Shaggin' in Carolina

Shagging is the official popular
dance in North Carolina.

Does shag music evoke beach scenes and coastal memories for you? Although sandy beaches may be several miles away and some old dance pavilions no longer exist, the music is known to transport many fans to a different place and time.

The Baby Boomers of today are the teenagers of yesterday who escaped to beach towns for a weekend, a full week, or the entire summer (if they could get permission). After Baby Boomers matured sufficiently to win political office, they nurtured a bill through the N.C. General Assembly to recognize the importance of shag music in our culture. In 2005 the legislators established shagging as the official popular dance of the state. The rationale for this recognition: shag brings entertainment value to “participants and spectators in the State.”

Not only is shag the official popular dance, but shaggers now enjoy their own personalized license tag that was recently approved when the minimum 300 applications were submitted. The “shag tag” conveys the logo of “I’d Rather Be Shaggin’.” Part of the license fee supports the Hall of Fame Foundation, begun in 1991 by shaggers to help friends in need.

Modern shag dancing gained in popularity along the Carolina coast in the 1940s and early 1950s. According to the General Assembly, shagging “evolved from the jitterbug and jump blues of the big band era.” A better source on its roots, however, is the Fayetteville Area Shag Association, which dates the shag to the 1930s and proclaims that the standard tempo is 110-135 beats per minute. This club describes the shag as smooth and graceful and emphasizes footwork rather than turns.

Harry Driver in the early
1950s at Myrtle Beach, SC

One of the charismatic and best-known dancers in the late 1940s was Harry Driver from Dunn, just minutes from Raleigh and about two hours via U.S. 421 from Carolina Beach, where the term “Carolina shag” was coined. Considered the Father of Shag, Driver was renowned for his moves. In a 1982 interview, he said, “If you were going to the beach in the summer, you had better know how to dance.”

The shag dancers of today recognize the contributions of Driver and his generation in creating a culture they enjoy. Driver, who served as a shag contest judge in the 1980s, said that part of the reason for the dance is that guys wanted a way to impress girls. The classic tune “Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing” explains:
          Even guys with two left feet 
          Come out alright if the chick is sweet. 

The website of the Society of Stranders, a group that perpetuates “the dance, music, and culture that make up the shag,” opens with the Fantastic Shakers singing the song to also let us know:
           The best things happen while you’re dancing. 
           Things that you would not do at home 
           Come nat’rally on the floor. 

According to Driver, the dance wasn’t called the shag until the ‘60s. After the music survived through the ‘60s and ‘70s, it enjoyed a renaissance in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Then groups, such as the Society of Stranders formed in 1984, were created as Baby Boomers reached middle age to preserve and expand the music that shaggers love. Also established in 1984 were the Association of Beach and Shag Club DeeJays, formed Chapel Hill, and the Association of Carolina Shag Clubs, formed in Columbia, SC.

As shaggers were brought together by these associations, Baby Boomers organized local clubs as they settled in the Triangle, Sandhills, and other areas distant from the coast, proving that proximity to the beach is not a factor for organizing a club – only an interest in preserving shag music. In fact, North Carolina has more shag clubs that any other state.

In 1984, the same year that regional shag associations were formed, the Fayetteville Area Shag Association was founded as a local club. In central North Carolina, soon other clubs were encouraged to capitalize on the growing interest in shag music and dancing. The Burlington club has been active since 1985. Raleigh shaggers waited until 1993 to form their club. Clubs now cover the state from Boone to Wilmington, with a club in Fuquay-Varina established as late as 2006.

As shag historian Bo Bryan writes in his poem on shag dancing, “If you are a Baby Boomer, / you won’t be alone / in The Land of Shag.” Nurtured by the Association of Carolina Shag Clubs, local clubs bring people together to preserve the shag dance and its music while they enjoy fellowship and develop friendships. The club in Pittsboro says, “It’s not just a dance; it’s a lifestyle.”

A new Guinness Book record
was set with 744 dancers.

With such dedicated organizations promoting shag culture, shaggers are listed in The Guinness Book of World Records, of course. However, it didn’t happen until last year. By dancing in synchronized steps for five minutes, 744 dancers – three times the number needed – established the record for “Largest Carolina Shag Dance.”

