Gullah/Geechee Ancestral Voices Speak to Protect St. Helena Island from Destructionment
1999 was a critical year in the history of Gullah/Geechee people. It was the first time that any of us had ever taken the human rights and land rights violations that had been inflicted upon us to a global arena-the United Nations. When I got the call to ask if I wanted to go and tell the world about my people and how others that had no respect for us nor our ancestors were orchestrating planned attempts to remove us from our homeland-the Sea Islands of what is now the “Gullah/Geechee Nation“-I could hear in my soul the song, “Go Tell It On the Mountain! Over the hills and everywhere!” I IMMEDIATELY accepted the offer to go speak on behalf of my people. I had no idea that standing up after I spoke in Genevé, Switzerland the first time would lead to decades upon decades of me needing to continue to stand up and speak out on behalf of my beloved Gullah/Geechee famlee. Tenk GAWD mi kin still stan an crak mi teet fa tru!
The blessing of continuing to stand is that when I do, I know I am surrounded by the ancestors and supported by the native Gullah/Geechees that still live their traditions in the Gullah/Geechee Nation and our allies that value the environment, culture and historical legacy of our coast. We all want to keep this intact and the place where that has been sustained is historic St. Helena Island, SC, the epicenter of Gullah/Geechee culture.
For three years running, the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, our attorneys from the South Carolina Environmental Law Project, the Coastal Conservation League, Penn Center and a cadre of additional partners have continued to stand up to Protect St. Helena Island. This year, two of our fighters that understood that we are warring against spiritual wickedness in high and low places crossed over into the realm of the ancestors. The first one that made his crossing was Rev. Kenneth Hodges of the “Gullah/Geechee Visitors Center” who pastored Tabernacle Baptist Church in Beaufort, SC where we unveiled the Harriet Tubman Monument. We stood together many times on each of these things and in each of these places. His words live on as he speaks from the grave concerning the St. Helena Island Cultural Protection Overlay District in an op-ed that was published in the “Island News” on October 4, 2023. This piece was entitled “St. Helena Island Must Not Lose Its Soul:”
“My name is Rev. Kenneth Hodges, and I am a former State Representative for House District 121 (Beaufort and Colleton Counties). I am the pastor at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Beaufort, and I have heard from many community members about their concerns related to the luxury golf resort development proposed on Pine Island. This project would defy the Cultural Protection Overlay (CPO) zoning on St. Helena Island.
Golf course and resort developments have historically displaced Sea Island communities from North Carolina down to Florida. For more than two decades, the CPO has safeguarded St. Helena Island’s living Gullah/Geechee culture from this fate by prohibiting this type of development. The policy was written by and for the people and has kept the Island rural, allowing important cultural activities like farming, fishing, and hunting to continue thriving.
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Many Gullah/Geechee people have called St. Helena Island home for generations and continue to fight for their land. From my perspective, the community has made it clear through hours of public meetings, community gatherings, and testimony that golf courses, resorts, and gated communities do not mesh with St. Helena Island’s Gullah/Geechee culture and Sea Island heritage.
Moreover, we live in a society where everyone is expected to follow the laws, which are designed to protect the public at large. We do not enact these laws only to rewind them when it becomes inconvenient or because what is being proposed is not allowed. The County Council should hold the line and not waiver in their support of the CPO and Gullah/Geechee culture.
Finally, I leave you a verse from the gospel. Mark 8: 36-37 says “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
I got to hear Rev. Hodges pray on many occasions and I rest assured that he is still praying for us now. His prayers have not gone unanswered because those of us that are native St. Helena Islanders are still fighting on and we won’t turn back! We are not only keeping our island but also our souls intact!
I am not sure if Rev. Washington (I could say the Reverends Washington since two of them recently crossed into the realm of the ancestors from our island.) has been meeting with Rev. Hodges and looking down on us, but his voice was once again shared on Protect St. Helena on Instagram. He shared the four questions that he posed to all of us at the initial rally to Protect St. Helena Island, Pine Island and St. Helenaville from destructionment:
Question 1: Who are you?
