Snapshots of Sapelo
Dolphins swim along the coast in the soft surf of the Atlantic at our backs. Sapelo Island’s unspoiled dunes spread out before us. Within the raised pavilion sea breezes weave together with stories of the saltwater Geechee people of the island and their generations-old struggle to protect ownership of their land.
Our Nobis Project Black Land Matters tour had boarded the 9:00 AM ferry to Sapelo. Azure sky fading to pale blue over the October browning seagrass before spilling into a whole new palette of blues in the water. Spartina wetlands surrounded the channel throughout the transit while sturgeon breached the water surface ahead of us and egret took flight as the cordgrass waved in our wake.
In advance of our trip, many of us had learned a bit about the Gullah-Geechee people through historical and news documentaries; Mama Day by Gloria Naylor; Cornelia Bailey’s God, Dr Buzzard, and the Bolito Man; and Daughters of the Dust, a 1991 independent film written, directed and produced by Julie Dash and the first feature film directed by an African-American woman distributed theatrically in the United States.
But nothing prepared me for the natural beauty of the island. In some places, saltmarsh, which serves as lungs for our fragile planet, stretches as far as the eyes can see. Huge live oaks draped in silvery Spanish moss line the roadways which range from the two lane, paved “autobahn” to tandem sandy ruts in the grass. Maritime forest stretches to dunes that spill onto unspoiled beaches. Dead snags stretch upward, bleached white against the sky or surrounding pines. Alligators peek out of green-topped pools surrounded by palmettos, pines, and sun-lit quiet. So quiet, so much peace on this land now.
Or so it seems. The homes of Hogg Hummock, nestled together with plenty of space to breath freely and house the 28 remaining, full-time Geechee residents on 3% of the island which remains under their ownership. According to Sapelo Island Cultural and Revitalization Society’s (SICARS) website, “Hogg Hummock is the last intact Geechee/Gullah Community in the Sea Islands of Georgia and is comprised of direct descendants of [enslaved people] that were brought to Sapelo in 1802. Geechee/Gullah people still maintain many elements of the unique West African culture, language, and traditions brought over from the ‘Rice Coast.’ Many other of their ancestors continued on to the isolated Sea Islands from South Carolina to Northern Florida.”
Sapelo Island, Georgia’s fourth largest barrier islands measuring 4 miles wide and 12 miles long, was once the home of Guale indigenous people. The island is said to have been “purchased” in 1760 by Grey Elliott, a colonial officer. One in a sequence of large land holders, Thomas Spalding, in 1802 “owned” parts of Sapelo until the Civil War and, according to an 1850s report, enslaved 385 people. During the Civil War, General Robert E. Lee ordered all the coastal islands abandoned.
However, in 1865, many formerly enslaved people returned to Sapelo after the end of the war. Many of them expected land as negotiated by influential Black men and promised by Field Order No. 15, of January 16, 1865. When that order, known as “forty acres and a mule,” was rescinded by President Andrew Johnson in the fall of that same year, the freemen lost their legal claims to land under that field order. The applications for land can be found in the records of the Freedmen’s Bureau.
The SICARS history page explains, “Post-civil war times were turbulent for the newly-freed Black men and women and whites. In the late 1860’s some plantation owners were not able to maintain their antebellum lifestyles. Plagued by financial problems, some owners began to sell plots of land to family members and eventually to the Black families who were formerly [enslaved] on the Island.” With Reconstruction, many of the Black descendants were able to acquire portions of the island. Generations of their people had lived, been subjected to forced labor, and developed and sustained a unique culture, drawing on much of their African heritage.
As has been done in many ways throughout the U.S., many Black real estate holdings on Sapelo Island were swindled from the Geechee owners over centuries. In God, Dr. Buzzard, and the Bolito Man, Cornelia Bailey tells how whites systematically relocated Black family after Black family to a small section of the island; Hogg Hummock. The limited access to the community on the island (ferry or private boat), previously limited and now non-existent public school opportunities on the island, limited occupational opportunities on Sapelo with state positions seldom employing local descendants, and the sale of much of Sapelo Island by R.J. Reynold’s fourth wife to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources have combined to strip away the land and local control of it from the Geechee people, who have called Sapelo home for many generations. This environment subjects community members “to stress and fracturing from land loss, speculative developers, racism, and lack of job opportunities.”
rev. angel Kyodo williams speaks of commitment, courage, and capacity as elements critical to liberation. In the face of these obstacles, Jazz Watts, Geechee guide and activist, and Yvonne Grovnor, basket weaver, still live on Sapelo and work powerfully to protect the Geechee culture and generational home. Jazz and Yvonne are this generation’s descendants of people who survived the horrors of one of the worst eras in recorded human history – the British-American trade in humans – to somehow build a unique way of life that still survives to this day.
Jazz spoke to us about the current zoning struggle to keep a privately-owned dock from being built on Sapelo. He pointed to Hilton Head Island, where one private dock became many and transformed the character and population of that island, which was once inhabited mainly by Geechee-Gullah peoples. Jazz, had opened asking us to hold in prayer the trial of his relative Ahmaud Arbery, a Sapelo Island descendant who was unarmed as he was hunted and killed in broad daylight as he jogged in a Georgia (U.S.) neighborhood. The recent verdict found all three defendants guilty of murder in that current-day lynching.
Especially with the recent not guilty verdicts on the Kyle Rittenhouse case, SICARS’ run for Ahmaud seeking healing and justice for their family member’s murder is linked with the work of EMIR (Every Murder Is Real) Healing Center in Philadelphia, where my partner serves as a board member and treasurer. SICARS’ zoning ordinance work is indirectly linked to Green Street Friends Meeting (Quakers) Reparations Committee’s efforts to protect Black prosperity. We’ll sponsor legal clinics for Black homeowners in the Germantown Philadelphia neighborhood so these families’ lives, wealth, and neighborhoods are not disrupted. Almost 800 miles and 5 U.S. states separate Philadelphia from Sapelo Island. Our cultures differ, even as the issues are somewhat similar for many of our people. Jazz’s t-shirt reads, “Origin stories matter.” As I read Nikole Hannah-Jones’ newly published The 1619 Project: A New American Origin Story, the truth of that statement becomes more self-evident.
If you’re an activist for social justice, thank you. Your work and your well-being matter!
