STREAMED AT www.youtube.com/@CircularChu...

RECORDING MAY BE WATCHED LATER AT www.youtube.com/@CircularChu...

Benne Wafers: Simple Crackers with a Rich History | America's Test Kitchen Savory benne wafers celebrate the tiny, flavorful benne seed. Click through to learn more.

As always, thank you to the researchers, historians, and writers whose work is compiled in this thread. Sources:

www.americastestkitchen.com/articles/818...

www.ccpl.org/charleston-t...

ujamaaseeds.com/products/ben...

The heirloom version of African sesame seeds are richer and nuttier in flavor compared to modern commercial seeds. Today, the legacy of benne seeds endures in the wafers, the thin, crispy, sweet or sometimes savory cookies in the photo at the top of this thread.

The word “benne” is used, with a variety of spellings, in the Wolof, Mande, Mandingo, and Bambara languages of West Africa. Then, as now, Africans used benne in a variety of ways, as a food, as a medicine (the leaves), and as a cultural object.

Benne seeds are relatively easy to grown in South Carolina. They are high in protein and oil. They were a vital source of sustenance used to thicken soups and pressed for cooking oil, which was an alternative to imported olive oil during the Colonial period.

Plantation owners used food as a deprivation tool for control, dependence, & dehumanization. This helped ensure that the enslaved lacked the energy to rebel or try to escape to freedom. The ancestors gardened, foraged, fished, & hunted for food that was shared with the community.

They had to do this to survive the brutality of the sugarcane & rice fields. Plantation owners gave enslaved people low-quality, meager rations (like cornmeal and fatback), primarily for profit maximization, treating them as economic assets to be maintained at minimal cost.

Enslaved Africans from South Carolina and the Caribbean brought the sesame seeds with them in the 17th and early 18th centuries, planting them in their own personal gardens where ever they found themselves.

Photo of benne wafers

Botanists may debate where sesame seeds originated from, but we know that the plant has been cultivated in Africa for millennia. Sesame seeds were brought to the Americas by enslaved Africans like the ancestors of the #Gullah #Geechee. #Senegal #Mali #Mauritania #HiddenHistory

The Gullah word of the day is—Sanyd Claw!

The Gullah word of the day is—Sanyd Claw!

Pull quote

They can remove names and historical incidents from federal entities. They can remove MLK Day and Juneteenth from National Parks Fee-Free Days. Black folk are unbowed and unbothered. We have been through this before—and still we rise. That and the internet is forever.

HAPPENING TODAY: Come meet Santa Claus—“Sanyd Claw” in Gullah—and take free photos with him at the Gullah Museum on 11/29 and 12/13 from 11 am - 12 pm. We’re at 123 King Street, Georgetown, SC—behind the Wells Fargo Bank on Front Street in the historic district.

Happy Turkey Day! The reigning Mrs. South Carolina America Julie Holmes and her family stopped by the Gullah Museum of Georgetown today! Museum Director Beatrice Rodrigues gave them a special tour. Julie and her husband, Greg, are parents of three young children, all ages 5 and under. The family have lived in Indian Land since 2016. Thanks for visiting, Julie!

Happy Turkey Day! The reigning Mrs. South Carolina America Julie Holmes and her family stopped by the Gullah Museum of Georgetown today! Museum Director Beatrice Rodrigues gave them a special tour. Julie and her husband, Greg, are parents of three young children, all ages 5 and under. The family have lived in Indian Land since 2016. Thanks for visiting, Julie!

Happy Turkey Day! The reigning Mrs. South Carolina America Julie Holmes and her family stopped by the Gullah Museum of Georgetown today! Museum Director Beatrice Rodrigues gave them a special tour. Julie and her husband, Greg, are parents of three young children, all ages 5 and under. The family have lived in Indian Land since 2016. Thanks for visiting, Julie!

Happy Turkey Day! The reigning Mrs. South Carolina America Julie Holmes and her family stopped by the Gullah Museum of Georgetown today! Museum Director Beatrice Rodrigues gave them a special tour. Thanks for visiting, Julie!

Event flyer

Come meet Santa Claus—Sanyd Claw in Gullah—and take free photos with him at the Gullah Museum on 11/29 and 12/13 from 11 am - 12 pm. We’re at 123 King Street, Georgetown, SC—behind the Wells Fargo Bank on Front Street in the historic district.

Looks like one of the Washington sisters—Fredi (left) & Isabelle. Both were multi-hyphenates—actresses, dancers, Civil Rights activists, and “Race Women.” They were Cotton Club dancers once upon a time. And they’re both #Gullah #Geechees from Savannah, GA.

Looks like one of the Washington sisters—Fredi is on the left and Isabelle is on the right. They were both multi-hyphenates—actresses, dancers, activists, and Race Women. Both were Cotton Club dancers and #Gullah #Geechees from #Savannah, GA.

Ring

Bracelets

Tree

Ring

Been prepping for the holiday season! New pieces available now in the Etsy shop, like the sweetgrass and pine straw rings and assorted bracelets and necklaces. And, there are blue bottle and multicolor bottle trees available while supplies last. gullahshop.etsy.com

Thank you to the researchers, scientists, historians, and Dr. Bonaparte for their work, which I used to compile this thread.

Sources:

time.com/6727306/blac...

youtu.be/SE34K88LUek?...

ir.vanderbilt.edu/items/720085...

musc.libguides.com/c.php?g=7870...

By shifting births from homes to hospitals and redefined pregnancy as a medical condition—rather than a natural process—the “medicalization of childbirth” exploited existing social biases against women, immigrants, and people of color like South Carolina’s granny midwives. #HiddenHistory

Evidence from the period showed midwife-attended births often had better outcomes than hospital births, where procedures like forceps delivery could cause injury.

Between 1900 and 1940, the majority of birthworkers in the state were Black and called “granny midwives” or “grand midwives.” The medical establishment’s smear campaigns against midwives portrayed traditional birthworkers as untrained, unhygienic, and a threat to maternal and infant health.

Abrogation is the act of canceling, nullifying, or repealing something, almost always in an official or legal context. This happened across the U.S., but in South Carolina, it disproportionately affected African-American women.

In “The Persecution and Prosecution of Granny Midwives in South Carolina, 1900-1940,” medical sociologist Alicia D. Bonaparte, PhD, referred to the concerted effort by doctors to take over the field of childbirth from midwives as abrogation.

Midwives charged significantly lower fees, which gave them a competitive advantage, especially among lower-income families who were a large portion of their clientele. My grandmother Anna Smith was a #Gullah #Geechee midwife/rootworker in Georgetown, S.C.

Black folks often didn’t have access to hospitals and physicians due to means and location and, if accessed, subjected to racism, discrimination, and substandard care in segregated facilities, obtaining care from trusted members of the community as granny midwives instead was vital.

For African American communities in the South in the late 1800s and well into the 20th Century, #midwives were trusted and well-respected health lcare practitioners that were relied upon for general healing for the family as well as for providing maternal and infant care during labor and delivery.

Prior to the intervention of physicians and hospitals, most women delivered unassisted or assisted by a relative or a #midwife. That changed in the early 20th century when physicians sought to gain a monopoly on the profitable field of #obstetrics.