Ron Daise to Deliver Crown Forum Keynote at Morehouse for Centering 1526 Symposium & Imbongi
ATLANTA — Acclaimed author, educator, performer and Gullah Geechee cultural interpreter Ron Daise will deliver the Crown Forum keynote for Centering 1526: Symposium & Imbongi, Thursday, October 1, 2026, at the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College.
Daise will speak from 11:00–11:50 AM, helping establish the cultural and historical foundation for a day of scholarship, student research, panels, roundtables, and public dialogue shaped by the work of Dr. Samuel T. Livingston of Morehouse College’s Department of Africana Studies and History.
Few voices are better positioned to help open that conversation.
A native of St. Helena Island, South Carolina, Daise has spent nearly four decades carrying Gullah Geechee history beyond the boundaries of archives and academic institutions—through books, music, television, theater, oral history, education and direct cultural engagement.
His work is rooted not simply in studying Gullah Geechee culture, but in living within the traditions he interprets.
Daise describes his own work as using writing, song, and performance to create understanding of Gullah Geechee culture and heritage. His presentations frequently combine historical research with storytelling, poetry, spirituals, music, personal reflection and audience participation—turning cultural interpretation into an active exchange rather than a lecture delivered at a distance.
That approach makes his presence particularly resonant for Centering 1526.
The symposium asks what changes when African and American histories are entered from a point before the conventional Anglo-American founding narrative—foregrounding African presence, resistance, culture, land and memory across five centuries of Black history.
Daise brings another dimension to that inquiry: the living cultural memory of Gullah Geechee communities themselves.
A Life Spent Carrying Culture Forward
For generations of Americans, Daise became a familiar face through Nick Jr.’s Gullah Gullah Island, the landmark children’s television series he co-starred in with his wife, Natalie Daise. The couple also served as cultural consultants, helping introduce national audiences to Gullah language, music, family life, traditions and cultural values through a program centered on a Black family and a distinctly Gullah Geechee world.
But television represents only one chapter of a much larger body of work.
Daise’s cultural documentation began years earlier. His first book, Reminiscences of Sea Island Heritage, grew from the history and oral traditions of his St. Helena Island community and helped lead to touring performances centered on Sea Island and Gullah culture. His later writing has continued to explore heritage, memory and the relationship between West African traditions and Gullah Geechee life.
His body of work includes Gullah Branches, West African Roots and the historical novel Raptors in the Ricelands, along with presentations that examine everything from rice culture, spirituals and Gullah language to family traditions, Reconstruction-era history, African diasporic connections and cultural survival.
At Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina, Daise has held a longstanding leadership role in creative education and Gullah Geechee interpretation. His cultural work has also included service with the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission, presentations at the United Nations and recognition from cultural and educational institutions across South Carolina.
Among his honors are South Carolina’s Order of the Palmetto, the South Carolina Folk Heritage Award, and recognition for lifetime achievement and contributions to African American heritage and cultural education.
Where Scholarship Meets Living Memory
That history is particularly significant within the architecture of Centering 1526.
The symposium, convened by the Department of Africana Studies and History at Morehouse College in collaboration with the Afro-Mosaic Cinema Summit, examines the significance of San Miguel de Gualdape and the events of 1526 as part of a broader reconsideration of African presence in what would become the United States.
The scholarship asks audiences to think beyond familiar historical starting points and consider what becomes visible when African presence, resistance and cultural formation are placed earlier in the American story.
Daise’s keynote brings those questions into conversation with a culture whose language, spirituality, music, memory, foodways, family traditions and relationship to land preserve deep connections across the African diaspora.
His own presentations have repeatedly explored those connections, including the relationship between Gullah Geechee communities and West Africa, the cultural significance of rice, the endurance of spiritual traditions, and the ways songs and stories function as vessels of historical memory.
For Centering 1526, that creates an important bridge between scholarship and cultural experience.
The day is not designed simply to recover a date.
It is designed to ask what happens when historical research, cultural memory and community knowledge are placed in conversation with one another—and when the public is invited into that exchange.
Following Daise’s Crown Forum keynote, the symposium will continue with discussions examining history and sovereignty, Gullah Geechee memory work, Kongo-Gullah relationships and land, before culminating in an African Diaspora Imbongi, a community-grounding session centered on reflection and public dialogue.
Daise’s keynote therefore occupies a pivotal place in the day: between the history being researched and the culture through which that history continues to live.
[View the Complete Centering 1526 Symposium & Imbongi Schedule →]
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MEDIA & PROGRAM INFORMATION
For additional information, media inquiries, or program participation:
festivaldirector@almafilmfestival.com
Alma Film Festival
Ent-Tech (Innovation & Discovery Expo)
Afro-Mosaic Cinema Summit
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