Fifty-seven Sapelo Island property owners and residents on Wednesday filed a lawsuit that contends discrimination and neglect by state and local authorities are contributing to the dissolution of one of the last remaining Gullah-Geechee communities in the nation.
The Gullah-Geechee residents are the descendants of slaves whose families have lived on Sapelo Island for more than two centuries. They have seen their numbers dwindle steadily over the years as the island — about 70 miles south of Savannah — has been converted into a vacation destination with luxury homes and resorts.
All the while, Gullah-Geechee residents pay high property taxes but receive no basic services in return, the federal lawsuit said. Also, the only state-run ferry does not have disability access and has a schedule that makes it practically impossible for someone to live on the island and have a job on the mainland, the suit said.
It was filed against a number of defendants, including the state of Georgia and McIntosh County. The governor’s office declined comment. McIntosh County manager Brett Cook did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Reed Colfax, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said the county must provide services if it is collecting taxes from members of the Gullah-Geechee community.
“There is no school, no ambulance, no trash pickup,” he said. “There are no services whatsoever.”
Moreover, he added, the county’s high taxes led to some properties on the island being sold at tax auction and others who could not afford the taxes to sell their land.
“We want to survive on the island,” one plaintiff, Reginald Hall, said at a press conference outside the federal courthouse in Atlanta. “These are our homes. This is our land.”
The lawsuit says that county services benefiting the Gullah Geechee did not accompany the most recent property tax hikes in 2012.
Instead, the hikes “were part of a larger systemic effort to drive the Gullah Geechee from the island and clear the way for a mostly white vacationer population on the island,” the suit alleged. “At the same time that it exploits Sapelo’s Gullah Geechee, the county favors whites on the island.”
The state claims it owns 97 percent of Sapelo Island, the suit said. This leaves the less than 50 remaining Gullah Geechee confined to the only permanent residential area on the island — Hogg Hummock.
“The state’s ownership stake is based on a history of fraudulent land transfers and land theft by white millionaires throughout the twentieth century,” the lawsuit said.
Working together, state and local authorities are engaged in a policy of “malign neglect” of the Gullah Geechee by denying services, withholding resources, increasing costs, consolidating land and limiting the use and enjoyment of Gullah-Geechee homes on the island, the lawsuit said. “These actions have the purpose and effect of driving the last intact Gullah-Geechee community from Sapelo Island and into the history books.”
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