93-year-old Black woman was sued because she refused to sell her land
Elder Josephine Wright is fighting to keep the Gullah Geechee property her family has owned for over 150 years
Bailey Point Investment Group of Norcross, GA claims that Mrs. Wright, a grandmother to 40, great-grandmother to 50 and great-great-grandmother to 16, is delaying their progress to develop a 29-acre neighborhood with 147 units, next to her property on Hilton Head Island.
Mrs. Wright’s late husband was one of the Gullah Geechee people, who are descendants of West and Central Afrikans, who were enslaved on the rice, indigo and Sea Island cotton plantations during Chattel Slavery. When General William T. Sherman issued Special Field Order #15, on January 16, 1865, the Gullah Geechee people were given land they formerly worked while enslaved.
Sherman order states: “At Beaufort, Hilton Head, Savannah, Fernandina, Saint Augustine, and Jacksonville the blacks may remain in their chosen or accustomed vocations; but on the islands, and in the settlements hereafter to be established, no white person whatever, unless military officers and soldiers detailed for duty, will be permitted to reside; and the sole and exclusive management of affairs will be left to the freed people themselves, subject only to the United States military authority and the acts of Congress... Whenever three respectable negroes, heads of families, shall desire to settle on land, and shall have selected for that purpose an island, or a locality clearly defined within the limits above designated, the inspector of settlements and plantations will himself, or by such sub-ordinate officer as he may appoint, give them a license to settle such island or district, and afford them such assistance as he can to enable them to establish a peaceable agricultural settlement. The three parties named will subdivide the land, under the supervision of the inspector, among themselves and such others as may choose to settle near them, so that each family shall have a plot of not more than forty acres of tillable ground, and when it borders on some water channel with not more than 800 feet waterfront, in the possession of which land the military authorities will afford them protection until such time as they can protect themselves or until Congress shall regulate their title."
An estimated 40,000 formerly enslaved Afrikans eventually settled on the 400,000 acres of land allocated by Sherman’s order. It is quite amazing that the Wright family withstood the initial assault of the returning plantation owners, after President Andrew Johnson overturned Sherman's order, and the subsequent developers of Hilton Head to keep their land, to this point.
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Despite Republican efforts to portray Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson as a statesman and reasonable policy leader, the Black Republican’s campaign for governor has released a fiery fundraising video showing him boasting to a cheering, predominately white crowd that “I’m not no African American.”
The timing of this explosive campaign video - just days after the conservative-led U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial ruling striking down race-based college affirmative action policies at UNC - Chapel Hill and other elite universities across the nation, in addition to former Pres. Donald Trump’s endorsement of Robinson’s gubernatorial candidacy, sets the stage for more racial cultural warrior rhetoric from the black Republican as the campaign continues.
The controversial :39 second campaign video opens with a black title page and the white outline of an open eye with a left-to-right downward slash going across the middle.
Under that symbol is written in all caps white, “TRIGGER WARNING. “Then under that in smaller all-white lettering is the sentence “Content may enrage woke Democrats & members of the liberal media.”
The campaign video begins with the lieutenant governor onstage in front of a “Mark Robinson’ backdrop, in an open suit jacket and open shirt, in front of a cheering, predominately white conservative audience. He is pacing back and forth with a microphone in his hand, bellowing to the cheering crowd with a strong, determined voice, “I’m not no African American.”
Robinson’s monologue is transcribed below his video image, so there is no mistaking what he is saying.
The video then shows many in the cheering crowd clapping and standing to their feet.
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STATESVILLE, NC - When the rest of her high school senior class was graduating, Tina Bracey wasn’t. The
next several years were bumpy and, without much family support, Tina found herself struggling.
Employment was spotty, but determined Tina did obtain her GED in 2020. One of her employers
allowed Tina and her three children to live in a small apartment above where she worked. But this
convenience came with a price tag and Tina suddenly found herself without transportation when her car
was repossessed.
A chance encounter and a conversation with a woman in a retail shop sent Tina to Hope of Mooresville
where she lived for six months. It was there that she learned about I-CARE and the services provided.
“I needed support in searching for a job, obtaining housing and just learning some interview skills,” Tina
said. All that support was provided by her Case Manager, Cindi Bacon.
Tina is now living in her own apartment with her three children (now 14, 13 and 7), working for Cardinal
Glass in Mooresville. “I love my job,” she said. “The journey was worth it to find this job and
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Beginning with this fall’s local municipal elections, a series of changes to voting in North Carolina will take hold that you should be aware of.
Four hundred and seventy-five candidates for City Council and other local offices across the state will be running for office this September - October - November. Filing began last Friday and will end on July 21st at noon. These local contests will be the first since the Republican-led state Supreme Court reversed an earlier decision and mandated that voter photo identification be implemented throughout the state.
The NC State Board of Elections, which is scheduled to finalize a list of acceptable photo IDs from colleges and universities, has asked the NC General Assembly for $6.5 million in additional funding to properly educate voters about the new voter ID requirements and other election procedure changes. The legislature has not settled on a final budget yet, so it’s not known whether the board’s request will be honored.
One change that is known, however, is that voter ID will not only be required for in-person voting at the polls, but for those voting by mail-in absentee ballot as well.
Also, over 50,000 former felons will not be allowed to cast ballots in coming elections, thanks to a recent state High Court ruling.
Republicans, now touting veto-proof majorities in both the state House and Senate, are in the process of accelerating when mail-in ballots are to be accepted at local election boards, and even changing the makeup of local election boards, making them evenly split, and removing the governor’s appointment power.
Making the local and State Elections Board, evenly split, could cause problems where key decisions - like how many early voting sites should be opened in a county, or how many should be closed - would be deadlocked if a local board has a two Democrat/two Republican board, critics say. More ↠
