(classical music) (classical music) (classical music) (pensive classical music) (singers singing spirituals) (singers singing spirituals) ♪ When in the lion's den ♪ (singers singing spirituals) - [Narrator] Georgia's 100 mile coastal region is an ecological wonder.

Almost one third of the tidal marshes found on the entire east coast are located here.

This extraordinary ecosystem made Georgia an ideal place for the cultivation of rice.

When Savannah was founded in 1733, slavery was forbidden.

But in 1755, bowing the pressure from wealthy South Carolina planters, the trustees lifted the ban on slavery and for the next 100 years slave-based labor would be the foundation of Georgia's agricultural economy.

Some of these slaves were brought to the very Island of Sapelo.

(singers singing spirituals) - So my journey begins on Sapelo.

(singers singing spirituals) Beautiful beach and no one was there, but just us few.

And they pointed toward Africa, which was nothing but water.

And they said, you're here on Sapelo but your ancestors, Griffin Lotson, look across the water.

And the only thing that you see and the only thing in between here is Africa.

(singers singing spirituals) - [Narrator] After the Civil War and emancipation, many of the former slaves regarded Sapelo as their home and chose to remain there, acquire property and raise their families.

As always, the church was the center of their community.

And a good example of this is the first African Baptist Church on Sapelo Island.

- The religion we adopted, which was the Christian religion, believe it or not, we first got a lot of our American religion from the Methodist and the Baptist.

So we wanted mainstream and of course we wanted to be like the slave masters and the owners.

They believed in Jesus and they were doing real well.

So we wanna do well, too.

Maybe if we can learn a little bit about this Jesus person 'cause the slave masters, they may have owned us, but they loved God and they went to church.

So we would go and maybe sit in certain parts of the church so we can get Jesus.

So then it came a time that we wanted to have our own church so we can worship in freedom.

So you got the first African Baptist Church.

We built it ourselves, our ancestors.

A storm would come, maybe tear the building down or whatever but we'll build again because we wanted God.

Save up our money.

And religion is a major part of our culture.

- [Narrator] One of the most prominent plantations on the Georgia coast was the Broadfield Hofwyl Plantation.

- Hi, my name is Faye Cowart.

I'm a ranger here at Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation, a state historic site.

We're standing on the beautiful grounds of this plantation that was owned from 1806 to 1973 by the same family.

They were Europeans originally.

(gentle banjo music) And the people that came here during the time of slavery, most of 'em came from Sierra Leone.

(gentle banjo music) And when the Civil War ended, three generations of people from this plantation stayed together and they had the first generation, second generation and the grandchildren.

When the war ended, the people came back and today, the descendants live within five miles of this house on property given to them by this family.

And right even to this day, I'll receive a phone call or some sort of connection and it'll be from one of the descendants of the Hofwyl slaves.

- My name is Alfreda Grant White.

I am a direct descendant of the Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation.

My grandfather worked as a caretaker on the plantation for many years.

As a child growing up, I can remember going down those long roads with oak trees draping over the top.

- The people that attend the Needwood Church are from Hofwyl Plantation.

Originally, it's my understanding, that the church was actually on this property and was later moved down to the Needwood community on the land that this family, the plantation owners, had.

And it's so important.

There's not only the church but there's a one room schoolhouse that was used also by the Geechee Gullah people from Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation.

- [Narrator] After the Civil War, it was difficult for rural African American children to get an education.

Slaves had been forbidden to read and write and they wanted education for their children.

But for most Black children in the rural South, little one room schools, such as Needwood, were the only access to it.

Very few of these schools have survived.

- The teacher who taught at that school was also my first grade teacher as well as my mother's first grade teacher.

And that would be Miss Susie Anderson and her son, Charles, is sitting back here on the, what is it, the third row.

And I think overall, that's the whole meaning for having a church, is that usually, it's a area to gather to get families and groups of people together.

And that's what Needwood did.

There are so many good stories about this church that I can remember and I know many others in here can remember because it really, really brought the community together.

- My name is Dana Roberts and I used to recall my grandmother, and I would hear the stories of how she attended the Needwood Elementary School, the one room classroom, until she was about in the fourth grade.

And after that, she also worked on the plantation.

And at that time, it was a dairy farm.

And I do remember them stories when she would churn butter and work out there.

But also, our family have always been connected to our our history and our roots out here at Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation.

It's so amazing that we can actually go touch where we came from.

And I remember telling people that we can go back seven, eight generations and before that, we think it was from out of Sierra Leon or out of Senegal.

So it's just amazing to be a part of such a wonderful history.

And the culture here is, we Gullah Geechee people, and we love who we are, and I'm very proud to be a descendant of Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation.

