IGBO Landing Foundation is slated to host the 221st IGBO Landing Three Day Commemorative Weekend on Friday, May 24th through Sunday May 26, 2024, at Epworth By The Sea, located at 100 Arthur J Moore Dr, St Simons Island, GA 31522. 

This is the 3rd annual celebration in over two centuries, community members and scholars are gathering tocommemorate IGBO Landing. The three-day event will include site visits, an awards ceremony dinner on Saturday night, Nollywood film screenings, performances, symposiums, a naming ceremony, and cultural food and language presentations.

In May of 1803 a large group of enslaved IGBO Africans made history by resisting their enslavement in the most dramatic way possible. Inspired by a noble chief among them, they rose up and martyred themselves at Dunbar Creek on St. Simons Island, chanting ‘The Water brought us here, The Water will take us away’ as they walked down into the river, where they all drowned. Ever since, IGBO Landing has been a ‘sacred place’ and the story became known all throughout the Gullah Geechee world. The central message: You may enslave my body, but not my mind, not my soul. We seek to remember and honor these noble ancestors. We also seek to preserve the land itself and memorialize the story by official designation of IGBO Landing as a National Historic Site (or Monument).

The Savannah African Art Museum was asked to join the planning committee for this commemorative weekend.

“We attended the 2022 Igbo Landing Marker Dedication at the invitation of the Georgia Historical Society and were honored to join the planning committee for the 2023 IGBO Landing Commemoration at the invitation of Griffin Lotson, Vice Chairman of the National Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission,” said Lisa Jackson, Savannah African Art Museum Education and Community Outreach Liaison. “We are hoping those who have enjoyed our museum tours, especially our Nigeria Gallery which includes art of the IGBO people, will join us for this enlightening historical event.”

The 221st IGBO Landing Commemoration is sponsored by the IGBO Landing Foundation, Center for IGBOStudies (Dominican University), the Chicago Defender Charities, Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, Coastal Georgia Historical Society, St. Simons Land Trust, and the Morehouse Mellon Public History, Digital Humanities Projects, and the Robert S. Abbott Race Unity Institute, Inc. For a full list of events happening over this weekend, tickets, and additional information on Igbo Landing, please visit www.igbolandingfoundation.org.