Multimedia Collection
Family Across the Sea
VHS
56 minutes
E185.625 .F351 1991
Family Across the Sea is Roots told as an historical and linguistic detective story. It shows how scholars have uncovered the remarkable connections between the Gullah people of South Carolina and the people of Sierra Leone. Across the Sea movingly portrays how African Americans have preserved their ties with their homeland through centuries of oppression.
The ancestors of the Gullah were African slaves brought to the Sea Islands because of their expertise in rice cultivation. Family Across the Sea documents how the Gullahs incorporated many aspects of African culture in the daily life of the plantations. The Gullah language contains over 3,000 words of African origin and resembles the Krio language of Sierra Leone.
The film concludes with the "homecoming" of a delegation of Gullah to the West African brothers and sisters they hadn't realized they had. One woman speaks what many African Americans will feel: "Now, I know that I have really come home."
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