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Note: This post appeared originally as a longer article in the June 2015 issue of OutreachNC, a monthly magazine distributed in 10 counties of central North Carolina. Click here to see the article as it appeared in print.

Ossabaw Island: Culture Preserved on the Coast of Georgia

The barrier islands that line the Georgia coast offer special opportunities to explore history and culture of the American South. Ossabaw Island, about twenty miles south of Savannah, has a rich history that can teach us many lessons about survival, freedom, and perseverance.

Ossabaw is the third largest barrier island of Georgia, according to the Ossabaw Island Foundation, which promotes and manages educational and scientific programs on the island. Not linked to the mainland by bridge or causeway, the island is used by colleges, universities and researchers as an “unspoiled living laboratory for monitoring environmental changes over time and for learning from one another in a setting where humans lightly tread.”

For example, the foundation has presented programs with the Georgia Historical Society on interpreting the Gullah/Geechee heritage. The Gullah/Geechee people were enslaved Africans captured from the rice-producing regions of Senegambia, Angola, and Sierra Leone in West Africa and brought initially to the port of Charleston. When Georgia removed its ban on slavery in 1750, many West Africans were brought to Ossabaw Island and other parts of coastal Georgia as enslaved labor.

On the island are three restored tabby cabins built in the 1820s-1840s by skilled enslaved labor. The cabins were the homes for enslaved families who worked the fields and tended livestock. The buildings were later used by their descendants who worked as sharecroppers for the island’s owners. To create tabby, a cement-like material, the enslaved workers mixed oyster shells, sand, and water with lime from burned shells, according to Paul Pressly, Director of Ossabaw Island Education Alliance. Other examples of early life on the island that are less visible are now being uncovered by scholars.

For example, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga has conducted investigations at North End Plantation, one of the plantations where indigo, rice, and sea island cotton were grown, to develop an archaeological record of enslaved Africans at that part of the island. The earliest human artifacts found on Ossabaw date to more than 4,000 years ago when Native Americans inhabited the island. Records of early Spanish explorers (who left hogs that became feral and produced offspring that still survive 400 years later) indicate that a Guale Indian village called Asapo was probably located on Ossabaw. In the 1730s the British began to occupy the area, although an early English treaty reserved the island as a hunting and fishing area for Creek Indians. However, the Creek in 1758 (25 years after Savannah and the colony of Georgia were established) were forced to convey the island to King George II.

In the decade before the American Civil War, almost 300 enslaved people called Ossabaw home, according to Allison Dorsey, professor of history at Swarthmore College, with whom I visited the island as part of a workshop. During the war, Union General William T. Sherman confiscated the Ossabaw plantations as part of his March to the Sea campaign. In the spring and summer of 1865, under the authority of Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15, the plantations were redistributed in 10- to 40-acre allotments to former U.S. Colored Troops soldiers and emancipated blacks. The field order was in response to Sherman’s meeting in January 1865 in Savannah with black leaders who convinced him that true freedom required ownership of land “to turn it and till it by our own labor.” However, the U.S. government revoked the order and returned the land to its Confederate owners in January 1867, thus ending the hope of freedmen to start life anew on Georgia’s sea islands.

The Ossabaw Island Foundation sponsors several events each year, including a Gullah Geechee day trip in the spring so participants can learn about the African roots of enslaved and freedmen families who lived on the island from the early 1800s through the mid-20th century, although the island is no longer inhabited by African Americans. In the late 1890s after severe hurricanes, island residents began moving to the mainland and established the Pin Point community (where U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was born in 1948).

In 1978 the state of Georgia acquired the Ossabaw. The island has now been set aside as the Georgia’s first Heritage Preserve, which restricts its use to natural, scientific and cultural study, research, and education. However, the island, with 26,000 acres of forest and tidal marshland, is still listed as one of America’s 11 most endangered historic places by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

When I visited the island as part of a workshop on African American culture and history conducted by the Georgia Historical Society for the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ossabaw seems more than 20 miles and minutes away from modern America. I hope to return one day and learn more about its rich history.

