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Barbara Garrity-Blake2025-02-06T18:05:34-05:00

Episode 7

Barbara Garrity-Blake

Anthropologist, Author, Activist

Episode 7

Barbara Garrity-Blake

Anthropologist, Author, Activist

From fisheries to festivals, in this episode of EPIC Carteret, we’re looking into cultural preservation and why it matters.

Join me as I visit with cultural anthropologist Barbara Garrity-Blake at the crossroads where cultural heritage and modern community engagement meet. She shares the inspiration behind Wild Caught and Gloucester Mardi Gras, two Down East festivals she and her husband Bryan have been orchestrating for decades, and she talks about the importance of supporting locally-sourced seafood – among other things. Barbara also offers insights into how you can help keep local culture alive and vibrant.

Listen to Episode 7

Catissa Head at her desk.

Learn more about the Wild Caught, NC Catch, and related topics mentioned in the episode.

Other organizations and programs mentioned in Episode 7

Inspired to support cultural preservation in our community?

You’ll find lots of opportunities to support cultural preservation in Carteret County at the following institutions, to name a few:

Gloucester Community Center

Back in July, I sat down with Barbara Garrity-Blake at the Gloucester Community Center to record Episode 7 on Cultural Preservation. I returned in August for the Wild Caught Seafood and Music Festival, where the community center president Kevin Keeler and a team of hard-working volunteers cooked up mullet, oysters, shrimp and more for music-loving festival-goers. Trust me when I say I’ll be back in February for the Gloucester Mardi Gras. The shady, bucolic spot is a perfect escape from modern busy-ness.

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This project is supported by the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, with administration by the Craven Arts Council & Gallery.

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Epic-Carteret Episode #:

A Conversation with [Name]:[something, something, something]

Transcribed by Autumn Ware with the help of Hindenburg Pro

Intro

Text

Heading

Text

Conclusion

Text

Epic-Carteret Episode 7:

A Conversation with Mayor Barbara Garrity-Blake:
Anthropologist, Musician, Cultural Preservationist

Transcribed by Autumn Ware with the help of Hindenburg Pro

Intro

Autumn (narration): Welcome to EPIC Carteret. I’m your host Autumn Ware, a reformed recluse in a place that knows the secret of transforming strangers into neighbors. Join me as I explore what makes Carteret County such an extraordinary place to call home.

[music swells and fades]

Autumn (narration): In Episode 5 of EPIC Carteret, I talked with Beaufort Mayor Sharon Harker about how leaders in thriving communities build trust, and my guest in Episode 6 offers another master class in how to do just that, in her case, by personally investing in the cultural preservation of her adopted home on the Crystal Coast.

Barbara Garrity-Blake grew up in suburban St. Petersburg, Florida, where she felt disconnected from the area’s cultural roots amid rapid development. Her interest in fishing communities was sparked during her time at Florida State University when she frequently visited her brother, a fisherman in Apalachicola, a town deeply immersed in fishing and rich with unique cultural traditions.

This exposure led her to focus her studies on fisheries, eventually bringing her to North Carolina through a marine policy fellowship, where she continued her work in coastal and fisheries anthropology.

I was just fascinated.

Barbara Garity-Blake: I had never been in this area before. I knew nothing about coastal North Carolina, nothing about fisheries here. But that summer there was a conflict between the recreational fishing groups and the menhaden industry. So there was a series of public hearings and basically as part of our homework, we were to attend these hearings. And I was just fascinated.

Autumn (narration): In the opening pages of her first book The Fish Factory: Work and Meaning for Black and White Fisherman of the American Menhaden Industry, Barabara recalls that experience:

On a summer morning in 1985, I observed a public hearing on the coast of North Carolina that was supposed to be about fish but was actually about people fighting for their way of life, their values, their place in a changing world.

Barbara was already hooked on the local culture, and soon, she became immersed in the drama unfolding in the fisheries industry.

I need to give something back.

Barbara: I was writing my dissertation here and caught wind of an effort of women in the fishing industry to start organizing and strengthening the voice of fishing communities in the public policy arena. There was an ad in the paper: Calling all sisters, wives, friends of commercial fishing communities, meet at Atlantic School, such and such date and time!

And I thought, “My Ph.D. is, in no small part, due to the kindness and generosity of people in this industry that have let me on their boats, in their factories, in their homes, and taken the time to talk to me. I need to give something back.”

So I went to this meeting, and it was mainly wives of commercial fishermen at the time. They went around and asked people, “What’s your strength?”

They got to me, “Who are you?”

