#Stolen Lands

[ausetkmt]

Ga. islanders vow to keep fighting change favoring rich buyers

DARIEN, Ga. - Descendants of enslaved people living on a Georgia island vowed to keep fighting after county commissioners voted to double the maximum size of homes allowed in their tiny enclave.

Residents fear the move will accelerate the decline of one of the South’s few surviving Gullah-Geechee communities.

An aspect of the ordinance that residents take issue with is the fact that it erases a clause about protecting the island’s indigenous history.

During public meetings leading up to the vote, the zoning board proposed changes to the ordinance of lowering the newly allowed home size and removing talk of golf courses being added to the island.

Black residents of the Hogg Hummock community on Sapelo Island and their supporters packed a meeting of McIntosh County’s elected commissioners to oppose zoning changes that residents say favor wealthy buyers and will lead to tax increases that could pressure them to sell their land.

ISLAND’S HERITAGE

Gullah-Geechee communities like Hogg Hummock are scattered along the Southeast coast from North Carolina to Florida, where they have endured since their enslaved ancestors were freed by the Civil War. Scholars say these people long separated from the mainland retained much of their African heritage, from their unique dialect to skills and crafts such as cast-net fishing and weaving baskets.

Regardless, commissioners voted 3-2 to weaken zoning restrictions the county adopted nearly three decades ago with the stated intent to help Hogg Hummock’s 30 to 50 residents hold on to their land.

Yolanda Grovner, 54, of Atlanta said she has long planned to retire on land her father, an island native, owns in Hogg Hummock. She left the county courthouse Tuesday night wondering if that will ever happen.

“It’s going to be very, very difficult,” Grovner said. She added: “I think this is their way of pushing residents off the island.”

Hogg Hummock is one of just a few surviving communities in the South of people known as Gullah, or Geechee, in Georgia, whose ancestors worked island slave plantations.

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Fights with the local government are nothing new to residents and landowners. Dozens successfully appealed staggering property tax hikes in 2012, and residents spent years fighting the county in federal court for basic services such as firefighting equipment and trash collection before county officials settled last year.

“We’re still fighting all the time,” said Maurice Bailey, a Hogg Hummock native whose mother, Cornelia Bailey, was a celebrated storyteller and one of Sapelo Island’s most prominent voices before her death in 2017. “They’re not going to stop. The people moving in don’t respect us as people. They love our food, they love our culture. But they don’t love us.”

Merden Hall, who asked not to be on camera, has lived on Sapelo his whole life. He says he’s worried about the sizes of homes now allowed on the island.

“I’m not comfortable with this. They approved the 3,000 square feet, that’s the only thing I disapprove of, because that’s going to raise property taxes,” he said.

Hogg Hummock’s population has been shrinking in recent decades, and some families have sold their land to outsiders who built vacation homes. New construction has caused tension over how large those homes can be.

Commissioners on Tuesday raised the maximum size of a home in Hogg Hummock to 3,000 square feet of total enclosed space. The previous limit was 1,400 square feet of heated and air-conditioned space.

Commissioner Davis Poole, who supported loosening the size restriction, said it would allow “a modest home enabling a whole family to stay under one roof.”

“The commissioners are not out to destroy the Gullah-Geechee culture or erase the history of Sapelo,” Poole said. “We’re not out to make more money for the county.”

Commission Chairman David Stevens, who said he’s been visiting Sapelo Island since the 1980s, blamed Hogg Hummock’s changing landscape on native owners who sold their land.

“I don’t need anybody to lecture me on the culture of Sapelo Island,” Stevens said, adding: “If you don’t want these outsiders, if you don’t want these new homes being built ... don’t sell your land.”

County officials have argued that size restrictions based on heated and cooled spaced proved impossible to enforce. County attorney Adam Poppell said more than a dozen homes in Hogg Hummock appeared to violate the limits, and in some cases homeowners refused to open their doors to inspectors.

Hogg Hummock landowner Richard Banks equated that to the county letting lawbreakers make the rules.

“If everybody wants to exceed the speed limit, should we increase the speed limits for all the speeders?” Banks said.

Hogg Hummock residents said they were blindsided when the county unveiled its proposed zoning changes on Aug. 16. Commissioners in July had approved sweeping zoning changes throughout McIntosh County, but had left Hogg Hummock alone.

