Gullah Geechee nation Queen Quet speaks at UF

UF students were in the presence of royalty Tuesday night.

More than 60 people stood as Queen Quet, the chieftess and head of state of the Gullah Geechee nation, slowly entered the UF Chemistry Lab auditorium.

The queen, whose legal name is Marquetta Goodwine, was dressed in a long, patterned royal purple gown and wore her thick, curly braids underneath a black headwrap. 

Golden bangles clacked on her wrist as she gently waved the Gullah Geechee flag, singing the deep, loud notes of a song in the Gullah language.

The Gullah Geechee people are African slave descendents who live in Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and the Sea Islands off of North Carolina.

The queen’s speech covered topics ranging from environmental issues and the exploitation of the Gullah Geechee people to the flooding the community is facing after the devastation in the Carolinas from Hurricane Florence. 

“We’re losing the real treasures,” she said.

Ryan Thomson, a 29-year-old UF sociology and criminology & law doctoral student, said he wrote his dissertation on environmental justice and the South Carolina Gullah Geechee people over the summer. Thomson and Queen Quet are working to bring post-hurricane relief aid to northeastern South Carolina and the Gullah Geechee islands.

The Gullah Geechee people are stereotyped as exotic, overly emotional natives in southern island regions of the United States, Queen Quet said. The culture is rooted in agriculture, oral history and religion, she said.

Queen Quet hugged Aaron Dozier’s daughters, Aayanna, 12, and Anjel, 11, after her speech. 

Dozier, a 35-year-old Gainesville resident, said his father told him to listen to the Geechee music to improve his singing as a child in the church choir. He said it’s time for his daughters to learn about the history of African families who were brought to the Carolinas from a credible source like the queen.

“We keep a piece of that history together,” he said.

Contact Angela DiMichele at adimichele@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter at @angdimi

Queen Quet, the chieftess and head of state of the Gullah Geechee nation, talked with attendees after her speech at UF Tuesday night. She is from Saint Helena Island in South Carolina.