And I said, “Well, I’m not from here. I’m here working on my graduate work that I did on the menhaden fishery.”

“Well, what are you doing?”

I said, “Well, I’m writing.”

“You can write. You’re the secretary.”

They really weren’t interested in what I was writing about. It’s like, okay, you’ve got this skill. And so I was pulled into that world, and at that time, these ladies auxiliaries were here, on the Outer Banks, in Pamlico County. I think those were the three main ones. They were auxiliaries of the North Carolina Fisheries Association, which is still the main trade organization representing commercial fishing and seafood interests. So these ladies’ auxiliaries grew out of a concern at the time that there were some federal regulations coming down that would affect the local fishermen. And they felt like, why didn’t these feds come in and talk to us about it? Let’s stand up and be counted here.

Autumn (narration): It was during this time that Barbara met her friend, future collaborator, and then-president of the Hatteras Auxiliary Susan West. A journalist married to a commercial fisherman, Susan was an avid champion for the local fishing community until her death in 2022. Both Barbara and Susan, got called to serve on a committee to revamp the management of fisheries in North Carolina, which ultimately led to the North Carolina Fisheries Reform Act of 1997, a pivotal law aimed at safeguarding the state’s coastal ecosystems and the livelihoods of small local fishermen who rely on them.

By giving fishermen a stronger voice in decision-making and ensuring sustainable practices, the Act helped to protect the local fish population as well as the rich traditions and knowledge passed down through generations. It also served as inspiration for Barbara and Susan’s book Fish House Opera.

2003 Every fish house is sort of like a little stage with little dramas playing out.

Barbara: In the wake of the Fisheries Reform Act, she and I decided to start writing some essays through the eyes of people in the fishing community because we saw how the wider community had no clue about the lives of fishing families, no clue how regulations can impact these families and communities. So we started this project, and it turned into a little book of essays called Fish House Opera. And basically, we got that name thinking about how every fish house is sort of like a little stage with little dramas playing out.

Autumn (narration): Barbara was clearly developing a reputation as a powerful researcher and storyteller in her new home, and when fears were aroused that the fishing community’s folkways were being forgotten, she put her skills and newfound influence to use. Working with the Core Sound Museum’s director Karen Amspacher, Barbara set about preserving the region’s heritage by raising the story of local menhaden fishermen.

What about our history? We had a role in building this community way longer than the age of piracy.

Barbara: Maybe ten years after the last fish factory closed – Beaufort Fisheries, and I was just hearing from folks in the fishing industry about how they were concerned that Beaufort was basically forgetting where it came from. It used to be Fish Town. It was all about the mullet, and then it was all about the menhaden fishery, big time. Several factories there.

At the time when I was hearing this sort of buzz from the people in the industry, there was a lot of attention paid to the Queen Anne’s revenge wreck and Blackbeard the pirate, all that, and the Menhaden folks were saying, “What about our history? We had a role in building this community way longer than the age of piracy. So what about us?”

So I got with Karen Amspacher at the museum, and we put in for a North Carolina Humanities Council grant. And we really had a sort of focus group meetings with the people in the industry. Let’s do this collaboratively. What do we want to do? And at every focus group meeting, I notice all people wanted to do is tell stories about fishing, which I loved, like, let me turn on my tape recorder. Here we go.

But I thought, that’s it. Just like the menhaden fishermen work together to raise the fish. We’re going to work together here to raise the story and increase the visibility and awareness of what this industry is in Beaufort and to Carteret County and to North Carolina. So that was called Raising The Story Of Menhaden Fishing.

[music swells and fades]

Autumn (narration): After the success of ‘Raising the Story of Menhaden Fishing,’ Karen Amspacher and Susan West launched the ‘Saltwater Connections’ initiative and Barbara was quick to join the party. This project broadened their scope, aiming to foster stronger ties among diverse coastal communities by leveraging their cultural and ecological assets to boost the local economy through heritage and eco-tourism.

How can we leverage existing assets, the existing beauty, the existing heritage qualities and ecological qualities to improve the economy along the byway?

Barbara: Saltwater Connections was a rural center funded effort to increase connections between the communities that are along the scenic byway. So that is Hatteras Island, Ocracoke and Downeast. The byway had just been approved as a national scenic byway, and this money was put forward to just start getting it to these communities, introducing everybody to each other and asking: how can we leverage existing assets, the existing beauty, the existing heritage qualities and ecological qualities to improve the economy along the byway?