Sapelo Island: Preserving the Past and Studying the Forgotten

The Georgia coast and its barrier islands have been invaluable for recording and preserving information about the people and cultures of the American South. Islands such as Sapelo, about sixty miles south of Savannah, are treasures of Geechee-Gullah heritage; the sea islands were also early scenes of vibrant African Muslim communities whose traces have faded over time. Even with a documented historical importance, only a few locations have been protected for future generations (and sometimes unintentionally by unknowing stewards).

Gullah-Geechee Heritage

The Gullah-Geechee were taken from the rice-producing regions of Senegambia, Angola, and Sierra Leone in West Africa and brought to rice plantations of the American South as enslaved labor. They were brought to Sapelo in 1802 when Thomas Spalding, who introduced the cultivation of sugar cane and manufacture of sugar to Georgia, began buying portions of the island and created several plantations (which included a sugar mill) operated by as many as 400 enslaved workers in cotton, sugar cane and livestock activities.

The porous soils, temperate climates, tidal influences, and saline atmosphere of Sapelo and its marshes are ideal for the cultivation of rice and Sea Island cotton, according to Buddy Sullivan, manager of the reserve when I visited as part of a workshop on African American culture and history conducted by the Georgia Historical Society for the National Endowment for the Humanities. In fact, the freshwater rivers of the Carolina and Georgia coastal areas permit rice cultivation to thrive, particularly as alternating cycles of flooding and draining fields (skills brought by enslaved West Africans to the Atlantic coast) are repeated; this coastal system was later adopted by the planters on large river plantations.

The 1860 census indicates that the Spalding family had 252 enslaved residents living in 50 cabins. Following the American Civil War, the freedmen created several communities throughout Sapelo, although only Hog Hammock now remains. This community, home to about 50 Gullah-Geechee descendants, includes the historic Behavior Cemetery and the First African Baptist Church that traces its origins to 1866. Because Hog Hammock no longer has its own school (the last one closed in 1978), children take the ferry to the mainland and then a bus to school.

Accessible by only ferry or airplane, the island is remote. Because the Gullah-Geechee were so isolated, many generations were able to preserve their distinct culture. When I visited Sapelo, I met Cornelia Bailey, storyteller and folklorist, who wrote about growing up on the island and preserved many Gullah-Geechee memories in her book God, Dr. Buzzard and the Bolito Man. “We still drink, love, hate, and remember we are still living for our ancestors,” says Bailey (who traces her lineage back to an African Muslim named Bul-Allah, the head enslaved manager for Spalding) in her essay “I Am Sapelo.”

Islamic Heritage

Although the First African Baptist Church congregants continue to worship on the island, what has faded is awareness of how significantly Sapelo and neighboring coastal islands constituted the largest assembly of African Muslims in early North America. Such knowledge is the result of painstaking research by scholars such as Michael Gomez, professor at New York University, who describes the Muslim presence in the coastal American South as “active, vibrant, and compelling.” As Gomez points out, of the 388,000 Africans brought into British North America during the Atlantic slave trade, more than 224,000 came from regions influenced by Islam.

By analyzing interviews conducted by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s and related family narratives, Gomez has identified how many practices of enslaved Africans show a picture consistent with serious pursuits of Islam, such as attempts to adhere to Islamic dietary requirements, observance of Muslim feast days, and other elements of Muslim life, such as prayer mats, veiling, and daily ritualized prayer. The longing of many to preserve their religion and culture is also shown by the pattern among American-born enslaved to carry Muslim names and retain vivid memories of their ancestors’ religious practices, even as the number of Christian converts increased. In addition, Gomez has confirmed Sapelo as an important Muslim community based on listings of enslaved Africans when plantations were sold as well as advertisements for enslaved runaways. (Names are clearly Muslim such as Mustapha, Sambo, and Mamado.) Other research by the Georgia Historical Society substantiates the Islamic influences in early African communities on the southeastern U.S. coast.

Protection

What protected Sapelo from the boom of coastal real estate development, the fate of some islands such as Hilton Head, S.C., that also share the Gullah-Geechee heritage? Several islands were acquired by wealthy Northerners in the fifty years after the American Civil War. The story of Sapelo is similar to Ossabaw and a few other islands whose purchase protected them from the typical development. For example, in 1912, Howard E. Coffin, a Detroit automotive pioneer, purchased all of Sapelo from its various owners except for the African American communities. During the Great Depression, Coffin sold his property to North Carolina tobacco heir Richard J. Reynolds, Jr., whose widow later sold it in two transactions (1969 and 1976) to the state of Georgia.

