Family Across the Sea is Roots - retold as an historical and linguistic detective story. It traces how scholars have uncovered the connection between the Gullah people of South Carolina's Sea Islands and the people of Sierra Leone.

Family Across the Sea demonstrates how AfricanAmericans kept their ties with their homeland over centuries of oppression through their speech, songs and customs. In the 1930s a pioneering black linguist, Lorenzo Turner, discovered over 3000 words of African origin in the Gullah dialect. The film's conclusion, the moving return of a Gullah delegation to Sierra Leone and the African "family" they hadn't realized they had, becomes a homecoming for all African Americans.




Cultural and Social Anthropology
Ethnography
African History
Social Organizations and Kinship
Southern History

"Should be required viewing in every introduction to Black Studies and American Culture."
-- Selase W. Williams, former chair, National Council for Black Studies

"Wonderfully visualized, this is an exhilarating journey in the search for cultural identity."
-- Booklist

Producer: South Carolina ETV
Director: Tim Carrier
56 minutes, 1991

Video Purchase: $195
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