♪ Low down chariot ♪ ♪ Let me ride ♪ ♪ Low down chariot ♪ ♪ Let me ride ♪ ♪ I've got a father on that chariot ♪ ♪ Let me ride ♪ ♪ I've got a father on that chariot ♪ ♪ Oh, let me ride ♪ ♪ I've got a father on that chariot ♪ ♪ Let me ride ♪ ♪ low down chariot, let me ride ♪ ♪ Oh, low down chariot ♪ ♪ Let me ride ♪ ♪ Oh, low down chariot ♪ ♪ Oh, let me ride ♪ ♪ Oh, low down chariot ♪ ♪ Let me ride ♪ ♪ Oh, low down chariot, let me ride ♪ - All right, yeah, yeah.

(congregation chattering) - Awesome.

- Low down.

- Not a lot of us really wanted to accept our culture when we were younger and it fascinated me.

Another gentleman that's almost my age, he's about five or six years older than I am, very famous, sits on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas.

He's a Geechee just like I am.

And he talks about when he was younger, that, well, you know it wasn't so popular back then to be a Geechee.

And that helped me because it wasn't popular in my community also and many of my mentors that's older than me, as the fact that we kind of shunned away from it.

Now all of us are beginning to embrace it because you should be proud of your heritage.

You should be proud of your culture.

And now, I'm very proud of being a Georgia saltwater Geechee, as one of my dear friends, Cornelius Bailey, used to say, but I'm proud to be a Gullah Geechee.

And that's another whole story 'cause there's a lot of questions about Gullah and Geechee but that would be, to me, the most significant thing is going from, well, I don't want anybody to know I'm Gullah Geechee to the point now, we're shouting it from the rooftops.

And we try to do that with ourselves, our families and our grandchildren and anybody who wanna listen in America and around the world.

So I like that new change.

- [Narrator] One of the strong Gullah Geechee traditions is the celebration of their music.

Much of it was used to pass down oral history and stories to the younger generation.

- It's about the Igbo tribe that came over from West Africa and they came to St. Simon Island.

And when they got there, they realized where they were going.

So they decided rather than be a slave, they would drown themselves.

They had to become flying spirits to get back to Mother Africa.

So when the ship landed, at what was called Dunbar Creek, which is now called Igbo Landing, those slaves that were free in Igbo land (laughs), got off that ship.

And instead of going to the shore, they walked out into the ocean and a number of them drowned themselves so that they could go back and become flying spirits and go back to Mother Africa.

So we dedicate this hymn to those flying spirits.

♪ Now give me two wings, two wings ♪ ♪ To veil my face ♪ ♪ Now give me two wings, two wings ♪ ♪ To veil my face ♪ ♪ Now give me two wings, two wings ♪ ♪ To fly away ♪ ♪ So the world can't do me no harm ♪ - [Narrator] Much of Georgia's early history is rooted in the coastal region.

The rise of the rice kings and the slavery required to support it is a dark period of that history.

Today, we celebrate that extraordinary culture and the rural churches that were the center of it.

("Rock of Ages Hymn") ♪ Rock of Ages ♪ ♪ Cleft for me ♪ ♪ Let me hide ♪ ♪ Myself in thee ♪ ♪ Let the water ♪ ♪ And the blood ♪ ♪ From thy wounded ♪ ♪ Side which flowed ♪ ♪ Be of sin ♪ ♪ The double cure ♪ ♪ Save from wrath ♪ ♪ And make me pure ♪ - [Narrator] Bethany Presbyterian, considered to be the mother of Presbyterian churches in Georgia, was formed in 1786 just after the Creek Indian Treaty of 1763.

In her cemetery, rest many prominent early Georgia settlers and veterans who came to this part of Georgia just after the Revolutionary War.

The church is located in a remote part of Eastern Green County.

(light banjo music) (light banjo music) (people chattering) In this remote and bucolic setting, a very important event in Georgia history took place on August 16th, 1886.

Hundreds of people filled a church and spilled into the yard.

Excitement was in the air.

(people chattering) (people chattering) Dr. James Woodrow, one of the most prominent academics and theologians in America, was to be tried by his peers in the Augusta Presbytery on the charge of heresy.

(people chattering) - Dr. James Woodrow was born in 1828 in Carlisle, England and early developed passion for science.

After a brilliant career at Jefferson College in Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania, he was invited to study with the famed 19th century naturalist, Lewis Agassiz, at Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School, said that science and religion should be in harmony, that science should progress through honest experimentation and that religion should proceed through reasonable exegesis of the scriptures.

He said, if both were done properly, then there should be nothing but harmony between the two.

- [Narrator] The chief protagonist for the prosecution was Dr. William Adams of the Augusta Presbytery.

