“Gullah Geechee Creole” 
Town Branch p. 287
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0DGijYiGQU

[Transcribers note: In this transcript, I indicate where the speaker is using the accents, rhythms, and intonations of Standardized English or Gullah Geechee. I have also included words unique to the Gullah Geechee dialect, such as “hoonah” or “buckruh” with translations that will be more familiar to speakers of Standardized English or Black English, keeping in mind what Jordan Honeyblue writes in this chapter: “Even though Standardized English is an element of the dialect’s foundation, an average Standardized English or Black English speaker may not be able to fully comprehend the distinct dialect through an initial conversation or by listening to a story” (287).]

THERESA JENKINS HILLARD: [Singing] I want Jesus to walk with me when I’m on my lonesome journey. Lord I want Jesus, I want Jesus, walking with me.

[“I Want Jesus to Walk With Me” continues in the background]

THERESA JENKINS HILLARD: [Speaking in Gullah Geechee] Well I’m here today now to tell hoonah [you] something ‘bout me ancestor them. I can feel their presence, they are there with me now, because I know they watch over me.

[In Standardized English] I grew up not knowing where I came from or how I got here, and why am I being treated as less than a human. You know our grandmother said now [in Gullah Geechee] “The buckruh [white] chillun go there, and don’t look buckruh in the eye” say, “Hunnuh [you] can’t go over there no for play with buckruh them.” 

[In Standardized English] We knew that the whites were different but we didn’t really know why, so it was just another day in the life of a little Gullah girl.

[In Gullah Geechee] And they’ve been here on these hallowed and sacred grounds, on this place we call Edisto Island where I grow up.

[In Standardized English] Almost everybody that lived on this island were enslaved Africans. All Gullah people. 

[In Gullah Geechee] And the island ain’t be had nothing but plantations - and all they called them ‘white gold’ you know? The cotton and the rice and all the indigo.

[In Standardized English] The enslaved Africans had to find a way to communicate, so that language was pretty much born here in America.

REV. H.W. STUCKEY: [In Gullah Geechee] God told us, ‘Now y’all can eat from all the trees in the garden, but to take from the tree in the middle of garden, that be day you die.

THERESA JENKINS HILLARD: [In Standardized English] My generation is really the last generation to have direct contact with Gullah speaking people, and Gullah was their only language.

REV. H.W. STUCKEY: [In Gullah Geechee] You see the red apple hanging on the tree.

THERESA JENKINS HILLARD: [In Standardized English] And unless we pass it on to our children, then it will die out.

REV. H.W. STUCKEY: [In Gullah Geechee] And ma’s been birthing ever since.

THERESA JENKINS HILLARD: [In Gullah Geechee] They strip everything from ‘em. All the chillun [children] were snatched out they arm. Carry the baby this way, the ma that way, the pa that way, and them be had no sense of family at all.

[In Standardized English] We have to let our young people know about the struggle. We have to go all the way back to Africa where it all began, so that they know whose back they’re standing on.

[Singing] Before I be a slave, I be buried in my grave, and go home to my God, and be free, and be free.