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Romancing the Gullah in the Age of Porgy and Bess

Todd Duncan (Porgy) and Anne Brown (Bess), 1935.
Photo courtesy the Ira & Leonore Gershwin Trusts
Todd Duncan (Porgy) and Anne Brown (Bess), 1935.

Dr. Kendra Hamilton’s book, Romancing the Gullah in the Age of Porgy and Bess, is a literary and cultural history of a place: the Gullah Geechee Coast, a four-state area that’s one of only a handful of places that can truly be said to be the “cradle of Black culture” in the United States.

While there is a veritable industry of books on literary Charleston and on “the lowcountry,” there has never been a comprehensive study of the region’s literary influence, particularly in the years of the Great Migration and the Harlem (and Charleston) Renaissance. With Romancing the Gullah, Kendra Hamilton sheds new light on an only partially told tale.

By giving voice to artists and culture makers on both sides of the color line, uncovering buried histories, and revealing secret connections between races amid official practices of Jim Crow, Kendra Hamilton sheds new light on an only partially told tale. Romancing the Gullah in the Age of Porgy and Bess will satisfy the book lover and the scholar.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.