by Donna Bailey, Public Relations

In honor of Black History Month, Friday, Feb. 5, will be a day of tribute. A lecture series by Joseph Opala will explore the connection between a group of people called “Gullah” of South Carolina and the people of Sierra Leone, West Africa.

Opala, an acclaimed anthropologist, has passionately conducted research in Sierra Leone for the past 10 years. He has discovered and documented that in the second half of the eighteenth century a large slave trade business was associated with Charleston and this West African town.

According to Opala, South Carolina’s prosperous economy was largely based on rice agriculture. Local planters had no experience with rice farming methods and were willing to pay high prices for slaves from the rice-growing region of West Africa, particularly from coastal Sierra Leone.

Today there is a distinctive group of African-Americans called “Gullah” who are direct descendants of slaves originally taken from Sierra Leone to plant rice. They inhabit portions of Coastal South Carolina, and actively practice and preserve linguistic and cultural traits.

Sponsored by the Division of Endocrinology and the Sea Island Family Project (Project Sugar), the seminar is from 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. at the Institute of Psychiatry Auditorium. The seminar includes lectures and discussions with Opala, two films about Sierra Leone, and a reception immediately following.

For more information, call the Institute of Psychiatry at 792-5158.