The Mount Calvary Baptist Church sits in a field surrounded by live oak trees in Bolden (aka Briar Patch), Georgia, right off Highway 99. The church is a one-story, cinder-block building with stained glass windows as well as an annex. The buildings are painted white with indigo-colored roofs.

This rural church serves as the home of the McIntosh County Shouters — the oldest living African-American “ring shouters” surviving in North America.

Two miles away, Blackbeard Creek flows toward the Atlantic Ocean. No sign exists on Highway 99 to indicate that this heavily wooded stretch between Crescent and Eulonia, Georgia, incorporates the community of Bolden. You can’t find Bolden on Google Maps. Nonetheless, for decades, the attendees of Mount Calvary Baptist — organized in 1890 — and those living around here have referred to this slice of coastal Georgia as Bolden. St. Simons Island sits about 25 miles to the south, and Savannah 50 miles to the north.

Last September, the McIntosh County Shouters performed at the Freedom for Sounds festival celebrating the grand opening of the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington D.C. In January 2017, the Smithsonian Folkways label released the McIntosh County Shouters’ latest recordings, “Spirituals & Shout Songs From the Georgia Coast.” This collection is part of Folkways’ African-American Legacy series, co-produced with the newly opened museum. This inimitable album captures the tragic and triumphant spirit of African-American song that survived the gauntlet of history.

The Shouters often perform at schools, churches, and festivals as they continue the tradition of “passing down” the culture of the first people from Africa brought to Georgia’s Rice Coast. This year, the group received a grant from the Georgia Council for the Arts to perform in McIntosh County schools during Black History Month.

I joined the Shouters for two performances in early February — the first at the Todd Grant Elementary School in the coastal town of Darien, Georgia, the same school Carletha Sullivan, the Shouters’ leader, attended over 65 years ago. A week later, I met them again in Darien, for a performance at the local high school.

These high school students didn’t know it yet, but they were about to witness the veritable McIntosh County Shouters — people from their own community whose ancestors were literally the original American songwriters, rappers and folk artists.