My part in that was to work with Susan to collect some oral histories, and she and I had already worked on a Park Service project where we did a lot of oral history work. As a result of that, we decided to start this blog called Raising the Story, about coastal culture, in general, not just the world of fishing.

Autumn (narration): From Raising the Story of Menhaden Fishermen to Raising the Story of Coastal Culture, Barbara’s commitment to community building continued to evolve after her work with Saltwater Connections. In the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, she helped launch the Eastern Carteret Collaborative, a Z. Smith Reynolds-funed partnership aimed at fostering connections, sharing information, and cooperative learning to strengthen the region. With over 50 core collaborators, including citizens, organizations, and government representatives, the ECC focuses on crossing divides and building trust to address community concerns and goals across eastern Carteret County.

How can we build a stronger eastern Carteret County?

Barbara: It kind of came from the town of Beaufort. They saw the grant opportunity to build capacity, build resilience in communities. And so the town manager and his wife happened to be friends of mine. They lived here in Gloucester. And so they started pulling different people together. It’s like, Well, hey, how about if we write a grant to start bringing people together from the various communities in eastern Carteret County and, see what we can do to build trust, and see what assets each community can bring to the table and start working across communities, across bridges, across racial divides, socioeconomic divides? And, with our eye on the prize, how can we build a stronger eastern Carteret County?

[music swells and fades]

Autumn (narration): Today, Barbara is an instructor in marine fisheries policy at the Duke University Marine Laboratory, so it’s only natural that her efforts in community building have extended to addressing broader challenges that threaten the livelihoods of local fishing communities. As such, she’s turned her attention to the growing threats posed by corporate control over the food system—a force that has profoundly impacted small-scale fishermen and the local seafood industry in Carteret County.

How many corporations globally control our food system?

Barbara: You know, if you take, in particular, the food system, how many corporations globally control our food system? Really just a handful. It’s the Nabiscos and the General Foods. There’s just really a handful that control the entire food system. And I think that’s been to the detriment of our health; it’s been to the detriment of small scale food producing communities, whether they be farmers or fishermen; and it’s been detrimental to the environment because they are operating on a whole different model of how they procure their resources to make food. So yeah, that’s huge. It’s really changed, I think, the trajectory of so much of our modern lives.

Autumn (narration): So around here, what would be some traditional seafood based foods that may have been more predominant prior to prior to corporate interest coming in that may have been lost along the way?

Barbara: Hmm.

All of them. All of them.

It’s really hard for them to make a living.

Barbara: Number one is shrimp. As of the last couple of years, we are seeing the dumping of shrimp from Ecuador, India, and a third country, maybe Vietnam, right here in the USA. And our food policy allows for that, and it has completely undercut the price of domestic shrimp.

So these fishermen are getting offered $0.30, $0.40 a pound at the fish house, which, when you do the math, what they have to pay per gallon for diesel fuel alone far outstrips what they’re getting per pound for their product.

That situation has helped fuel the effort for people to market their own shrimp, like Miss Gina’s Shrimp Stand up here, or sell directly to restaurants, or sell directly to consumers. More fishermen are getting their dealer’s license and just taking control of that link in the seafood industry. But still, it’s really hard. It’s really hard for them to make a living.

Autumn (narration): To address these challenges, Barbara has taken on the role of president at NC Catch, an organization dedicated to promoting and advocating for local seafood. With its roots in Carteret County as the original Catch group, NC Catch began as a Carteret Community College project to raise awareness and support for the local seafood industry. Today, the organization educates consumers on the importance of choosing local seafood, helping them identify fresh, locally sourced products, and understanding the broader impact of their purchases on the community.

NC Catch is a group that advocates for local seafood.

Barbara: NC Catch is a group that advocates for local seafood and educates consumers about: Where do you find local seafood? How do you identify fresh product? Why is it beneficial to eat local seafood versus product that was shipped from Indonesia or India or China? And also who caught your fish matters, who fishes matters and when you buy local, you’re supporting a whole community.

Barbara: Any given restaurant in Carteret County, if you go and order seafood, chances are it’s going to be imported seafood. Basically, it’s bottom line for a lot of restaurants. It’s cheaper to buy imports. They don’t have to worry about processing it, heading shrimp, peeling shrimp.

There are restaurants who care about the quality of what they serve, and they do go that extra mile, and they do serve local seafood. Carteret Catch has lots of members, and for restaurants to be able to have the sticker they have to have, I think, it’s just at least one product that’s locally harvested.

