Purposeful Planning of the St. Helena Gullah/Geechee Multipurpose Center

Gullah/Geechee Nation ♦ July 7, 2026 ♦ Leave a comment

By Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation (www.QueenQuet.com)

Starting in 1998, I spent over a decade of my life specifically focused on the zoning and cultural sustainability on my home island, St. Helena Island, SC.  In 1999, when I and several elders who are now ancestors celebrated achieving the Cultural Protection Overlay (CPO) District zoning for the island, folks were not yet seeing what we were protecting.  However, fast-forward to now and people see historic St. Helena Island as the epicenter of Gullah/Geechee culture.  The world comes to visit and engage directly with the natives of St. Helena Island throughout the year.  I have personally hosted thousands of people from different ethnic groups and all walks of life over the past 4 and 1/2 decades.  

Thirty years ago, I made a conscious decision to ensure that St. Helena Island would be the base of operations for the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition which is the oldest organization in world history that has “Gullah/Geechee” in its name.  When I founded, the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, one of our missions was to ensure that authentic Gullah/Geechee culture would be supported not simply verbally but politically and financially.  So, I am sure that the ancestors that were fighting to protect St. Helena from being destroyed by a four to five lane highway expansion and against what I consider “destructionment” were smiling when the Beaufort Open Land Trust purchased the parcel of land at the intersection of Sea Island Parkway and Polowana Road in order to secure it for the St. Helena Island community.  That parcel could have been a supermarket, the library location or the post office location since all of these were proposed in the past.  Now there is a feasibility study being done for this to be the location of the St. Helena Island Gullah/Geechee Multipurpose Center which many natives of  St. Helena Island requested years ago.  

I have a personal interest in this parcel since it is the gateway to the islands that my family roots stem from-Polowana and Dataw Islands.  It is also the site that I helped the initial Community Preservation District and CPO District Committees fight for.  We approached Beaufort County to purchase the parcel in the early 2000s to no avail.  Thankfully, this time around, Senator Campsen, the Open Land Trust and the Coastal Community Foundation stepped forward and provided the resources necessary for a proper financial investment toward the economic empowerment of the Gullah/Geechee community of St. Helena Island to be provided.   It appears that everyone else now wants to financially benefit from Gullah/Geechee culture.  I have and will always stand with and for the native Gullah/Geechees that seek to share their own lived cultural experiences and their talents with the world.   As the world comes to historic St. Helena Island, SC, they should be able to engage with native Gullah/Geechees of St. Helena, Polowana and Dataw Islands to not only know our true story and to see our pride but to also economically support those that hold onto our traditions which include quilting, cast net making, bateau building, foodways, music and more.  

When I grew up living out these traditions with my family on Polowana Island, I also loved seeing the various vegetation that grew around the islands especially the cat-o’-nine tails (aka “cattails”). I was always intrigued by them.  I still love seeing them and actual cats swinging their tails to this day.  Unfortunately, I have learned that the same name applies to a whip that was used to torture people in Europe and other places.  I was horrified to know that something that brought me found memories shared the same name with something used in such a negative manner.  I was just as horrified when people fought against our native St. Helena family having a state-of-the-art library and when I heard people come to that library to do the same thing against the creation of a state of the art Gullah/Geechee Multipurpose Center.  Native       Gullah/Geechees have taken enough beatings over the centuries because people didn’t want to respect our culture and cultural heritage traditions.  We have invested blood, sweat, tears and money into St. Helena’s soil.  Therefore, we deserve a return on that investment!

As not only a grassroots movement leader but as a business owner, I am well aware of the need to examine feasibility before going forward with a project or an effort.  Having founded an organization that is known globally and having sustained its operations for three decades, I know a great deal about what it will take in order to not only envision but to finance and maintain what will be an institutional space.  As an environmentalist and someone who walked and ran what was a dirt road for Polowana Island, I also want the wetland that is is on this parcel to remain natural and to contain kiosks that tell the story of the legacy of Gullah/Geechee and indigenous history of Polowana and Dataw as well as about the sensitive and vital environment of a rural Sea Island such as St. Helena and how these natural wetlands help to sustain the island.  The trees and the natural vegetation are as important as having a space for gathering and for economic activities.  Therefore, I look forward to a feasible balance being struck as the space is designed.

