Anthony “Drack” Mervin, an independent oysterman who works out of Bluffton Oyster Company in Bluffton, S.C., harvests oysters in the May River near Hilton Head Island. The Gullah Geechee people are the descendants of West and Central Africans who were enslaved and bought to the lower Atlantic states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia to work on the coastal rice, Sea Island cotton and indigo plantations. The Gullah Geechee are believed to be one of the most authentic African American communities in the United States.