Inside Gullah-Geechee Gospel Singing

This film introduces Bernadette “B.J.” Lark (Roanoke) and Alanjha Harris (Roanoke), who received a Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship in 2022-2023.
B.J. grew up in Allendale County, South Carolina, right on the Georgia border. She was raised in the church, by a pastor father and a missionary mother, work they continue today. Her family are Gullah Geechee, descendants of enslaved West Africans who maintained the languages, music, beliefs, and foodways of their homelands, blending them with European and American influences into a creole culture unique to the Sea Islands from North Carolina to Florida.
Alanjha met B.J. around the age of four. She remembers being inspired by B.J.’s singing in church, mimicking the songs she heard in fellowship with her mother and grandmother, the kind of songs that stir you deep in your soul.
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Credits:
Filmed by Pat Jarrett
Edited by Pruitt Allen with Pat Jarrett
Produced by the Virginia Folklife Program of Virginia Humanities with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia Commission for the Arts with additional support from the J & E Berkley Foundation. Directed by Katy Clune and Pat Jarrett.
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