Queen Quet of the Gullah/Geechee Nation Testifies Before the United States Congress

Gullah/Geechee Nation ♦ February 6, 2019 ♦ 2 Comments

Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation is headed to Washington, D.C. this week to provide expert testimony before the United States Congress on how climate change is impacting her people and their coastal and Sea Island communities.

On Thursday , Feb. 7 at 2 pm, Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation, will testify before the Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife about how climate change is impacting the ocean waters that feed the Gullah/Geechee both physically and spiritually. Queen Quet, who has previously represented her people at United Nations conferences, will share details of how the Gullah/Geechee are working to sustain their coastal and sea island communities in the face of rising seas and ocean acidification.

Queen Quet is one of five women experts invited by the Majority to speak at the Subcommittee’s first hearing of 2019, in contrast with the two male experts invited by the Minority. The panel will be a rarity on Capitol Hill, and a marked shift for the House Natural Resources Committee: under the 115^th Congress, only 16% of witnesses were women, and there were no multi-person all-female panels.

More information on the hearing, including details on the witness testimony, and an opportunity to schedule in-person or phone interviews with the female witnesses, is available at the Ocean Conservancy website.

Background on

Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nationh

Queen Quet is the elected Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation, which extends from Jacksonville, NC, to Jacksonville, FL. She is the founder of the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, which is the primary and premiere advocacy organization for the continuation of Gullah/Geechee culture. She represented the Gullah/Geechee people at the UN for the Oceans Conference in 2017 and the Global Climate Action Summit in 2018. She has worked with the National Park Service on the “Special Resource Study of Lowcountry Gullah Culture” and was a part of the United Nations COP 22 Climate Change Conference in Marrakesh, Morocco. She created an ongoing program called “Gullah/Geechee SEA & ME (Saving Environmental Actions and Marine Environment),” which promotes citizen science activities and education on Gullah/Geechee traditions. She has received the Preserving Our Places in History Lifetime Achievement Award from the South Carolina African American Heritage Commissionand the Living Legend Award from the organization which founded Black History Month, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). A healthy ocean is critical for the economic stability and cultural vitality of the Gullah/Geechee Nation (www.GullahGeecheeNation.com).

Make sure that you do not miss this historic event. Tune in via these links:

• C-SPAN: (will be available under “this week’s hearings”) 

https://www.c-span.org/congress/

• Facebook live: https://www.facebook.com/NRDems/

• Committee website: https://naturalresources.house.gov/hearings

De wata bring we and de wata gwine tek we bak!