Hog Hummock’s Zoning Up for a Vote

Referendum on the Ballot: Voters can decide whether to approve zoning changes that could affect housing affordability in a Gullah Geechee community on Sapelo Island. Photo credit: Benjamin Payne/GPB News

One of the South’s last Gullah-Geechee communities, founded by emancipated enslaved people, is celebrating a court victory.

The state Supreme Court unanimously sided with Black landowners of the Hog Hummock, also known as Hog Hammock, community on Sapelo Island in a fight over zoning changes. The proposed changes would double the size of homes allowed in the coastal community, located about 60 miles south of Savannah. Opponents fear such a change would lead to the development of million-dollar properties in the area and raise their taxes to the point that they couldn’t afford to live there.

A lower court had ruled that the ordinance was not subject to the referendum process. But the higher court overturned that decision, meaning the referendum is allowed to move forward.

Fewer than 50 people live in Hogg Hummock, most of them descendants of West African enslaved people known as Geechee. Their ancestors were brought to work the cotton plantation of Thomas Spaulding in the 1800s.

The Gullah-Geechee communities that sit along the coast from North Carolina to Florida have held on to much of their African heritage, from their spiritual beliefs to skills and crafts like cast-net fishing, quilting and basket weaving.

For 30 years, Hog Hummock has been on the National Register of Historic Places, the official list of treasured U.S. historic sites.