Daufuskie Island Photographs by Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe


© JEANNE MOUTOUSSAMY-ASHE


Ms. Moutoussamy-Ashe’s fascination with Daufuskie Island began during visits to the
neighboring resort island Hilton Head with her husband, Arthur Ashe, in the 1970s. Since the
end of the Civil War until the island was developed, Daufuskie was inhabited primarily by the Gullah people, freed slaves and their descendants, whose distinctive language and culture remained strongly influenced by their African heritage. With no bridge to the mainland and no electricity or telephone service until the mid-1950s, the island’s residents lived in relative isolation from the rest of the world.


It took two years of visits and many interviews for Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe to create these sensitive, intimate images of the people of Daufuskie Island, most of whom, as direct descendants of plantation slaves, could trace their forefathers back to such West Africans as Kunta Kinte, immortalized in Alex Haley’s work Roots. Indeed, in his lilting foreword to Daufuskie Island, Haley writes, “I believe that an island people’s history is what you’re about to feel turning pages ....”

With 60 photographs, many never before exhibited, Daufuskie Island is a clarion call to preserve what remains of island life, and a harbinger of what is before us if we fail to act to preserve our culture of the rural south. In addition to paying tribute to the people and culture of South Carolina's sea islands Daufuskie Island serves as an important historical record of the last bastion of Gullah tradition and unspoiled island life.

Daufuskie Island: A Photographic Essay is published to accompany an exhibition.

Number of photographs:61
Frame sizes: 22x24
Linear feet: 250
Rental fee:$3500 for 8 weeks

EXHIBITION SCHEDULE:

January-February 2009
Prairie View A&M University, TX

Spring 2009
African American Cultural Center , NCSU, NC

October 23, 2009 - January 10, 2010.
Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC

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