Migration Stories

Migration stories are often preserved orally by individuals and families. These stories tell how families migrated from distant lands to a new home in South Georgia. In this program, four different experiences are explored: Jack Wingate’s Irish ancestor’s travel from Dublin to South Georgia; Louis Schmier’s oral interviews with Eastern European Jews who emigrated to the region; Israel Cortez’s personal saga of crossing the US-Mexican border; and Lawrence McIver’s telling of the story behind the ring shout, “Kneebone Bend” and its connections to the slave trade.

Special thanks to Jack Wingate, Louis Schmier, and Israel Cortez. “Kneebone Bend” and the interview with Lawrence McIver comes from a 1983 field recording by Art Rosenbaum, courtesy of the Smithsonian Folkways recording, “The McIntosh County Shouters, Slave Shout Songs from the Coast of Georgia.” The Sounds of South Georgia is made possible with support from Valdosta State University, and from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.

Lawrence McIver, left, with members of the McIntosh County Shouters, Festival of Colors, Okefenokee Heritage Center, Waycross, 1999.

Photo by Laurie Kay Sommers.