The Sea Island Singers
Visit Westville

African-American Traditional Music Captivated Hundreds

One of Westville's best-attended special events ever took place in late June at Westville's Stewart County Academy. The Sea Island Singers sang, danced, played traditional musical games, and involved visitors in the history of African-Americans.
Douglas and Frankie Sullivan Quimby are the family leaders of this very old musical troupe. They, their children, grandchildren, and a great-grandchild explained the musical heritage of slaves and their descendants. While the group began on the east coast, several members over the years, including Douglas Quimby, have been from southwest Georgia. Therefore, southwest Georgia traditions are included in performances as well.
Smithsonian Folklorist Alan Lomax attempted to interview the Sea Island Singers in 1933, but the singers were unresponsive to the interests of a white man. He visited again twenty years later when Bessie Smith Jones had joined the group. Mrs. Jones had grown up near Dawson in southwest Georgia. She bridged the cultural gap. As a result, the singers made a tour of California schools in 1964 at the request of Lomax’s sister, Bess Lomax Hawes. From that point on, the singers have been internationally famous.
Visitors learned that the native Sea Islanders are called Geechees. They speak Gullah, which is to English as Creole is to English/French in Louisiana. Mr. Quimby performed hambone as Mrs. Quimby explained that modern rappers such as MC Hammer and Snoop Doggy Dog are basically performing an extension of hambone.
Mrs. Quimby also pointed out that clogging and tap dancing came out of buck dancing. The name “Sally” she said, is code for a slave-owner's wife. “Dinah” is a slave woman.
The singers have a message, which is that slavery of all types is bad. Human bondage is over, but today people are slaves to alcohol, drugs, crime, and ignorance. Mrs. Quimby quoted a spiritual to explain her mission: “Before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free”.
Westville presented the singers as part of a new initiative to show the musical heritage of the South in light of its remarkable linkage to modern popular music. Westville hopes to schedule the singers again in 2001. This Grassroots Arts Program was supported in part by the Georgia Council for the Arts through appropriations of the Georgia General Assembly.