Just north of Charleston, South Carolina, is Mount Pleasant, a sprawling suburb filled with cookie-cutter residential developments and run-of-the-mill strip malls. At first glance, it’s not a place that seems to have anything to do with handcrafts and centuries-old design traditions, but behind the bland facades lies the center of the Gullah sweetgrass basketmaking community. Gullah people are descended from Africans enslaved on the southeastern United States coast, and the region’s relative geographic isolation has meant that the area has been able to preserve a distinct culture and language. Collectors often venture there in search of the baskets, which stem from a sewing culture developed on nearby plantations, with roots in West African traditions.
For decades, a stretch of the town’s main drag, Highway 17, served as a sales point for local makers. Stalls used to line the route, but as the area grew in population, the road went from two lanes to six, edging out roadside shops. Development hasn’t only thwarted designers’ ability to easily reach their customers; it has also limited access to wetlands and materials like bulrush, pine needles, and palmetto, which are vital to basketmaking.
“Many basketmakers are either too old or the distance to resources is too far, and they don’t have transportation to get there,” says fourth-generation sewer and unofficial community leader Henrietta Snype. “The people who used to harvest the material have died.”
“A remnant of us are still handing this down from generation to generation. My daughter, knows how to do it. My son does, too.
