Gullah People struggle to keep property

[Mekeda7]

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradent...n/15056182.htm

Posted on Mon, Jul. 17, 2006
Ex-slaves' land heirs struggle to keep property in
family hands
By Dahleen Glanton

Chicago Tribune

(MCT)

WARSAW ISLAND, S.C. - No one in Sargent Parker's
family ever gave much thought to the 26 acres of
marshland he bought in 1869, six years after becoming
a free man. But everyone knew it was there, sheltered
behind rows of palmetto trees, as a reminder of the
family's rich heritage.

The story of how Parker, who died in 1915 at age 85,
purchased the land has been passed down through
generations. It was four years after Union Gen.
William Tecumseh Sherman issued Special Field Orders,
No. 15, ordering every freed slave to be given 40
acres. But after the directive was rescinded, blacks
were forced to return the land.

Emancipated slaves like Parker then worked hard as
sharecroppers to raise the $1.25 an acre needed to buy
soggy marshland deemed undesirable by whites. By 1869,
former slaves whose descendants are known as
Gullah-Geechees owned half of Beaufort County, S.C.

So everyone was shocked last October when Richardean
Aiken, the widow of Parker's great-great-grandson, was
browsing the newspaper and saw a legal notice
advertising that the land was being sold. No one in
the family ever had agreed to sell it, and all
insisted they never would.

"I said, `Oh hell no, this can't be happening,'" Aiken
said before getting on the phone and calling her
relatives. "When I saw Sargent Parker's name, I knew
something was wrong."

Throughout coastal South Carolina, Gullah-Geechee
people have been fighting for decades to hold onto the
property left to them by their ancestors. But often
there is no will, making it difficult to prove
ownership, even when taxes have been paid on the land
for generations. Many of the problems are due to
infighting among family members. It only takes one
heir to agree to sell the property for the dispute to
be settled by a judge and land end up being auctioned.

As a result, much of the heirs' property in the
coastal South has been divided and sold, often for
much less than it is worth, as developers seek to
create posh resorts like those on Hilton Head Island
in South Carolina and St. Simons Island in Georgia.

Nearly 14 million acres of heirs' property has been
lost since the end of the Civil War, according to the
Center for Heirs' Property Preservation. Just over 1
million acres of the land purchased by former slaves
remain in family hands.

Last month, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford signed a
bill aimed at protecting those property owners from
being forced to sell their land. Under the bill,
families whose land is to be auctioned must be given
the opportunity to purchase it at its appraised value
before the land can be sold, effectively giving those
families a "right of refusal."

Though the title to Parker's land is unclear and there
are indications that it might have been sold or lost
years ago, thousands of acres of prime land that was
predominantly owned and occupied by blacks have become
playgrounds for wealthy, mostly white vacationers.

In a typical case, media executive Ted Turner was
involved in a legal battle four years ago with a group
of heirs over 68 acres on St. Helena Island, S.C. In a
lawsuit against the heirs, Turner claimed the disputed
land was part of the 298 acres he acquired for
recreational use in 1979. The heirs, however, said it
was among the 328 acres their ancestors purchased in
the 1920s. Within months, the two sides settled out of
court, agreeing that the land legally belonged to
Turner but that he would donate it back to the
families.

Warsaw Island, a few miles from St. Helena Island,
home to more than 10,000 Gullah-Geechees, long has
been home to Parker's family. His descendants still
live in homes and trailers either next door or across
the street from each other. People sometimes leave to
seek a better life in New York or elsewhere, but they
always come back, sometimes for extended visits but
most often for good.

Most of the residents spend their days farming
tomatoes, squash and green beans that they share with
each other or sell in an open market. And the evenings
are devoted to family. For Parker's descendants,
almost any occasion warrants a party in the park named
for Aiken's husband, James, who died last year in a
fishing accident. Music blasts through the
neighborhood and the aroma of barbecued ribs, fried
fish and secret Gullah dishes draw people from miles
around.

This is how people live in Gullah country and why land
often is not seen as a profitmaker but as a gift to be
held onto and cherished.

"This is our heritage. We were born and raised here
and we are not going to come and let anyone come and
take it from us," said Henry Aiken, 67, James Aiken's
brother. "This land is like a million dollars to us.
And if one of us hurts, everyone hurts."

For decades, property owners have been increasingly
pressured by developers to sell their land, and
sometimes the lure of thousands of dollars becomes too
strong. Thirty years ago, Gullahs owned much of the
land on Hilton Head Island, and now many longtime
residents of the nearby islands fear the same
development will happen to their lands.

