Rebecca Bonds Bowen, better known as “Miss Sula,” was born in 1946 in Pin Point, Georgia—a small Gullah Geechee community founded in 1896, eleven miles southeast of Savannah, in Chatham County. Growing up, Miss Sula was often the primary caregiver for her younger siblings because her parents would leave early in the morning to either catch or pick crabs. In her early 20s, Miss Sula was employed as a crab picker but was persuaded by her mother to pursue her education for a better life. Miss Sula entered the nursing field and worked in various care facilities throughout Georgia. She later married, had four sons, and moved back into the house that her father built, after her mother’s passing, until her death in 2019.

Sitting in her family’s home, Miss Sula provides a detailed account of African American founding members of the crab picking and harvesting industry in Pin Point, Georgia. Among the names mentioned are her grandparents—Rebecca Famble and Syrus Sams—who were excluded from a documentary filmed about the crabbing industry. Miss Sula expresses her frustration with the documentary because it fails to acknowledge African Americans Benjamin Bond and John Anderson, who built the first cannery in 1900 and contributed to the industry prior to the White-owned A.S. Varn and Son Oyster and Crab Factory that was prominently featured in the documentary. She describes how her family and other Pin Point citizens were exploited by the Varn’s family and endured lack of adequate compensation, medical coverage, and security after “slaving away” their entire lives in harsh factory conditions. Miss Sula recalls seeing the women in her family stand all day in freezing buildings to keep the crabs cold, which left residual “cold in their bones” and other health problems. The “ugly side of crabbing” forced her and others in her generation to find better employment. Miss Sula recognizes that the historical records have excluded African American contributions. She regrets that there are no family photos of her grandfather building wooden boats in his backyard or family and community members picking crabs to share with their children and the world. However, she has her family’s oral history to pass on to future generations, which tells the stories and contributions of past Gullah Geechee generations.