A Gullah Geechee Biz Documentary Season

Season One

Sixteen documentaries. Thirty-two weeks. Two hundred and sixty-two years of Gullah Geechee resistance, memory, and life.

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Until Episode 01 · Queen Quet — Fri Sep 5, 2026, 8pm ET

The arc

Season 1 moves chronologically through Gullah Geechee history — from the founding of Fort Mose in 1738, the first free Black settlement in North America, to Queen Quet's coronation of the Gullah Geechee Nation in 2000. Sixteen episodes, released every other Friday at 8pm ET, each anchored to a real cultural date so the release earns its moment.

Every episode is scored with community-attributed traditional music. Every source is public domain or community-controlled. Every screenplay carries the standing attribution: written and directed by Darryl Elliott Brown, a Gullah Geechee Biz production.

The sixteen

Bi-weekly Fridays · Sept 5, 2026 through April 10, 2027

SEP 5

Episode 01 · 100 min · 2000–today

Queen Quet

The first Head-of-State of the Gullah Geechee Nation and the fight for federal cultural recognition.

GG Nation coronation era

SEP 19

Episode 02 · 100 min · 1932–today

Da Language

Lorenzo Dow Turner's wax cylinders prove Gullah is African, and a Mende song survives 200 years.

Turner's Sept research trips

OCT 3

Episode 03 · 100 min · 1700s–today

The Ring Turn Ever

The counterclockwise Kongo dance that outlived slavery and became American gospel's grandmother.

McIntosh Shouters season

OCT 17

Episode 04 · 95 min · 1700s–today

The Basket Sewers

The Senegambian coiling technique that became the Sea Islands' most enduring living art.

Mt. Pleasant craft season

OCT 31

Episode 05 · 95 min · 1822

The Conjure Man

The Kongo priest who armed the Vesey conspiracy with spiritual protection and paid with his life.

Samhain / liminal date

NOV 14

Episode 06 · 95 min · 1945–today

The Last of Sapelo

Cornelia Bailey and Hog Hammock's fight to hold Sapelo Island against developer erasure.

Cornelia Bailey b. Nov 12

NOV 28

Episode 07 · 95 min · 1803

The Water Take Us Home

Seventy-five Igbo captives walk into Dunbar Creek singing — the birthplace of Black flight mythology.

Thanksgiving counter-story

DEC 12

Episode 08 · 105 min · 1822

The Fire That Never Came

Charleston's largest planned uprising — betrayed six weeks before July 14, silenced for 200 years.

Kujichagulia prep

JAN 1

Episode 09 · 105 min · 1862–1865

The Freedmen of Port Royal

The first place in America where enslaved people heard themselves declared free.

Emancipation Proc anniversary

JAN 16

Episode 10 · 110 min · 1839–1915

Robert Smalls

The 23-year-old enslaved pilot who stole the Planter, freed his family, and became a Congressman.

MLK weekend

JAN 30

Episode 11 · 105 min · 1832–1842

The Loophole

Harriet Jacobs hides in her grandmother's crawlspace for seven years and writes it into a book.

Black History Month opener

FEB 13

Episode 12 · 110 min · 1816–2015

Mother Emanuel

Vesey's church, burned twice, rebuilt three times — from conspiracy pew to prayer meeting massacre.

BHM Charleston anchor

FEB 27

Episode 13 · 100 min · 1859

The Rain Would Not Stop

Pierce Butler auctions 436 human beings at Ten Broeck racetrack in a two-day rain that never stopped.

March 2–3 auction anniversary

MAR 13

Episode 14 · 100 min · 1862–today

Under the Oaks

Laura Towne opens the first Southern school for the formerly enslaved beneath the Praise House oaks.

St. Helena spring

MAR 27

Episode 15 · 100 min · 1863

The Combahee

Tubman leads Union gunboats up the Combahee and frees 750 in a single night.

Tubman Day + raid lead-in

APR 10

Episode 16 · 115 min · 1738–1858

The Longest War

Fort Mose to Nacimiento — 120 years of armed Gullah resistance and the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history.

Season finale · Fort Mose

Stand with the season

Season 1 is being produced independently. Every dollar goes to editorial, archival research, community licensing, and the ACX audiobook narrations. Support any tier and your name goes in the end credits of the episode you help fund.