Thread by @BuzzFeedNews

Generations of residents on Georgia’s Sapelo Island survived slavery, disaster and disease. Now they face a new threat: tourism.

buzzfeednews.com/article/hannah…

The island has no hospitals, schools, or police, but it’s managed to become a popular destination for (mostly) white weekenders, and a civil rights lawsuit claims that recent tax hikes are meant to push out black residents in favor of developers.

Despite the county it’s in receiving millions in federal funds annually, Sapelo Island is sorely lacking in resources for residents, many of whom are known collectively as “the descendants,” black families who stayed after emancipation and built a self-sufficient community.

The state of Georgia owns 97% of Sapelo Island, leaving about 3% for descendants and the outsiders who’ve bought plots. The lawsuit characterizes the sales as “land grabs” that preyed upon older or vulnerable black residents.

If Sapelo Island becomes a tourist destination unaffordable for black residents, the lawsuit argues, it would mean the end of a rich cultural heritage kept alive for generations by the descendants of enslaved West Africans.

There used to be an unspoken agreement among descendants that they’d sell to one another, keeping the land black-owned, but financial hardship, rising taxes, and the developers’ courting of islanders have frayed that tradition. Now, families quarrel over survival strategies.

The survival of black families on Sapelo traces back to an enslaved Muslim named Bilali Muhammad, who led one of the nation’s earliest Muslim communities and wrote what’s believed to be the first Islamic text produced on American soil.

Only now are some islanders beginning to reach out to US Muslim groups, and finding support from Muslims looking to counter Trump administration portrayals of Islam as a newly arrived invading force.

As the number of descendants falls, historians and preservationists are racing to record the stories of Sapelo and introduce them to a wider, younger audience.

Local residents say the island’s culture is nearing extinction as black families are driven out. The community’s unique origin story – slaves turned landowners who preserved African and Islamic traditions on a forgotten island – is overshadowed by the modern-day fight to survive.

Still, developers like Stephen Mitchell, who descendants say are threatening the people and wildlife of Sapelo Island, don’t see things that way:

“If I don’t do it, somebody else will,” Mitchell said with a sigh. “That’s just the way it is.”

buzzfeednews.com/article/hannah…