Some of the first African slaves in Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida, after toiling on the plantation each day, secretly engaged in a form of call-and-response singing while moving in a circular pattern, accompanied by others hand-clapping, stomping, and pounding broomsticks. Different than spirituals or gospel, this activity—associated with the Gullah, the culture of African-Americans who retained more African cultural and linguistic practices than other black Americans—became known as the ring shout. Tonight on the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, and Thursday at lunchtime at the Library of Congress, Georgia descendents of these slaves, the McIntosh County Shouters, will demonstrate the ring shout.