Join us on Friday, December 29, 2023 at 6:00 p.m. at the Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center in the Excelsior Room for a Watch Night Event with Dr. Eric Sean Crawford.

Dr. Crawford will lead a presentation on the history of Gullah Geechee songs from their beginnings in West Africa to the 20th-century American South. The program will feature audience participation and singers to immerse the audience in the Gullah Geechee culture and history. Dr. Crawford will discuss his new book, Gullah Spirituals: The Sound of Freedom and Protest in the South Carolina Sea Islands, which focuses on the oral traditions of St. Helena Island, South Carolina and their national impact.  Celebrate the Watch Night tradition by learning of the power and rich history of the spiritual and its influence since the 1860s. 

Dr. Eric Sean Crawford is the associate professor of Ethnomusicology at Claflin University  and holds a Ph.D. in musicology from the Catholic University of America. He is the former director of the Charles W. Joyner Institute for Gullah and African Diaspora Studies at Coastal Carolina University, served as musical consultant for the Amazon series Underground Railroad, and is featured in Henry Louis Gates's miniseries, The Black Church.

This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Please register on Eventbrite. Free parking is available in front of the museum and in the paved lot behind the museum. Paid parking is available in the lot across MLK Ave.