The 16,500-acre Sapelo Island, the fourth largest barrier island of Georgia, is now home to an estuarine research reserve (6,110 acres as part of the 27-reserve national system) and a wildlife refuge (8,420 acres). Equally important is that Hog Hammock is the last intact sea island community of Geechee-Gullah people in Georgia. As a result, Hog Hammock has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of the Interior. Except for this small community (434 acres), the island (97%) is state owned and managed.

Preserving Culture

The Sapelo Island Cultural and Revitalization Society annually conducts several educational events, including a cultural day each fall that features storytelling, arts and crafts (including quilt-making and sweet grass basket-making), dancing, music, and food. These efforts, although small, are vital for preserving the full history of the American South. More concerted actions are needed to retain a critical awareness of how past generations have shaped our values and traditions.

Polar Plunge: A New Fascination with the Ocean Coast

Southerners have always by fascinated by the ocean coast — the rolling waves, foamy surf, abundant wildlife, sandy beaches, warm water (usually), and occasional hurricanes.

For many Native Americans such as the Algonquians, the coastal areas offered everything needed to sustain and enjoy life. Explorer John White, famous for his expeditions before the 1600s to the American South for Queen Elizabeth but failed colony on Roanoke Island, recorded much about coastal life in his watercolors preserved today in the British Museum of London (and displayed a few years ago at the N.C. Museum of History).

Imagine the reaction of the Algonquians if they could learn that Southerners have a new activity today to enhance their appreciation of the ocean coast — the polar plunge. Although the plunge is not an event for everyone, those who do participate — and raise money for their noteworthy charity — have gained more attention recently. A good example is the polar plunge conducted annually in New Hanover County of North Carolina for the Special Olympics, the largest program of sports training and competition for children and adults with intellectual disabilities.

Held in February, when the water temperature is often below 50 degrees F., at the Boardwalk in Carolina Beach (south of Wilmington), this plunge attracts hundreds of participants willing to throw their bodies into the cold winter ocean to benefit a charity, prove their stamina (even if for only a few seconds), and earn publicity in the process. In addition to news reports, the moments of fame are preserved on YouTube and social media sites (the plunge itself even has a Facebook page). In addition, the festivity of the plunge is enhanced by other events: face painting, classic car show, ice carving, and costume contests.

To “plunge,” a participant has to raise at least $50 ($30 for students). Companies, churches, and schools form “polar bear clubs” to raise money for the honor of plunging together as a group or dragging someone into the frigid waters. (Teams must have at least five plungers.) In addition, corporate sponsors are indispensable in promoting the plunge and achieving its success. (The plunge in Florida even boasts SeaWorld as a sponsor.)

For the Special Olympics team of New Hanover County, this event is its only fundraiser. (The plunge in February 2011 raised more than $40,000.) The proceeds support more than 600 Special Olympians who train throughout the year in eleven different sports (such as soccer, bowling, tennis, swimming, and softball) and compete in local, regional, and state events.

Although some polar plunges are not held on the coast (such as the one in mountainous Watauga County of North Carolina where the plunge is into Duck Pond and Florida’s plunge into the wave pool of SeaWorld’s Aquatica in Orlando that is “iced down”), what could be better (and more authentic) than plunging into the frosty rolling surf of the Atlantic Ocean? If only an extra reward was offered for a plunger who also captured something to eat from the ocean like the Algonquians.

Explorers in the 1600s after White also seemed fascinated by the ocean that borders the American South. For example, John Smith, who established the first permanent English settlement in North America at Jamestown, Virginia, recorded that his party “escaped the vnmercifull raging of that Ocean-like water” [spelling is original British]. Perhaps they should have been as less intimidated as the plungers.

If the Algonquians of the 1580s, noted by White for their water-oriented lifestyle, could observe today’s Southerners, what would they say? Perhaps they would admire the region’s creativity for using the ocean coast to sustain and enjoy life.