St. Johns County is celebrating the history and achievements of the Gullah Geechee community, along with a decade of its annual festival. Over more than 450 years, the West and Central African influence on the communities of Spuds, Elkton and Armstrong, located in southwestern St. Johns County, helped shape the region’s culture and economy.

The Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor was established by Congress to recognize the unique history and language of the Gullah Geechee people who resided in the coastal areas and the sea islands of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Jacksonville is now home to the largest concentration in the U.S. of Gullah Geechee descendants. The term “kumbaya” has been traced by historians to the Gullah word for “come by here.”

The community of Spuds, initially named Holy Branch, grew around the Florida East Coast Railway line in the 1880s and later thrived on potato farming. Elkton, strategically positioned near a railroad depot, flourished in the turpentine industry. Armstrong was established around a sawmill.

As part of the Gullah Geechee Heritage Corridor, the history of the Gullah Geechee people is preserved at Fort Mose, the first legally sanctioned, free African settlement in what is now the United States; the Lincolnville neighborhood, established by freed slaves after the Civil War and listed on the National Register of Historic Places; and the Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center, a museum exhibiting the community’s Black history.

Source: St. Johns Cultural Council