Georgia's highest court sides with slave descendants fighting to protect
threatened island community
[October 01, 2025]
By KATE BRUMBACK
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia's highest court on Tuesday sided with Black
landowners in a fight over zoning changes that weakened long-standing
protections for one of the South’s last Gullah-Geechee communities
founded by freed slaves.
The state Supreme Court unanimously reversed a lower court ruling that
had stopped a referendum to consider repealing a revised zoning
ordinance passed by McIntosh County officials two years ago. Residents
of Sapelo Island opposed the zoning amendments that doubled the size of
homes allowed in a tiny enclave called Hogg Hummock.
Homeowners feared the change would result in one of the nation's most
historically and culturally unique Black communities facing unaffordable
tax increases. Residents and their supporters last year submitted a
petition with more than 2,300 signatures from registered voters seeking
a referendum in the coastal county, which lies 60 miles (96 kilometers)
south of Savannah.
McIntosh County commissioners sued to stop the referendum and a lower
court ruled that one would be illegal. The decision halted a vote on the
zoning change with less than a week to go before Election Day. Hundreds
of people had already cast early ballots in the referendum.
The high court on Tuesday found that the lower court was wrong to
conclude that the zoning ordinance was not subject to referendum
procedures provided for in the Georgia Constitution's Home Rule
Provision.
“Nothing in the text of the Zoning Provision in any way restricts a
county electorate’s authority to seek repeal of a zoning ordinance,”
Supreme Court Justice John Ellington wrote in the opinion.
“We feel vindicated,” said Jazz Watts, a Hogg Hummock homeowner who
helped organize the referendum effort. “The election should not have
been stopped. It was stopping the voice of the people.”
It wasn’t immediately clear when a referendum might be rescheduled. But
attorney Dana Braun, who represents the Hogg Hummock residents, said the
ruling will give county residents “some real say" in whether they
support the zoning change.
McIntosh County attorney Ken Jarrard said in an email that the county
commissioners are “obviously disappointed” by the order but respect the
high court's ruling.
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Cornelia Bailey sits on the front porch of the Sapelo Island
Cultural and Revitalization Society in the Hog Hammock community of
Sapelo Island, Ga. on Thursday, May 16, 2013. (AP Photo/David
Goldman, File)
Jarrard had asserted during oral arguments at the Supreme Court in
April that zoning powers are different from others entrusted to
county governments by the state Constitution and, therefore, can't
be challenged by referendum.
Philip Thompson, an attorney representing the Hogg Hummock
residents, had argued that they have a constitutional right to a
referendum on the zoning changes so that they can defend a place
that’s “a cultural and historical treasure.”
Roughly 30 to 50 Black residents live in Hogg Hummock, also known as
Hog Hammock, a community of dirt roads and modest homes founded by
their enslaved ancestors who worked the cotton plantation of Thomas
Spalding.
It’s among a dwindling number of small communities started by
emancipated island slaves — known collectively as Gullah, or Geechee,
in Georgia — scattered along the coast from North Carolina to
Florida. Scholars say the island's separation from the mainland
caused the communities to retain much of their African heritage,
from their unique dialect to skills and crafts such as cast-net
fishing and weaving baskets.
In 1996, Hogg Hummock earned a place on the National Register of
Historic Places, the official list of treasured U.S. historic sites.
Residents depend on the local government in McIntosh County, where
65% of the 11,100 residents are white, to maintain protections that
preserve the community.
The state Supreme Court was not weighing whether Hogg Hummock
deserves special protections. Instead, the justices had to consider
technical questions about whether local zoning laws can be
challenged by referendum and whether McIntosh County commissioners
had a right to sue to stop the vote last October.
____
Associated Press writer Russ Bynum contributed reporting.
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