Carry We Spirit
The Gullah Legacies in Paint and Words
Luana M. Graves Sellars|Sonja Griffin Evans
“We carry the spirit of those who came before us — in paint, in word, in memory.”
— Sonja Griffin Evans
“Discover the culture where your American story began.”
— Luana M. Graves Sellars
“A beautiful, unbroken historical journey tracing our culture from its West African roots, through the realities of coastal plantation enslavement, to our modern-day preservation battles.”
— Luana M. Graves Sellars
The Words by Luana M. Graves Sellars
“The Gullah Geechee culture is wonderfully rich and vibrant, and I am honored to help tell this story.”
— Luana M. Graves Sellars
“These vestiges prove the resilience of a people who refused to let their culture be erased by the tides of history.”
— Luana M. Graves Sellars
“The Gullah-Geechee were not just randomly captured. They were the best of the best.”
— Luana M. Graves Sellars
“It's so important that we learn from the past to improve the future.”
— Luana M. Graves Sellars
The Paint by Sonja Griffin Evans
“To paint is to testify. Every brushstroke is a prayer, every color a memory carried forward.”
— Sonja Griffin Evans
About the Author
Luana M. Graves Sellars
A native-born New Yorker, Luana Graves Sellars, moved to Florida, and discovered that she was really "a mis-placed Floridian," and knew that snow and nor'easter's were not meant for her. At Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, she earned a dual degree in Journalism and Black History with a minor in Business.
With her degrees, she was not prepared to live on Hilton Head Island, one of the most culturally rich and historic areas of the South. The island motivated her to become a contributing writer for local magazines with a focus on Gullah culture, its history, people and native island issues by researching, documenting and publishing cultural legacies in an effort towards preservation.
In 2021, she started her own company, Sankofa Communications expanding her content creation into visual media, where she has written, directed, and produced multiple award winning historic and culturally focused documentaries, that have received awards and screened in several US cities as well as internationally in Cannes, France, Toronto, Canada and Berlin, and Munich, Germany.
The documentary, Harriet Tubman | From the Railroad to a Spy is broadcasting nationally on PBS and has won six awards, including (Best Documentary Short - Global LA Film Festival, Best Documentary Film - Toronto Indie Filmmakers Festival 2025, Best Film - Africa USA International Film Festival 2024, Exceptional Merit - Documentaries Without Borders 2024 as well as 10 festival nominations).
The Colored Troops of the Civil War | Courage. Determination. Survival (has won six awards including the San Diego Black Film Festival | Best Documentary 2025, Best Documentary Feature Film Toronto Indie Filmmakers Festival 2025, Munich New Wave Short Documentary Festival 2025, Global LA Film Festival Best Trailer 2024 and Global Film Festival | Honorable Mention Documentary 2024, Grand Jury Heritage Award - Filmteenth International Black Film Festival 2024, Exceptional Merit - Documentaries Without Borders 2024, Africa USA International Film Festival | Honorable Mention 2024, Documentaries Without Borders International Film Festival | Documentary Exceptional Merit 2024, Documentaries Without Borders International Film Festival | Documentary Exceptional Merit - Narration Talent 2024, Documentaries Without Borders International Film Festival | Documentary Excellence - Research 2024 in addition to 10 festival nominations). In addition to the individual awards that the films have received, she has also won Best Producer as well as being nominated for Best Director. Her work as producer and host of the award-winning culturally focused Lowcountry Gullah Podcast, which is in its 4th season, has also been recognized.
In 2025, she was honored to have the podcast and all of her films were picked up by the Roku Channels Fawesome, Play Now Media, Relay and Amplified Voices TV, where truth-telling information and stories are told. The Channel has content from Al Sharpton, Toure, and many other established African American voices.
As author of Carry We Spirit: The Gullah Legacy in Paint and Words, she is cementing cultural truths in Luana's first published coffee table book created in partnership with her sister friend, Sonja Griffin Evans, an internationally renowned mixed media artist.
As the owner of Sankofa Communications, founder of the nonprofit(s) Lowcountry Gullah and the Lowcountry Gullah Foundation, which was awarded the SCORE of the Lowcountry Nonprofit of the Year 2022, she is also a community activist and cultural influencer. In May 2023, the Truth Telling Project recognized her work as a cultural influencer with their Radical Truth Teller Award.
In African tradition, it is expected that one not only speaks in their voice, but also in the voice of our voiceless ancestors. Luana often says, like the African Akan symbol of the sankofa, "It's so important that we learn from the past to improve the future."
Her work and her passion for her culture stems from telling the untold stories of her ancestors, Catherine and George Ward, who survived being enslaved at Brookgreen Gardens, a rice plantation in Georgetown, South Carolina.
Luana is sustaining and preserving Gullah culture for future generations by telling the untold stories that educate and inspire people to understand more about who they are and where they came from.
About the Artist
Sonja Griffin Evans
Sonja Griffin Evans is an international Gullah Artist, Speaker and Pan African Cultural Heritage Institute Fellow, born and raised in Beaufort, South Carolina. Growing up in the Lowcountry, which prides itself on its ability to preserve its culture and heritage, has heavily influenced Sonja's artwork, and gives her an uncanny ability to capture the beauty, spirituality and purest representations of the Gullah Sea Island and African American culture. As a prolific mix media artist, she incorporates items such as tin, wood and other materials in her art. She is also adept at painting the vibrantly colored art on canvas that is acknowledged as the traditional Gullah style. In both mediums, Sonja is careful to express her culture in its purest form. Evans believes that everything that God has created is not only beautiful, but has a purpose and states nothing should be wasted. She further believes she merely holds the paint brush and God ultimately creates the art.
Sonja is known for her ability to see the beauty in found items. She selects each item and unveils the alluring stories these pieces hold within them; reflecting the spirituality of the people of African descent. With her masterful use of color and perspective in her work, Griffin Evans' artwork is constantly evolving. As a highly sought after speaker and masterful storyteller, Evans masterfully pulls from her art, culture, heritage, and history to weave an inspiring motivational experience that brings each piece to life; invoking spiritual and cultural insight.
Sonja Griffin Evans was recently selected as one of 150 artist from around the world (U.S., Italy, Brazil, Switzerland, Ukraine, Germany, Ecuador just to name a few) by the #1 Apple TV Lifestyle App, Loupe, a global streaming curated art gallery available in 40 countries and streaming in 80 countries. Sonja's work has been exhibited internationally on a three city tour in France, including Tour Saint Aubin, Angers France. She has been featured by the National Park Service, selected by the Westin Hilton Head Spa and Resort to permanently display an image commemorating historic Mitchelville. Sonja has won many prestigious awards. In 2013 her gallery received the African Diaspora World Tourism Flame Keepers Award for honoring the culture and heritage of people of African descent. Sonja has personally been named Honoree, Mamie Till Mobley Woman of Courage Award, and was an Onyx Award Nominee. As a highly sought after speaker and advocate for the arts, Evans has been featured on television and radio broadcasts, and in publications; such as DuPont Registry, Southern Lady Magazine, Coastal Lifestyle Magazine, Upscale Magazine, Local Life Magazine, Hilton Head Monthly, From Imagining to Understanding the African American Experience and more. Her artwork is in prestigious private and corporate collections, nationally and abroad.
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