Descended: Searching for my Gullah-Geechee Roots
It began with a name. Sancho. Gleaned from the memory of his oldest living relative, that name set author Keith Rushing on a quest to recover his family’s story. Rushing came to learn that Sancho was an African name, a common practice among the Gullah-Geechee communities of the South Carolina and Georgia Sea Islands. He found that Sancho had been born into slavery on Hilton Head Island and later fought as a soldier in a war for self-emancipation. Rushing learned that after that war Sancho had become a small landowner. Above all, he discovered that his family’s story was richer than he had ever imagined. In Descended, Rushing recounts his own journey of discovery, and in the process unfurls a dramatic story about the transformation of Hilton Head. Descended is a story about family, place, and the desire to understand where we have been and where we are going.
AUTHOR BIO
Keith Rushing is a writer who lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife and two daughters. He worked as a journalist for daily newspapers in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and California for nearly two decades. In recent years, he has worked as a communications director, writer-editor, and strategist for national nonprofits supporting the environment, voting rights, civil rights, and immigration rights. His commentary has appeared in the Huffington Post, Ebony.com, and InTheFray magazine, among other publications. In addition to the recently published book Descended, Rushing is working on a children’s book about a celebration of freedom at the end of the Civil War and is contributing to an anthology about confronting enslavement in his family. Rushing grew up in Queens, N.Y., and is a proud Gullah-Geechee descendant. He is a graduate of Carleton College and the Columbia School of Journalism.
