Tybee MLK Human Rights Organization

08/27/2026

Today

08/27/2026

There's a quiet marsh on St. Simons Island, Georgia where the flowers and shells left at one historical marker are never mistaken for litter. Locals know exactly what they mean.

In 1803, a group of enslaved Igbo people who had survived the Middle Passage were being transported along Dunbar Creek when they rose up against the men guarding them. Rather than submit to a lifetime of enslavement, at least ten of them walked into the marsh together and drowned.

Gullah Geechee families along the Georgia coast have carried the memory of what happened at Dunbar Creek for more than two centuries, in a tradition often called the story of the Flying Africans. One version of the saying passed down through generations puts it simply: the water brought us here, and the water will take us away.

Georgia's Historical Society placed an official marker at the site in 2022, titled "the legacy of resisting enslavement." The story has since reached far beyond the coast, shaping works like the film "Daughters of the Dust" and Toni Morrison's novel "Song of Solomon."

If your own family carries a story about an ancestor who chose their own fate rather than have it chosen for them, is it one that gets told often, or mostly kept quiet?

08/27/2026

08/27/2026