29 Jan Allison Dorsey Announced as First Ossabaw Fellow Award Recipient
Savannah, GA (January 29, 2009) — Dr. Allison Dorsey has been selected by The Ossabaw Island Foundation as the first recipient of the Eleanor “Sandy” West Ossabaw Fellowship. Dorsey is an Associate Professor of History, and Coordinator of Black Studies, at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.
Dorsey’s most recent paper “‘The great cry of our people is Land!’: Black Settlement and Community Development on Ossabaw Island, 1865-1900” discusses her research on the lives of African American freedmen on Ossabaw Island and in coastal Georgia in the decades after emancipation.
As the Ossabaw Fellow, Dorsey will receive an honorarium and a one-week residency on Ossabaw Island.
The Eleanor “Sandy” West Ossabaw Fellowship was established in 2008 to honor Ossabaw Island’s longest known resident and supporter. West established and operated the Ossabaw Island Project and the Genesis Project on Ossabaw Island and was instrumental in her family’s decision to make a bargain sale of Ossabaw Island to the State of Georgia in 1978 for use as the state’s first Heritage Preserve. West, 96, has lived on the island full time since 1986.
West encouraged innovative efforts in the sciences, arts, culture, and education, and provided opportunities for a diverse spectrum of people to draw inspiration and knowledge from Ossabaw Island. The Ossabaw Fellowship is intended to honor Sandy West by recognizing creative endeavors of a person working in any field, whose endeavor relates to or is inspired
