Written by Nadia Nugent, Photos by Nadia Nugent
There are two roads that lead to the Pin Point Heritage Museum in Savannah, Georgia. The first: past groves of trees dripping with Spanish moss, eventually opening to a causeway lined with sprawling golf courses and estates of impressive scale. The second route runs through the heart of the Pin Point compound, an unincorporated waterfront community roughly a mile long and a mile wide. The duality of the changing landscape — namely the split between modernity and tradition — exists within the museum walls as well.
“Our little community hasn’t changed much, but the world around us has changed a great deal,” said Haniff Haynes, museum guide and president of the Pin Point Betterment Association, “We’ve evolved but we try to keep our values intact.”
Haynes estimates that over 800 people live in this community on the banks of the Moon River. He was raised not far from where the museum stands. His great-great grandfather allegedly led the group of Geechee freedmen who would eventually leave Ossabaw Island for Pin Point in the late 1800s. Members of the community visited Ossabaw to collect more information on the journey before the museum opened in 2011. Here, national history is family history.
The Gullah Geechee are descendants of enslaved West and Central Africans brought to the Americas. The Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor includes coastal lands and islands from modern day Florida to South Carolina. Their relative isolation means many African traditions were preserved and new blended ones were started. The Gullah language is a creole spoken nowhere else in the world.
The museum is a comprehensive dedication to Gullah Geechee culture. Visitors learn how they established community, industry and a few of their traditions through a mix of multimedia and donated artifacts.
Pin Point’s central building is the A.S. Varn & Sons Oyster and Crab Factory. Shuttered in 1985, the tins and tools used until its closing are on display. The building itself is also part of the exhibit — the mural on the exterior walls painted by Mrs. Varn herself reflects her memory of growing up in Pin Point.
Featured prominently in the documentary screened before tours begin is Pin Point’s fishing industry. Harvesting the oysters and crabs was arduous work. Hours of labor netted them around 45 cents per pound.
Women from the community demonstrate the proper crab “backing” technique by cracking the shell and carving out the meat in a scene from the documentary. The three women, including Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ mother, start to sing while they work.
“In the old African tradition of call-and response [singing]. Just like working in the field. Our community is a very spiritual community. Either there’s gossip going on or someone will raise a hymn,” Haynes explained.
Other traditions are on display in the Deviled Crab shack, like trophies from their competitive softball team and portraits of community members with their nicknames.
A separate building stands where the mostly female staff processed the oysters. Large portraits of community members who worked there hang over individual stalls and play audio clips recounting their experiences. The Oyster Building exit leads straight to the marshland.
“That island over there, called Skidaway Island, was basically owned by Union Camp paper mill,” said Haynes, pointing to an area near the causeway, “They sold it to developers and it’s [now] one of the largest gated communities in the coastal empire. They had to build bridges to get to these islands.”
Bridges which ran through Moon River, meaning the water had to be dredged for construction. This cut off some navigational routes the fishermen used and was one of several reasons the factory closed.
Development has encroached on Gullah compounds all along the Gullah Geechee corridor. Sapelo Island, Georgia, faces diminishing numbers of Gullah communes. 41 properties owned by Gullah Geechee descendants in Hilton Head are at risk due to tax hikes.
Now a National Heritage Area, the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor has a federal commission designed to oversee its preservation. One goal articulated in their Strategic Preservation and Land Ownership Plan for 2020-2025 is to increase Geechee ownership of cultural land and landmarks. According to the National Parks Service, Heritage Areas are “community-based initiatives that preserve and share stories about a region’s history and character.”
Pin Point is one of several museums featured in the Gullah Geechee Corridor and the only one in Georgia. “People from all over the world come. A lady said she heard about the Gullah Geechee people in a video by Beyoncé. She came all the way from across the [ocean] right to Savannah and came directly to the museum for a tour,” said Haynes.
COVID-19 caused the museum to close its doors temporarily in November. The Pin Point Heritage museum opens to visitors March 4th with new protocols to ensure COVID-19 safety.
Sources
Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)
