LOCALS
bearing WITNESS Michelle Lanier brings a unique perspective to North Carolina history by ILINA EWEN photography by SAMANTHA EVERETTE
F
rom verdant forests to pristine shores along the Carolina coast, nature — equal parts playground, classroom, and inspiration — has shaped Michelle Lanier into who she is today. What has the land witnessed? A folklorist, documentarian, writer, and teacher, as well as the director of
30 | WALTER
the North Carolina Division of State Historic Sites, Lanier has asked herself this question dozens of times. “When we pause and reflect on what happened in a place, it leads to other questions: what stories have been untold or under-told?” she says. For Lanier, the land and its people exist as an intricate and everchanging series of connections and webs.
Lanier grew up in South Carolina, and spent part of her childhood on Hilton Head Island among Gullah traditions. “As a young child, I’d spend my days looking out on landscapes and waterways, seeing snakes, alligators, horseshoe crabs, and jellyfish; climbing trees and watching birds fly,” she says. “I felt the land somehow mirrored me.” She considered
