We have learned that five of our eight Gullah Geechee Ring Shouters featured in our film Vigilantes Inc. were on the dock gangway that collapsed and killed seven people on Sapelo Island, Georgia as crowds gathered for a community celebration this past weekend.
Blessedly, all of our cast members survived, but Bertha McKnight and Joann Ross are still in the hospital.
Watch this clip of the Ring Shouters singing “Wade in the Water” which enslaved Gullahs would sing — a coded song telling their fellows to escape by swimming the swamp then follow the North Star to freedom.
“God’s gonna trouble the waters,” meaning that faith will save them from the alligators that trolled the waters that surrounded the plantations owned by the ancestors of the current Governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp.
Our hearts and best wishes go out to our courageous chorus.
Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, Armed Madhouse, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits and the book and documentary, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
His latest film is All Washed Away: The Untold Story of the Drowning of New Orleans and Texas. Palast is currently working on a new documentary Long Knife, exposing the Koch Brothers' theft of Osage oil, to be released in 2025.
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