AMIR TOURÉ BJ DENNIS SALLIE ANN ROBINSON

The Gullah Geechee culture, long vulnerable to time and tide, has found many champions, including Benjamin “BJ” Dennis IV, Sallie Ann Robinson, and Amir Jamal Touré. Each of these experts descended from formerly enslaved Africans who lived on islands along the Southeastern coast. Isolated from the mainland, these communities kept many African traditions and language markers, and the dialects that emerged became known as Gullah, or Geechee, depending on the locale. But the term Gullah Geechee encompasses more than a way of talking—to the descendants, being Gullah Geechee is a way of life.

Dennis, a Charleston-born chef, has earned praise for his ability to fuse the flavors of the Lowcountry with the foodways of his Gullah Geechee roots, expressing the journey of the people of the African diaspora through food. Robinson, a sixth-generation resident of Daufuskie Island, South Carolina, has become known for her love of storytelling and cooking the traditional food of her youth, both of which she shares in her three cookbooks, including her latest, Touré is a cultural historian and Savannah