ST. HELENA ISLAND — Cars trickled down Martin Luther King Drive in the minutes before the annual celebration of Gullah-Geechee culture. Drivers found spaces along the shoulder, on a walking path to the local library and in a restaurant parking lot.

Golf carts shuttled elders carrying folding chairs to their position along the road, where sea air twisted with scents from vats of grits, the beginnings of seafood gumbo and fried shrimp. A song, vaguely reminiscent of KC and the Sunshine Band, wafted from one sausage vendor.

“Shake shake shake

Shake shake shake

Shake your lemonade

Ice cold lemonade.”

Selling breakfast biscuits bound by lard and butter, Eve Fields has lived on St. Helena for 20 years. The 56-year-old Fields called Gullah heritage a “very powerful thing.”

“We know who we

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