The North Carolina Rice Festival arrives for the sixth year
The North Carolina Rice Festival is back for the sixth year. The four-day event, kicking off at the WWAY event center, organizers shared some history of the Gullah Geechee culture.
BRUNSWICK COUNTY (WWAY)–The annual Rice Festival kicked off Wednesday night. WWAY hosted an introductory event to explain more about rice’s significant role and the Gullah Geechee culture played in our region’s early history.
The North Carolina Rice Festival is back for the sixth year. The four-day event, kicking off Wednesday night at the WWAY event center in Leland, organizers shared some history of the Gullah Geechee culture.
The Gullah Geechee are descendants of enslaved Africans brought to the Americas in the 18th century to work on rice and cotton plantations along the Southeastern coast. They developed the Creole language, merging African and European languages.
Brunswick town and Fort Anderson site manager Jim McKee shared how the Gullah Geechee people helped North Carolina’s economy become a rice-producing mecca.
“Most of the people that are moving here are coming from Goose Creek South, Carolina- which is just outside Charleston and they brought the rice culture with them,” McKee said.
Mckee has served on the Rice Festival board for six years. He says rice hasn’t grown in the Cape Fear region since 1935. Snow Cut Inland, which connects the Cape Fear River to the Intercoastal Waterway was open, bringing salt water up to the Port City South.
Daniel Jones is a Cultural Curator at the Cameron Art Museum. As a curator, he researches, collects, and interprets antiques within the museum. He shared how a Union Army regiment, made mostly of African Americans during the Civil War, had some Gullah Geechee troops. He said some of them would come and free other slaves.
“So it’s kind of cool to think that people who were enslaved here escaped, put on a uniform, and came right back to these same areas and freed the other slaves,” Daniel said.
The North Carolina Rice Festival runs through Saturday. If you would like to learn more about events, click here.
