The Avery Research Center is excited to host “Word, Shout, Song: Lorenzo Dow Turner Connecting Communities through Language”, the exhibition developed by the Smithsonian Institution’s Anacostia Community Museum, in January 2012. This exhibition is a beautiful and thought-provoking assemblage of artifacts, photographs, and text that documents the life and work of Dr. Lorenzo Dow Turner, whom many scholars consider as the first African-American linguist and the Father of Gullah Studies. It also examines the visceral interconnections between African diasporan cultures on three continents: the Gullah-Geechee communities of South Carolina and Georgia; the Afro-Brazilian community of Bahia, Brazil; and the West African cultures from which the other two were born.

The exhibit will open on Thursday January 12, 2012 with an reception and special guest speakers Camille Akeju, Director of the Smithonian’s Anacostia Museum, and Dr. Johnetta Cole, Director of the Smithsonian’s Museum of African Art.  For more information on the opening exhibit please click here.