When Roots Die: Endangered Traditions on the Sea Islands (Brown Thrasher Books)

When Roots Die celebrates and preserves the venerable Gullah culture of the sea islands of the South Carolina and Georgia coast. Entering into communities long isolated from the world by a blazing sun and salt marshes, Patricia Jones-Jackson captures the cadence of the storyteller lost in the adventures of "Brer Rabbit," records voices lifted in song or prayer, and describes folkways and beliefs that have endured, through ocean voyage and human bondage, for more than two hundred years.

PATRICIA JONES-JACKSON, an associate professor of English at Howard University, died in 1986 while on assignment for the National Geographic Society on Johns Island, South Carolina.