Commissioner Roger Lotson, the only Black member of the county commission, voted against the changes and warned his colleagues that he fears they will end up back in court for rushing them.

Two attorneys from the Southern Poverty Law Center sat in the front row. Attorney Anjana Joshi said they had “due process and equal protection concerns” about the way the zoning ordinance was amended.

“In our view, this was not done correctly,” said Joshi, who added: “We’re just getting started.”

Located about 60 miles south of Savannah, Sapelo Island remains separated from the mainland and reachable only by boat. Since 1976, the state of Georgia has owned most of its 30 square miles of largely unspoiled wilderness. Hogg Hummock, also known as Hog Hammock, sits on less than a square mile.

Hogg Hummock earned a place in 1996 on the National Register of Historic Places, the official list of the United States’ treasured historic sites. But for protections to preserve the community, residents depend on the local government in McIntosh County, where 65% of the 11,100 residents are white.

[fairuzfan]

i have a special hatred for liberal zionists who say "you're not helping Palestinians" and pretending to advocate for us. keep our names out of your mouth. you do not speak for us. only talking about how you feel victimized while we watch people die of bombardment and starvation. i would rather you admit your selfishness than for you to pretend to care about us only to use us for your own self interests.

[archpaladin]

Picking a Pathfinder Paladin's Appellation...

[knuckleblaster]

kitr fancam

[alwaysbewoke]

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Pro-Palestinian supporters are calling for a second real estate event planned north of Toronto to be called down over concerns it involves the selling of land in the occupied West Bank. On Sunday, dozens of people gathered near the Aish Hatorah synagogue in Thornhill, Ont., to protest an event that organizers say was aimed at helping people in the Toronto area buy property in Israel. They were met with pro-Israeli counterprotesters and Jewish leaders took issue with the Sunday protest taking place outside a synagogue. But pro-Palestinian protesters say companies associated with the event market property in the West Bank, where over two million Palestinians live under Israel's military occupation, according to the United Nations (UN). A similar event is expected to take place Thursday at another synagogue in the area. It is unclear whether the two events are connected. "We weren't there because it's a synagogue, we were there because we were protesting against a real estate show," said Ghada Sasa, who was at the protest over the weekend. 

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Tagging @politicsofcanada

[moran-with-a-g]

Do the antisemites that invaded the pro-palestinian movement know the origin of the word Palestine is from the Hebrew root פ.ל.ש, the root for the word invaders? Do they know it's based on Philistia, the name given to the region that's based after the Philistines? Do they know we don't actually know the actual name the Philistines called themselves, and that we called them that as an insult, because it's from the same root as invaders?

Like do you realise all this time the name of this land was "invaded" while we weren't here? When you try to claim Jews have no connection to the Levant do you realise what you're claiming? This is driving me insane.

(this is NOT saying palestinians aren't natives and don't deserve a country of their own, and I will block anyone who reblogs this trying to claim that)

[redvelvetwishtree]

I am still not over a video I saw where they literally picked people from New York and other states to go and populate Israel. They literally have to ask people from other countries to move there and occupy Palestinian land...like ???

The videos of settlers running away from homes (that they occupied) and running to the airport makes you question sooo much and yet no one seems to want to open their eyes.

[schizophrenic-klept-hoe-maniac]

More hauls from the past month

Total: too much to count anymore

[i-am-aprl]

What’s there to say?

[news4dzhozhar]

[fixing-bad-posts]

at my core i love to see mlm relationships and victims of stolen land making a mockery out of the police

[didthekingdieyet]

as someone with a platform i would like to remind all of you that this blog stands for the freedom of the palestinian people, by any means necessary. if you are able to. please donate to different pro gaza funds. if not, i get it. if you can please contact those representing you to ask for a ceasefire and to support the palestinian people against the genocide being committed. check to see if there are supportive protests in your area. do not let palestine go quietly into the night. 

educational resource

donate here

this blog has. and always will be, a liberatory space. please feel free to add additional resources and remember it is a privilege for us to be able to set our phones down and separate ourselves from this genocide.

[alphie-in-the-sky]

[reasoningdaily]

Nothing about this is right - nothing

[lecoindecachou]

Americans constantly harassing and threatening Israelis over their government's treatment of Palestine while at the same time getting ready to celebrate their own country's history of genocide in the houses their families only own bc the land was stolen from its righteous owners has to be the biggest irony of all time.