Austin Heise ’17- Greetings from Savannah! Sunday morning we made our way to the historic First African Baptist Church. It was such a great experience! The music was powerful, and I was greatly impressed with the preacher’s message. What was extremely interesting was how the service and tour we took on Sunday went hand in hand with our course. We saw African influences, such as the ring shout and original African rhythms. It was quite an experience and the church welcomed us wit open arms, even giving us a shoutout at the end of the service.
I was also interested in how things were conducted so differently than churches that I have previously attended. We observed call and response, another element we studied in our course, and gender roles in the service. It was great seeing how church looks from a different perspective, and get experience things that we talked about in class.
We also took a historical Geechee culture tour later in the day, and we saw multiple historic areas around the city, such as the monument that is dedicated to the Haitian people and their bravery when they protected Savannah. We also got a private tour of the church, and we learned that red doors on a building mean ownership to the Geechee down here, and that light blue “haint blue” keeps away any evil presence on the inside or outside of the house.
Lastly, a major shoutout and thanks to Professor Wilson and Morton, as well as Wabash for the great trip. I’m so glad we have a few days left!
