‘Descended’ traces author’s search for Gullah Geechee roots

Keith Rushing’s new memoir, Descended: Searching for My Gullah Geechee Roots, charts his journey from family curiosity to a reconnection with his ancestral heritage on Hilton Head Island. In a recent interview, the Washington, D.C.-based former journalist reflected on the people, land and culture that helped shape his story—and the years-long investigation behind the book.

The story begins with a name: “Sancho.” As a child, Rushing heard that name—his great-great-grandfather’s—and began asking questions. A school assignment at age 12 sparked a deeper interest in family history, and he soon found himself interviewing relatives and compiling names like Sancho Christopher and Miley Jenkins, some of the earliest ancestors he could trace.

“I always wanted to know... what was the family like?” Rushing recalled.
That interest sharpened decades later when, as a journalist attending a Black history event in Colonial Williamsburg, he mentioned to a genealogist that he had an ancestor who served in the U.S. Colored Troops. The suggestion: visit the National Archives.

Rushing followed the trail, ordering military pension files that confirmed Sancho Christopher’s service in the Civil War. “That was the name that I heard,” he said. Born enslaved on Hilton Head in 1843, Sancho later fought for the Union and returned to own land, marry, and raise a family.

Rushing’s search brought him back to Hilton Head in 2010. “I felt a sense of home... the saltwater smell, the heat, the climate,” he said. “It just felt like this is where you’re from.” His cousin Murray Christopher took him to Drayton Cemetery, where he stood at Sancho’s grave.

That visit marked a turning point. He met with Phoebe, a cousin and retired teacher who began her career in a one-room schoolhouse, and other relatives who helped illuminate his family’s local ties. “I already had the connection,” he said of his return.

Descended blends family stories with cultural history, drawing from archival records, oral histories and local knowledge. Rushing documents the self-sufficient world of Gullah Geechee life: farming, praise houses, cast nets and communal living, often preserved in relative isolation. He pays close attention to linguistic and cultural legacies, including African-derived “basket names”—nicknames traditionally given to children based on their traits or birth circumstances, often with roots traceable to West African languages.

“These names can be a window into African identity,” Rushing said, noting that linguistic scholar Lorenzo Dow Turner traced many such names in the Gullah dialect back to specific African ethnic groups. “If families can recall these names—even if they weren’t official—it could open a path to cultural discovery.”

He encourages others to begin their own explorations. Start with the elders, he said. “Ask them who they remember—grandparents, great-grandparents, what towns they lived in. Even a nickname or detail can lead somewhere.”

From there, Rushing suggests using public records, agricultural censuses, military pensions and local resources like the Heritage Library on Hilton Head. DNA analysis can also supplement oral history, particularly when traditional documents are scarce.

The memoir is personal but expansive. Rushing traces post–Civil War resilience through stories of marriage, farming, education and voting—contrasting it with the later loss of land and cultural space. Still, the legacy remains.

“These were not broken people, these are determined people,” he said. “They built their own homes, praise houses, boats, farms. They were fully self-sufficient.”
In Descended, Rushing brings back not only names, but voices, places and a culture whose memory still runs deep in the land.

Praising Rushing’s work, Emory Shaw Campbell, longtime leader at Penn Center and executive director emeritus, called Descended “an important part of the Hilton Head story” that “explains his roots in relation to African and Gullah heritage.” Elijah Heyward III, founding COO of the International African American Museum, said the memoir “employs Gullah Geechee culture as a profound lens to interrogate American identity.”

Book details
• Title: Descended: Searching for My Gullah Geechee Roots
• Author: Keith Rushing
• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press, April 15, 2025
• Price: $25.99 hardcover, 232 pages