SEA's 9th Annual Rails to Trails Festival - CANCELLED

The SEA Festival returns this year along the Rails to Trails bike trail, with its annual fund raiser celebrating S.E.A.’s (Spuds, Elkton & Armstrong) historic African & Gullah Geechee heritage and culture exhibitions of food, music, films, and performances.

The celebration is the only one of its kind in Saint Johns County and is held in one of the few remaining African-American settlements in Northeast Florida. This is a one-day event you’ll want to experience!  You may register for the scenic bike ride led by BikeFlorida starting at 9 am. SEA’s indomitable leader, Malinda, will once again serve her Gullah stew & rice while other vendors will treat your tastebuds with their signature dishes, a lot of Gullah, with a little southern mixed in.

The world-renowned Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters will perform the African Ring Shout from Sierra Leone and tell Geechee stories. They’ll hang around to discuss the Georgia Gullah experience and talk about their performance in the 2016 movie “Roots.”

Learn to weave an authentic Gullah grass basket, browse the various arts & craft booths, view a Gullah film, listen and dance to renowned musicians and entertainers like J. W. Gilmore, Amy Alysia & Doug Carn, and a mix of music by the popular Saint Jax Band.

You’ll sing, you’ll dance, maybe you’ll even win a prize – you surely will enjoy yourself!

Armstrong is still the home of approximately 300 Gullah Geechee (GG) descendants of the Africans who survived the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and migrated southward from the Carolinas and Georgia rice and cotton fields. These generations of current residents will relate the local folklore to visitors in their conversations, while other volunteer resident/technicians will present Mende Film Festival films, documenting relevant and heart-wrenching facts of the lives of the local families of this west end of St. Johns County.