Minnie “Gracie” Gadson, a 78-year-old singer is one of the artists, along with scholars, who are making strides to preserve sacred songs and their Gullah Geechee culture for benefit of future generations.

“I have a passion to sing these songs,” Gadson said. 

According to AP News, Gadson grew up singing in the praise houses one such is Coffin Point.

Coffin Point Praise House is one of three remaining wooden structures on St. Helena Island. Historically it was a place of worship for enslaved Africans, and for emancipated Black Americans who continued to worship there generations later.

Continuing to use her voice in preservation of these traditions, Gadson is a member of Voices of Gullah, where she travels the nation singing in the Gullah Creole language, a language West African roots.

“This Gullah Geechee thing is what connects us all across the African diaspora because Gullah Geechee is the blending of all of these cultures that came together during that terrible time in our history called the trans-Atlantic slave trade,” said Anita Singleton-Prather, who recently performed and directed a play about Gullah history.

She went to share, as per AP News, “A lot of our songs were coded, and this language is a language of survival, a language of resilience, a language of tenacity.”

Preserving these songs and culture the singers and thespian Singleton-Prather aim to give “our children a legacy — not a legacy of shame and victimization, but a legacy of strength and resilience.”

Recently, Morehouse College students visited the Mary Jenkins Praise House to learn more about the site built in the early 1900s.

Tendaji Bailey, 35, founder of “Gullah Geechee Futures,” had this to say, “It is a portal into the past and a window into the future.”

“Gullah Geechee Futures” is also doing the work of preservation in an effort to educate future generations. It is a project that focuses on the preservation of Gullah communities and cultural sites. In particular, Bailey brings Morehouse students to visit praise houses.

“They hear some of the prayers, some of the songs, and they always come out of that experience transformed. So, I know that there’s power in this place, still.”