And so, for example, last time I went to Seaside Galley on Harker’s Island, they had two rows. They had here’s the imported seafood and what it costs and here’s the local seafood and what it costs. You pick, and I think that’s fine because it’s almost impossible these days for a retail market or a restaurant to go 100% local because the availability isn’t there anymore for a variety of reasons, so they pretty much have to supplement what they use with imported product.

Just be honest about it. You know, it’s like, yeah, you can get North Carolina shrimp. We also have salmon from Alaska and king crab legs. Just tell people.

[music swells and fades]

Autumn (narration): Barbara’s passion for supporting local seafood extends beyond advocacy and education. She and her husband Bryan, a multi-talented boat builder and musician from Down East, also founded the Wild Caught Seafood and Music Festival, an annual celebration of the region’s talent and locally sourced seafood.

This free summer festival, held right here at the Gloucester Community Center where I interviewed Barbara, brings people together from the Crystal Coast and farther afield to enjoy charcoaled mullet and shrimp boil and live music from both local and international artists, making it a unique and intimate event that showcases the vibrant culture of Carteret County.

The smallest and localest seafood festival in North Carolina.

Barbara: The smallest and local seafood festival in North Carolina was my husband’s brainchild. He has these big visions, you know? He just turned 70, so I’m like, how much longer are you going to be able to actually expedite these big visions without killing yourself, Bryan?

He wanted to do something in the summer to promote local seafood and also live music, including local bands. We set a big stage up outside here at the community center. We have a really nice variety of musicians every time. We bring in a couple of the members of Purple School Bus. They were a big ECU band. Gary Dudley and the Max Tones. Gary is a former Menhaden captain, and I met him 35 years ago when I was doing my dissertation research, and he was a menhaden fisherman and also kind of crabbing on the side. His band is wonderful. We have some folk style artists.

We joke that sometimes we’re the international smallest and localest festival because we have some Argentinean musicians that are coming back that we met at a festival in West Virginia. They’re wonderful Soul and Franco. We’ve had musicians from Australia perform. The most amusing musicians from all around the world have shown up and taught us a lot, and just really added to the vibe. So that’s really been great to pull in people from other areas as well as showcasing our local musicians here.

Autumn (narration): Barbara and Bryan also perform with Todd Humphreys and Tom Parker in Unknown Tongues, a Cajun Zydeco band. Bryan plays the accordion, fiddle, guitar, and pedal steel, and Barbara plays guitar, bass, and rub board. And let me tell you, you have not lived until you’ve experienced Barbara on the rub board. I lived in New Orleans for years, and I haven’t seen a performance to beat it. I also had no idea there was a cultural tie between the Crystal Coast and the Gulf Coast.

[music swells and fades]

Barbara: There’s been a real mix between, Mississippi and Louisiana and Carteret County as well as Virginia, and back in the day, New Jersey, too. There were factories up there that people would go. And, marrying people from there and bringing them back here, or vice versa. so when we first started our band and we played locally, people were sort of like you could tell, if they were not familiar with that style of music and what are those words coming out of their mouth? Because we do our best to sing in French. I’m sure it’s not great French, but there would always be one or two people that came up afterwards and said, I love that music. I grew up every summer going to Louisiana because my father was a fishing boat captain. And I know about that accordion. I know how to do that to step dads, so it was just a really nice link. And it’s really fun to tell people that, Hey, guess what? There is a link here between our area in Louisiana and it’s through the menhaden fishery.

Autumn (narration): In February 2024, Barbara and Bryan celebrated their 31st annual Gloucester Mardi Gras, a down home celebration of that forgotten tie to the Gulf Coast, modeled after the community spirit of the rural Mardi Gras of Southwest Louisiana. What started as a small festival serving 50 or 60 has become a renowned tradition that’s been featured in Our State magazine and now hosts hundreds.

Community preparations start the Friday night before with volunteers showing up to chop donated vegetables and stir homemade roux, and the live music kicks off on Saturday morning, which is just about when the gumbo, deep fried turkey, and delicious side dishes are ready – right after parading and peacocking in colorful costumes and handmade masks.

Our model, is unique and maybe a little subversive in that we don’t charge money.

Barbara: It was my husband’s idea. One year he said, “You know, there is nothing going on here in February. It’s just so boring. Why don’t we start a little gathering at the community center and call it Gloucester Mardi Gras?”

I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Savoy Cajun Family Band, but they’re very well known in the little pond of folk music, and one of the sons of that family is Joel Savoy, and he started his own Mardi Gras run.

The reason he started it is there’s a little gender segregation in Cajun country, and there’s some racial segregation in the Mardi Grass. You’ve got the white run, you’ve got the black run, you’ve got the all-women’s, the children’s run.

