Category Archives: Environmental Justice
Queen Quet of the Gullah/Geechee Nation Honored as a Mother of the Environmental Justice Movement
Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation and Founder of the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, has been honored as one of the “Mothers of the Environmental Justice Movement” whose lives, leadership and legacies are being preserved by the Environmental Justice Oral History Project.
Gullah/Geechee Nation Coastal Challenge Update
On the South Carolina Coast: A Tree Saved, a Cultural Overlay Challenged, and Data Centers Given a Path Forward
Monday, September 14, 2026 brought a flood of consequential local-government action along the South Carolina coast. The outcomes were not as simple as “win” or “loss.” The Beaufort County Council did not vote on St. Helena Island’s Cultural Protection Overlay, but the latest Pine Island challenge is moving toward the Planning Commission. In Charleston County, a redesign kept the Sol Legare witness tree standing, but the approved driveway will still enter its critical root zone. In Colleton County, Council did not approve construction of a particular data center; it adopted the comprehensive-plan, zoning-text, and zoning-map changes that make future data centers much easier to permit.
Here is what happened, what did not happen, and what you can do next.
HEADS UP! Protect the Gullah/Geechee Nation’s Coast!
Two counties. Two critical meetings. One coast to defend.
Monday, September 14, 2026, is a critical day for the future of the Gullah/Geechee Nation’s coast!
While Beaufort County Council prepares to discuss yet another attempt to remove Pine Island from the Cultural Protection Overlay District protecting St. Helena Island, Colleton County Council will consider regulations that could determine whether massive data centers gain a foothold in the rural ACE Basin.
These meetings overlap. Therefore, we need the Gullah/Geechee famlee, environmental justice advocates, landowners, preservationists and everyone who values the South Carolina Lowcountry to divide forces and fill both council chambers.
We cannot sit silently while destructioneers repeatedly attempt to wear down the laws that protect our land, water, culture and quality of life.
Living Water, Living Legacy and Living Resistance: September in the Gullah/Geechee Nation
September begins with prayer, but prayer must move our feet, strengthen our voices and guide our hands into action. Throughout this month, the Gullah/Geechee Nation will be filled with opportunities to worship, celebrate, learn, remember, organize and defend the sacred Sea Island homeland.
Gullah/Geechees Flow into Living Water and Sacred Responsibility: World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation
This year’s World Day of Prayer observance carries particular significance for the Gullah/Geechee Nation. At Noon Eastern Time on September 1, 2026, Queen Quet, Chieftess and Head-of-State of the Gullah/Geechee Nation, will provide the keynote address for Creation Justice Ministries’ online World Day of Prayer and Season of Creation webinar. Queen Quet will share the spiritual and cultural relationship that Gullah/Geechee people have maintained with water from generation to generation.
Gullah/Geechee Nation Appreciation Week 2026: Hunnuh Mus Tek Cyare de Root fa Heal de Tree
Throughout the Gullah/Geechee Nation stretching from Jacksonville, North Carolina down to Jacksonville, Florida and inland to the St. Johns River, lies a rich cultural legacy that has endured for centuries. Every year during late July and early August, communities across the region come together to celebrate Gullah/Geechee Nation Appreciation Week.
Saving de Gullah/Geechee Witness Tree at Sol Legare
The center of the Gullah/Geechee Nation’s flag is embossed with a Gullah/Geechee family tree that consist of human bodies that are intertwined and rooted in the soil of the Sea Islands. The oak tree is a powerful symbol within Gullah/Geechee culture—mirroring the sacred tree rooted at the very center of the Gullah/Geechee Nation’s national flag. Protecting it represents a refusal to allow the physical markers of our heritage to be erased. “Save James Island” folks have made it clear: “You can’t replant history.” The historic live oak tree at Sol Legare cannot simply be replanted either. It is truly a witness to what our ancestors of Sol Legare went through and now it is a witness to the encroaching destructionment no longer in the distance across the creek from Mosquito Beach but right under its own branches. However, like native Gullah/Geechees, webe de tree planted by de rivers of wata. We shall not be moved!
Gullah/Geechee and SCELP Fighting Racial Discrimination Case to Protect Cultural Protection Overlay District
Queen Quet continued, “I have reviewed the complaint brought by the Plaintiffs in this case and recognize that they seek to destroy and invalidate the CPO so that their “destructionment” can move forward. The lawsuit is being made under the guise of claiming that the CPO is a race-based law. This is inaccurate and a misrepresentation. That accusation is legally unsound, historically inaccurate, and sociologically reductive. It collapses Gullah/Geechee culture into race and thereby erases the very heritage, land-use traditions, spiritual practices, language, kinship structures, ecological knowledge, and settlement patterns that the CPO was designed to protect. No one of any race or culture can violate the CPO law! We have the right to protect the environment and to continue to peacefully exist as native Gullah/Geechees and anyone that has come to St. Helena Island to live benefits from the healthy environment of our beloved island. We binya and ain gwine nowhey!”
Gullah/Geechee Musical Environmental Journeys
Whenever I have an opportunity to stand on the shoreline of the Gullah/Geechee Nation my spirit gets renewed. It is not only the warm Sea Island breeze laced in salt with its unique smell, it is also the rustle in the trees and the sway of the salt marsh that a dancer like me finds kinship with. I can hear an ancestral choir singing to a polyrhythmic beat that tends to be punctuated by the rhythms of crashing waves or the ripples in the river. Tenk GAWD fa de Sea Islands!
Gullah/Geechee Famlee Weekend een de Gullah/Geechee Epicenter een July!
Jayn we een de Gullah/Geechee epicenta fa “Gullah/Geechee Famlee Weekend 2026!” Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation and de Gullah/Geechee Famlee culturally invites you to the heart of the Gullah/Geechee Nation for “Gullah/Geechee Famlee Weekend.” We will gather on the grounds of Penn Center on historic St. Helena Island for two days of powerful cultural reconnection, reflection, and celebration—all under the guiding theme: “Hunnuh mus tek cyare de root fa heal de tree!”