For more than a half-century, they were the backbone of the South Jersey oyster industry - one of the busiest in the nation. Migrating from their homes along the Chesapeake for new opportunities in the rural Delaware Bay marshlands of Cumberland County, they established a poor but thriving African American community that existed for decades until all but disappearing in the 1970s.
Today, besides the wetlands and fishing docks that make up the aptly-named village of Shellpile, there are no signs of the neighborhoods, businesses, shucking houses and community life that once defined it.
This documentary film - the first that chronicles life in this unique community -- is more than a story of oyster shucking. It's the story of hard work, family, faith and strength told by the aging individuals who grew up and spent their lives here... living “on the Shellpile”.
The film, which was commissioned by The Bayshore Center at Bivalve, is produced and directed by Keith Wasserman, a veteran filmmaker and resident of Cumberland County, and co-produced by folklorist and researcher M. Rita Zorn Moonsammy, Ph.D. and the curator of the museum at the Bayshore Center, Rachel Rodgers Dolhanczyk.