The latest work in a multiyear project by a Mercer University professor and her students to preserve Gullah Geechee and African American heritage and heritage sites in Coastal Georgia will be showcased 2-4 p.m. May 20 in Nalls Auditorium at Epworth by the Sea. The program is free and open to the public. 

Wade in the Water: Gullah Geechee and African American Life and Culture on St. Simons Island is a program of digital stories based on interviews conducted by Mercer students in collaboration with the St. Simons African American Heritage Coalition. There also will be a live musical performance by the Washington Revels Jubilee Voices.  

The Washington Revels Jubilee Voices is an ensemble committed to the preservation of African American history and traditions through songs and stories of struggle and perseverance, trials and triumphs, as expressed through a cappella music, drama and dance.   

Since 2010, the group has performed regularly at heritage sites throughout the Washington, D.C., area, singing, sharing and learning the stories of the people in those communities. In addition to music, the ensemble also explores poetry and writings, along with first- and third-person portrayals of African Americans whose stories are a vital contribution to American history.  

Dr. Melanie Pavich, associate professor of history and interdisciplinary studies in Mercer’s College of Professional Advancement, has received three grants for the nine-plus-year research-based service-learning project from Georgia Humanities, in partnership with the Georgia Department of Economic Development, through funding from the Georgia General Assembly.  

Dr. Pavich earned her undergraduate degree in history from Agnes Scott College, her master’s degree in history from Clemson University and her Ph.D. in social foundations of education from the University of Georgia.  

Her research is focused on race and gender in the South during the 19th and early 20th centuries and includes the study of African American education and teachers. She has developed research- and service-learning-based courses for undergraduate students centered on the study of Gullah Geechee and African American communities and schools in Georgia.  

She is the author of Anna: The Letters of a St. Simons Island Plantation Mistress, 1817-1859, published by the University of Georgia Press, and is currently working on a biography of Martha Schofield, a teacher of African Americans in South Carolina from 1865 to 1916.