So Joel said, “Well, I want to have a mardi Gras run where everybody is welcome.”

And it’s just great. It’s wonderful. We model ours after that, in that, of course, everyone’s welcome.

Our model is unique and maybe a little subversive in that we don’t charge money. It’s not about making a profit at all. It’s just been really about people coming together and meeting each other, enjoying themselves in this really nice place, listening to music, dancing, enjoying really good food. We have a people’s procession what we call the fools procession, where there’s no spectators for this parade. It’s just the people are in the parade, you know, it’s just it’s kind of silly and fun. So that’s just how we’ve managed to keep it over the years.

And I’ve heard so many people talk about, oh, I met my husband at the Gloucester Mardi Gras or I met so-and-so, and that, you know, it’s just it has so many nice memories for people, all the little kids that have taken part in our King and Queens march. You know, we crown the king and queen every year, and it’s just been real special that way.

[music swells and fades]

Autumn (narration): As a cultural anthropologist and as a wise woman, Barbara sees real value in preserving older traditions and reinvigorating culture with new ones. Cultural preservation isn’t about enshrining the past; it’s about bridging the past to the present and on out into the future through joyful communion, through the joining of hands and efforts and voices.

This is what it’s all about.

Barbara: That’s really why we’ve been doing these festivals for all these years because we feel like people do come and, you know, it’s not prescribed. There’s not, like, now we’re going to do this, or we’re going to do that. People can just hang out and talk and meet new friends.

They’re proud to say, “Hey, I was here last night and I cut up chicken.”

“Oh, yeah? I stirred the roux for three hours!”

They really appreciate sort of that hands on, we’r here together, we’re building this festival together, and we’re enjoying it together. It’s a welcoming space, and remember that this is what it’s all about.

[music swells and fades]

Autumn (narration): So what’s Barbara’s advice to people who want to pitch in and help preserve the special parts of coastal culture that make this part of the state epic?

If it’s aligned with something else that you’re really interested in, then you’re really cooking with gas.

Barbara: First ask yourself, why am I interested? What do I value about these folkways? Is it the fact that I can eat local seafood here or is it the stories? Is it more general, the culture?

And then think harder about your interest and how it might align with helping preserve those folkways. I think the more specific you can get to your own interests, the more passionate you’ll be. Maybe you’re a local foodie and you value the fact that we still have some small farmers, we still have some small family fishing businesses. We have a really sweet farmer’s market, you know? How could you get involved in those efforts to better promote local foods? And I think the communities would appreciate that. Oh, we have that in common. She’s interested in local foods. And guess what? We’re local foods producers.

I do a lot of work with the Core Sound Museum. They have an oral history library. And we have people who come in and say, look, I’m not an oral historian, but I can type. Can I help transcribe? Can I help organize your library? And that’s really wonderful. You know, they have those skills and they’re doing their part, using their skills to help preserve the stories of this area. But again, if it’s aligned with something else that you’re really interested in, then you’re really cooking with gas.

Autumn (narration): I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Barbara’s a local cultural icon: from crusading for the fishing community to killing it on the rub board to launching new local traditions like the Wild Caught Festival, Barbara is living proof that cultural preservation is rock star stuff.

More importantly, she’s proof that we’re stronger, we’re more resilient, when we’re working together towards common causes in the spirit of shared values and culture in a rapidly changing world.

[music swells and fades]

Autumn (narration): In our next episode of EPIC Carteret, we’ll be thinking about the impact that volunteers have in thriving communities.

Visit epic-carteret.com for links to all the organizations and programs mentioned on the Episode 6 show notes page.

You can also read essays and articles by local writers on The EPIC Blog.

Conclusion

Autumn (narration): Before we wrap up, I’d like to take a moment to extend my heartfelt thanks to those who made this episode possible:

  1. Thank you, Barbara, for making time in your busy schedule of festival-planning and fisheries-preserving, and thank you, Keeler, for making space for our EPIC interview at the Gloucester Community Center. I felt right at home.
  2. Thank you to the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, for helping to fund this project, and to the Craven Arts Council & Gallery for providing grant opportunities to local artists.
  3. Thank you, Jack, my EPIC sound engineer and producer, for doing all the hard work.
  4. Last but by no means least, a big thank you to you, EPIC listeners, for celebrating this incredible county with us.

Stay tuned for more EPIC Carteret, and remember, if you’re curious to know what it takes to create an epic community, the answer maybe you

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