Question 2: Where are you?
Question 3: If this change takes place, what will it do for you?
Question 4: What will it [this change] do to you?
Interestingly enough, the latter question caused Victoria Smalls, former Executive Director for the Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor to speak out at Penn Center during the first community meeting regarding the Pine Island proposal. She stated, “I want to go on the record because I do not want this on my conscience.” She went on the record there and the GGCHC has gone on the record multiple times at Beaufort County Council and Beaufort County Planning Commission meetings expressing their opposition to allowing any alterations to the St. Helena Island Cultural Protection Overlay District because they know what it will do to native Gullah/Geechees is displace them. Knowing I was an inaugural Expert Commissioner of the Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission, Ms. Smalls turned to me each time to affirm the facts that she put forth from the work that we had done to create and maintain the corridor. Due to extensive work done in collaboration with the US National Park Service, we found that gated areas and resorts were catalysts of Gullah/Geechee displacement. Thus, St Helena Island has remained the epicenter of Gullah/Geechee culture because this is an area where we do NOT allow those to be built!
I stood with many elders that are now in the ancestral realm as we fought to ensure that Beaufort County will enact the CPO District ordinance in 1999. As each one of those elders left this realm, I continued to stand and speak out on their behalf and on behalf of the work that we did to ensure that historic St. Helena Island would remain a rural Gullah/Geechee Sea Island. I honor their efforts each time I stand at a microphone and say: “Uphold the CPO! Protect St. Helena Island! We binya and we ain gwine nowhey!”
Over the past three years, I have witnessed people that are not natives of St. Helena Island come in from other counties and from cities and states to work against what Beaufort County has not only upheld but strengthened since 1999-the Cultural Protection Overlay District. Now, Theresa White, who I once worked with to save Gullah/Geechee land when I served as part of the “Pan African Family Empowerment Network” board has come forward with an echo of the words from Ms. Smalls: “the consequences of dismantling it [the CPO] now without adequate safeguards and funds in place to ensure that widespread Gullah land loss and displacement won’t occur–is something that I don’t want on my conscience.”
Theresa White has been working to support the destructioneer of this project as she recently laid out in an op-ed. However, she must have taken the time to hear these voices of the pastors coming to her from the ancestral realm as she walked over family land on St. Helena Island. I pray that even her great great grandfather and others spoke to her from the great beyond to get her to write an op-ed and have it published in the Island News. In it she makes it clear that Marilyn Hemingway of the Gullah/Geechee Chamber of Commerce is working with the Pine Island Destructioneer. She also provided a critical quote:
“Unfortunately, your [Pine Island LLC] proposed Development Agreement still falls short in at least three major areas that continue to make it unacceptable to both the majority of St. Helena property owners, and all the members of the Beaufort County Planning Commission: First, it would require either dismantling, or granting of an exemption from the CPO protections against golf courses, resorts, and new gated communities that could set a dangerous precedent that will undoubtedly create a domino effect of rapid development on St. Helena.
Second, it shows willful strategic indifference to the greatest fear that your Gullah neighbors across the island share, i.e., the loss of their beloved ancestral land due to soaring property taxes that they can’t afford to pay independently, and being displaced by developers buying shares of their heirs’ property, resulting in forced sales to clear the title.”
I have always known St. Helena Island to be a sacred place that is under the Gullah/Geechee anointing. So, in moments like this, I hear in my mind: Psalm 105:15 and 1 Chronicles 16:22:
“Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.”