In 1999, residents of St. Helena Island lobbied
Beaufort County to designate the island as a cultural
protection overlay district, which prohibits
developers from building gated residential
communities. Still, some residents said, they fear
that they will have to go to court to defend their
land, an ordeal that is costly and time-consuming.

Many blacks say they are at a disadvantage because the
burden of proving ownership falls on them. That means
they have to dig up old papers, looking for titles,
deeds and wills, many of which they do not have.
Because of Jim Crow laws, former slaves often were
never given proper documentation for the land, so
proving ownership 140 years later becomes a big
problem.

In addition, heirs' property is divided among all
living descendants, which often results in family
disputes that must be decided in court. Willie
Heyward, an attorney for the non-profit Center for
Heirs' Property Preservation, said developers often
conduct a title search to find heirs who live out of
state and purchase their interest in the property for
a few hundred dollars.

"There's a lot of disagreement among heirs, and like
any other family, there is infighting," Heyward said.
"But for these African-American families, it is
exacerbated because they are separated by mass
migration up north. A lot of the heirs have never been
to South Carolina and have no interest in the
property. And all you need is one heir who wants to
sell to bring it to arbitration."

Heyward said he is encouraging families to form
limited liability companies giving everyone an equal
share and allowing the family to have ultimate control
over the land.

Adolph Brown has tried to help his family profit from
the 20 acres his great-great-great-great-grandparents
Matthew and Tina Jones bought after gaining freedom.
But with 180 heirs, the task has been difficult.

More than two years ago, Brown, 45, of Hilton Head,
founded the Matthew and Tina Jones Limited Liability
Co. Brown said he already has received a commitment
from a bank for the family to build a $14 million
luxury condominium project on the land just off of
U.S. Highway 278, the main thoroughfare through the
resort community.

Many of his relatives live in rented trailers on the
land. Brown wants to allocate a portion of the land
for building homes for them, while the condo project
would bring millions of dollars in profits to be
shared among the heirs.

Brown said he has acquired the signatures of all the
heirs except one: an 80-year-old cousin living in New
Jersey who he said wants to sell his share for
$400,000.

If the family does not build on the land, Brown said,
he fears they could lose a significant portion of it
to eminent domain as the city sprawls and needs land
to expand its main highway.

"We would become the largest black family to do
something like this," said Brown, who admits that some
of his Southern relatives don't trust him because he
grew up in New York and moved to South Carolina only
seven years ago.

"People have to understand that the world has changed,
and it is no longer acceptable for them to do
nothing," Brown said. "When my generation dies, the
number will have grown to 500 heirs rather than 180.
And all it takes is one out of that 500 to say `I want
my money' and send it to the courthouse steps to be
dealt to the highest bidder."

---

GULLAH-GEECHEE HISTORY

During the slavery era, thousands of slaves were
brought to the South Carolina coast to work the rice
plantations. The descendants of those slaves who were
granted their freedom in 1863 are the Gullah-Geechee
people, whose heritage remains entrenched in their
African heritage.

An estimated 300,000 Gullah people live on the coastal
land, most of it purchased by their ancestors in the
1800s to early 1900s, from South Carolina to northern
Florida. Over time, they have struggled to hang on to
their culture, which includes their unique language, a
blend of 17th- and 18th-century English and African
dialects.

Since the 1950s, much of their land - including their
farms and the sweet grass fields harvested to make the
woven baskets that sustained their community for
generations - has been destroyed by development. As a
result, many aspects of their culture, from cooking to
storytelling, are becoming extinct.

[manifestdestiny]

thanks for the post, this is so common. Even in america we are struggling in this area.

[Mekeda7]

Originally Posted by manifestdestiny

thanks for the post, this is so common. Even in america we are struggling in this area.

Everywhere Afrikan people live we are losing our land to "invaders"- if we ain't losing our land, then we are being pushed out of the land we are renting on... I believe it was Nealy Fuller who said that one of the roles of the yt supremist is that they express the power to displace the masses of "non-whites."

[Baba Ahmed]

Med ase Makeda

I know two families now bogged down into this quagmire: both in South Carolina. Ted Turner was/is involved in one, that I know of.

Note the reference to us vacating the down South for the Up South and a "better life." It really wasn't that simple or voluntary. Anyway this info may spur the folks to force themselves to understand what's at stake is valued more than finances.

Chaos, I Am Truth & I were kik'n this topic last nite; and as much our three heads know about this continuing land attacks, even in cities, we are amazed at how little efforts seem to be taken by our folk to the one Real Property from which other "properties" can stand on. And we were talking mainly about the ATL.