(people chattering) Dr. Adams takes the podium.

(people chattering) - Shh, shh, shh.

- How did God create man?

Was it by some long process of evolution from the body of an insect?

Or a frog?

(members laughing) In some way or another, this frog got ashore and that brethren of this assembly was the landing of your first ancestor.

(audience murmuring) Certainly not.

On this question, the scriptures are unequivocal!

God created man from the dust of the ground!

- [Members] Amen.

- And woman from the rib of man.

- [Members] Amen.

- [Narrator] Dr. Woodrow will defend himself.

- It is contended, by those who believe me guilty that the dust of the ground refers to sand or clay, inorganic matter.

However, you must ask yourself this question.

Is it not possible that the dust of the ground refers to organic matter?

That is to say, the decayed remains of animal and plant life.

(audience murmuring) Hmm, remember, God often tells us what he's going to do without telling us the method by which he would do it.

- [Narrator] Dr. Woodrow was found not guilty.

Some members of the church still recall the occasion, passed down from one generation to the next.

- My name is Robert Simpson.

I've been in the church all my life.

My daddy's mama and her sister boarded both sides of the trial.

And at supper time, they'd get to talking about it.

Then they would meet up later and discuss what was said, and hadn't said, so that's where my daddy got most of his.

- [Narrator] America would be conflicted by the subject of evolution for many years.

Dr. Woodrow trial took place fully 40 years before the Scopes Monkey trial, made famous in the movie "Inherit the Wind".

Dr. Woodrow went on to an illustrious career and became president of the University of South Carolina.

However, he is most famously recognized as the favorite uncle of a future president of the United States and his namesake, Woodrow Wilson.

(light banjo music) Not too far from Bethany is the oldest Catholic church in Georgia.

Established in 1792, near the small crossroads town of Sharon, once a thriving agricultural village in Tolliver County.

Sharon was incorporated in 1884.

Not much left of it now, except a few old buildings.

The official name is the Church of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary referred to in one history as the cradle of Catholicity in Georgia.

(gentle piano music) The structure you see here was built in 1883, when Sharon was thriving.

There was also a school next door that was the first Roman Catholic school in Georgia.

Unfortunately, the school is gone, but the church is still with us in this beautiful rural setting.

The site of the original church was a couple of miles away where the historic Locust Grove Cemetery is located.

(gentle piano music) - We are seated in the Church of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the first Catholic church in Georgia.

The actual church we're in was built in 18, or consecrated in 1883.

And it is the successor to the original church which was simply a log cabin built about two miles from here in a little community known as Locust Grove.

The community of Locust Grove was established in 1790 when a group of about 50 or 60 English Catholics came to Georgia from Maryland.

- [Narrator] Later, several French families left their homeland to escape the turmoil of their own revolution and made their way to a new life in this agricultural Eden.

They were joined by several Irish families and they all became part of the Locust Grove community.

Tombstones with names such as O'Sullivan, Villabon, Sims, and O'Donoghue, attest to their presence.

In the pre-Civil War years, slaves were an active part of the church.

Marriages were performed in the church, as well as other Catholic rituals, such as christenings.

(birds chirping) - Following the move of the church to Sharon, the little community of Locust Grove virtually died away.

There's simply no trace ever today other than the cemetery, which is quite historic and on the National Register of Historic Places now.

And the gravestones there are wonderful monuments to a bygone era, in that cemetery.

(stately Catholic music) (stately Catholic music) (stately Catholic music) - [Narrator] The church had been virtually inactive for decades and was rapidly declining.

Fortunately, a group of Catholics from Atlanta and other nearby locations were able to raise some funds for the renovation of the church and to establish a Catholic cultural center.

The old church has become vibrant once again.

("Lord, I Need You") ♪ Holiness is Christ in me ♪ ♪ Lord, I need you ♪ ♪ Oh I need you ♪ ♪ Every hour, I need you ♪ ♪ My one defense ♪ ♪ My righteousness ♪ ♪ Oh God, how I need you ♪ ♪ So teach my song to rise to you ♪ ♪ When temptation comes my way ♪ ♪ And when I cannot stand, I'll fall on you ♪ ♪ Jesus, you're my hope and stay ♪ ("Lord, I Need You") (bell loudly chiming) ("Lord, I Need You") (bell loudly chiming) - [Narrator] Many of our historic rural churches are no longer with us.

Those that remain should be treasured and preserved so that future generations can understand our history and put that history in the proper context.

The Purification Church serves as a shining example.

♪ Oh God, how I need you ♪ ("Lord, I Need You") ♪ My one defense ♪ ♪ My righteousness ♪ ♪ Oh God, how I need you ♪ (gentle music)