Interestingly enough, the computer scientist in me would not allow me to evade my own curiosity of what would be said of this verse by Google or Chat GPT. The latter wrote:
“These verses recount God’s protection over the patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—during their journeys. Despite being few in number and strangers in foreign lands, God safeguarded them, even rebuking kings on their behalf .(GotQuestions.org)
In this context, ‘anointed’ refers to those set apart by God for specific purposes, such as patriarchs, prophets, or kings. The term signifies individuals consecrated by God to fulfill particular roles in His divine plan.(Bible Hub)
Therefore, these scriptures serve as a reminder of God’s sovereignty and His commitment to protect those He appoints for His purposes.”
Reading this made the words “anointed” and “protect” radiate from my computer screen since we have used three years to continue to fight to Protect St. Helena which is the epicenter of Gullah/Geechee anoited people. WEBE Gullah/Geechee anointed people! Therefore, as Queen who my people elected 25 years ago to continue to stand up and speak out for them in order to safeguard our cultural community, I rest assured of GOD’s continued sovereignty and GOD’s commitment because I know I am one of the called according to His purpose for such a time as this. As I yet stand in this realm and hear from the many in the realm of the ancestors repeating the last words that St. Helena Island activist, Ms. Gloria Potts spoke to me from her hospital bed-“Fight um!,” I pray that my people fight on and that Beaufort County holds on!
Beaufort County Planners and Beaufort County Council members need to tune in to hear these Gullah/Geechee ancestral voices speaking out in harmony with those of us that are yet here in this land of the living. They need to ensure that St. Helena Island does not lose its soul. They need not break their own law. They need to maintain the sanctity and the defensibility of the St. Helena Island Cultural Protection Overlay District by not allowing any gated area resorts or golf courses to be created within the CPO and that includes keeping them off of Pine Island and St. Helenaville! To truly serve the community of St. Helena Island and Beaufort County in general in good conscience would mean having a dialogue to conserve ALL of the acreage of Pine Island and St. Helenaville for the public good and the environmental health of not only the island but the county and the region. The water flowing to and through the salt marsh of Pine Island/St. Helenaville doesn’t remain there. It flows to other places. Opening up the CPO to destructionment will also flow to other places. So, now is the time to prevent the flow of destructionment for once and for all! Hear the Gullah/Geechee ancestral voices speaking out! Protect St. Helena Island! Protect the epicenter of Gullah/Geechee culture! As I sang at the recent Beaufort County Special Call meeting, “Don’ tun bak!”
written by Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation and Founder of the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition. Queen Quet served as the inaugural St. Helena Island Cultural Protection Overlay District Committee Chair and is currently serving in this position once again.
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CALL TO ACTION
Donate to the Gullah/Geechee Land & Legacy Fund via CashApp $GullahGeecheeNation or via GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/gullah-geechee-land-and-legacy-fund
The destructioneer’s plan still envisions a luxury gated golf resort on rural St. Helena Island and requests removal from the Cultural Protection Overlay (CPO) zoning and a development agreement with Beaufort County. St. Helena Island’s CPO zoning was written by and for the community and it has prevented golf, resorts and gated communities since 1999 to safeguard Gullah/Geechee culture and land and the Sea Island’s rural character.
Continue advocating for the CPO and against gated golf resorts on St. Helena Island. Attend meetings and urge Beaufort County to hold the line and protect St. Helena into the future.
Join us at the
NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE MEETING
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 2ND @ 3PM
104 RIBAUT RD in BEAUFORT, SC
and at the BEAUFORT COUNTY COUNCIL MEETING
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 22ND @ 6PM
905 BUCKWALTER PKWY in BLUFFTON, SC
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- Tagged: Beaufort County, Black history, Coastal Conservation League, CPO, cultural heritage, Cultural Protection Overlay District, destructionment, developer, development, Geechee, golf course, Gullah, gullah geechee nation, Gullah/Geechee Nation, Pine Island, Queen Quet, resort, Rev. Kenneth Hodges, Rev. Washington, SCCCL, SCELP, Sea Islands, South Carolina, South Carolina Environmental Law Project, St. Helenaville, Theresa White