Keith Rushing at the Savannah Book Festival

Feb 7, 2026 @ 9am - 9:55am | Location: Lutheran Church Fellowship Hall, 120 Bull St., Savannah, GA 31401

Feb 7, 2026 @ 9am - 9:55am
Location: Lutheran Church Fellowship Hall, 120 Bull St., Savannah, GA 31401
Hosted by: Savannah Book Festival

Join author Keith Rushing at the 2026 Savannah Book Festival.

In his book, Descended: Searching for My Gullah-Geechee Roots, Keith journeys to learn about his family's past and uncovers more than he expected.

It began with a name. Sancho. Gleaned from the memory of his oldest living relative, that name set author Keith Rushing on a quest to recover his family's story.

Rushing came to learn that Sancho was an African name, a common practice among the Gullah-Geechee communities of the South Carolina and Georgia Sea Islands. He found that Sancho had been born into slavery on Hilton Head Island and later fought as a soldier in a war for self-emancipation. Rushing learned that after that war Sancho had become a small landowner. Above all, he discovered that his family's story was richer than he had ever imagined.

In Descended, Rushing recounts his own journey of discovery, and in the process unfurls a dramatic story about the transformation of Hilton Head. Descended is a story about family, place, and the desire to understand where we have been and where we are going.

Keith Rushing is a former reporter who worked at newspapers in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and California and now works as a communications strategist for an environmental nongovernmental organization. He has written blogs and commentary for the Huffington Post and Ebony.com among other online publications. Rushing grew up in Queens, NY, and now lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and two children.

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Hosted by the Savannah Book Festival.