I have attended countless meetings on St. Helena Island where the same types of questions have been asked time and time again by consultants and during community input sessions.  I also have decades of experience dealing with environmental impacts and traffic impact analysis on the Sea Islands.  I have read and worked on numerous comprehensive plans.  I have also help found and design major institutions including museums that have garnered national and international audiences.  When the community isn’t valued, such spaces fail.  So, the fact that the process for the feasibility study for this parcel is including the voices of St. Helena Island is a step in the right direction.

I wanted to step further into this project by stepping back from it as a native of St. Helena, Polowana and Dataw. I decided to look at it from some additional angles.  To that end, I re-examined the Beaufort County Comprehensive Plan as I thought through what I envision as the design that I would place at this place so that it is truly a multipurpose Gullah/Geechee center.  To that end, I found:

The 2040 Comprehensive Plan places heavy emphasis on small-scale, locally rooted economic development approaches for St. Helena Island. The acquisition of this parcel drives economic resilience in several key ways:

• Fostering Local Entrepreneurship: Operating inside the Public Market District, the site acts as an entrepreneurial market and catalyst for local Gullah/Geechee business owners. It provides a dedicated physical space for selling traditional crafts, food, and agricultural goods directly to both residents and visitors.
• Preventing Displacement and Enhancing Economic Empowerment: By dedicating public-interest land to the community, the project actively pushes back against rural gentrification and destructionment. It creates localized job opportunities, ensuring that native Gullah/Geechee residents can economically benefit from the heritage tourism that comes to the island..
• Sustainable Cultural Empowerment Hub: The Gullah/Geechee multi-purpose center establishes a location for authentic cultural engagement with visitors traveling down Highway 21/Sea Island Parkway. Rather than relying on commercialized or unvetted tourist attractions.  This center should be designed to serve as a community-governed, financially self-sustaining hub for cultural education and community empowerment, which captures dollars and funnels them directly back into the local community.  This space can serve as an intergenerational knowledge transfer hub.

The intersection of Sea Island Parkway and Polowana Road is a highly visible, critical parcel—one of the last large undeveloped tracts in the historic Corners Community. Securing this land serves profound environmental and planning functions:

• Enforcing the Cultural Protection Overlay (CPO) District: The overarching goal of the CPO is to protect St. Helena Island from encroaching detructionment pressures and rapid in-migration. By pulling this 10-acre tract off the speculative market, the Open Land Trust prevented high-density commercial development that would tax the island’s infrastructure.
• Upholding Strict Local Design Footprints: The Corners Area Plan dictates that new building footprints visible from Highway 21 must be limited (typically maxing out at 5,000 square feet) to avoid dominating historic structures. Utilizing this tract for a low-impact, community-centered multi-purpose space honors the visual and architectural “Lowcountry aesthetic” outlined in the 2040 plan.
• Promoting Walkability and Open Space: The Public Market District is intended to be a pedestrian-friendly zone. This acquisition preserves open green space.  The design can be done in a manner that minimizes the expansion of disruptive parking lot asphalt and urban runoff, and provide an organic gathering space that maintains the ecological and rural community character of the island.

This property acquisition seamlessly aligns with the Beaufort County 2040 Comprehensive Plan by demonstrating that the survival of the Gullah/Geechee culture is explicitly tied to the protection of the land itself. By safeguarding this ecosystem and channeling its use into local hands, the investment establishes an equitable, resilient future where St. Helena Island, Polowana and Dataw’s Gullah/Geechee history and environmental conservation thrive side by side.

I look forward to being the first to host an event at this site when it opens its first phase.  I look forward to leading a libation ceremony as the ground is broken for what I envision as an ampitheater and black box theater and event space.   I look forward to walking a natural trail and sitting on a bench fanning as I enjoy watching the cat-o’-nine tails grow and continue to absorb the water that flows in as the rains fall and the tides change.  I look forward to the spiritual tide turning the community to a unified circle in celebration of the epicenter of   Gullah/Geechee culture.  I will beat drums as the native Gullah/Geechees are able to share their gifts and talents in such ways that empower them to continue to hold onto their land and pass it and these traditions on to the next generation.  Sustaining St. Helena Island’s Gullah/Geechee culture definitely serves multiple purposes.  We binya and we ain gwine nowhey!  Let’s center on that.

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Don’t miss being a part of the process to provide input during the feasibility study.  The next meetings will be held on July 13th and August 17th at the St. Helena Branch Library from 5:30-7 pm.  Sign up online for updates and to provide input at https://moaarc.com/news/second-community-meeting-recap .