For many communities, land holds more than physical boundaries. It carries memory, preserves culture, and tells stories that cannot be found in archives alone. At Morehouse College, that understanding shapes how research is imagined and pursued, especially within projects that center Black history, identity, and lived experience.
One such project, Landscape, Home, and Memory: Gullah Geechee People and the Radical Aesthetics of Place, brings together Dr. Corrie Claiborne, Associate Professor of English, and Omar Culbreath, Jr. '26, an African Studies major, in a collaboration that centers the cultural and historical significance of the Gullah Geechee people.
Their work is grounded in a powerful idea. Place is not just geography. It is memory, identity, and inheritance.
The Gullah Geechee people, whose communities stretch across the coastal regions of the southeastern United States, have long preserved a distinct cultural heritage shaped by West and Central African traditions. Language, foodways, spiritual practices, and artistic expression all reflect a deep connection to land and history. Dr. Claiborne’s book project explores how these elements come together to form what she describes as a radical aesthetics of place.
Working alongside her, Culbreath brings both academic focus and cultural insight to the project. His research contributes to a narrative that highlights the lives of four trailblazing Black women from the Lowcountry of South Carolina, women whose stories illuminate the intersections of home, resilience, and cultural preservation.
Reflecting on the collaboration, Culbreath emphasizes the depth of the experience.
“Dr. Claiborne’s work in collaboration with my expertise allows for a powerful synthesis of home, place, culture, and heritage, which highlights the lives of four trailblazing Black women who hail from the low country of South Carolina.”
Culbreath has taken on responsibilities that extend past research. He has presented his findings and contributed to academic discussions about the Gullah Geechee community and the importance of preserving its cultural legacy.
The project also moves past traditional literary analysis. It exhibits how land and environment shape Black life, with marshlands, coastlines, and homes serving as spaces that preserve and carry history, memory, and culture forward.
Through this work, Dr. Claiborne and Culbreath invite us to reconsider how we understand place. Not as something static, but as something lived, remembered, and continually reimagined. At Morehouse, this kind of scholarship reflects a broader commitment to honoring Black cultural traditions while equipping students to engage them critically and creatively. It is about preserving what has been, while also shaping how those stories are told moving forward.