Dock Tragedy Strikes a Georgia Community Fighting to Protect Its Culture
"The deaths of seven people on Sapelo Island have brought to the fore longstanding frustrations among its Gullah Geechee community.
The dozens of descendants of enslaved people who form the backbone of the Gullah Geechee community on Sapelo Island, off the coast of Georgia, have fought for years to protect their homes and traditions from the erosion of time and development.
The deadly collapse on Saturday of a dockside gangway not only jolted the community into a deep grief but also brought to the fore longstanding frustrations over the treatment of residents and the state of the island’s infrastructure. Seven people were killed as they waited for a ferry back to the mainland after taking part in an annual cultural celebration on the island.
“We are on Sapelo fighting for our survival,” said Reginald Hall, 59, who was among a group of residents who confronted officials during a weekend news conference to demand answers on the collapse of the dock.
On Monday, state officials said they had removed the gangway as part of an investigation into its “catastrophic structural failure,” but they provided no new details on the cause of the collapse.
Some residents questioned whether Georgia officials, who have responsibility for most of the island, had taken adequate precautions to prepare the dock for the influx of hundreds of visitors for the festivities. Officials said they had established additional ferry runs but did not rule out the possibility that the increased traffic contributed to the collapse.
“We don’t want just a state investigation — the state did it,” said Josiah Watts, 53, a resident and member of the Sapelo Island Cultural and Revitalization Society. “We need the federal government to come down here.”
The gangway was most recently inspected in December by Crescent Equipment Company, a marine equipment business based about 25 miles inland, state officials said. The company, which declined to comment on Monday, inspected both sides of the gangway and found “no areas of concern,” according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
A spokesman for Gov. Brian Kemp, who joined the chorus of elected officials offering condolences to the community, declined to answer questions about the state’s role, citing the ongoing investigation.
The victims of the collapse were all older than 70 and had been drawn to Sapelo for the day from elsewhere in Georgia and Florida to celebrate the culinary and musical traditions that bind together the wider Gullah Geechee community.
“We’ve never had a mass casualty event on Sapelo,” said Maurice Bailey, 55, who added that it was now a moment to focus on “what we do to help everybody get through this, and hopefully it’ll come out positive.”
Legal action is likely to follow: In separate statements on Monday, the prominent civil rights lawyers Ben Crump and Bakari Sellers said they each would be representing victims of the collapse.
“It’s going to impact the residents of Sapelo Island and those that work on the island,” said Roger Lotson, who represents the island on the McIntosh County Board of Commissioners. Given that the island is accessible only by boat or ferry, requiring the use of a gangway, he added, “I can’t help but believe that that’s going to be in the back of their heads: Can I trust this?”
A lawsuit would add to an already tangled web of legal challenges and settlements for the Creole-speaking residents, who trace their ancestry to West Africans forcibly brought to the American Southeast.
The Sapelo Island community is the largest Gullah Geechee group along the designated heritage corridor of land that stretches from Florida to North Carolina. The community remains on about 434 acres of land, known as Hogg Hummock or Hog Hammock, the only privately owned parcel on the island, which mostly comprises state-owned reserves.
“They’re still weaving baskets, they’re still doing the shout, they’re still doing the ring dance,” Mr. Lotson said, ticking through a list of Gullah Geechee traditions. “To me, that’s something the country, the nation, should want to preserve.”
And though their land has been granted some protections — a place on the National Register of Historic Places, for example — residents have battled against the same encroachment of wealthier, often white, landowners and tourists that has affected other Gullah Geechee communities in the Southeast.
“People have really been struggling just to hold onto what’s theirs — to pass down, for future generations, their place,” said Joyce White, the interim director of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Center at Georgia Southern University. “And Sapelo is a special place. It’s unspoiled.”
The dock itself was rebuilt in 2021, after residents reached a multimillion-dollar settlement with the state and the surrounding county over what they charged was a “policy of malign neglect of the Gullah Geechee on Sapelo Island.”
Part of the state settlement called for the construction of “new aluminum gangways” as well as improvements to emergency medical services and ferry accessibility. But some of the required infrastructure improvements — including the construction of a helicopter pad for emergency situations — have not yet occurred, Mr. Hall said.
And the community is also waging a legal battle over changes to the zoning rules in McIntosh County that would allow for larger homes — a move that, some residents say, would push property taxes up and Gullah Geechee people out. They resisted the change by filing, and then refiling, a lawsuit against county officials.
The county has denied allegations that it did not do enough to involve Sapelo residents in the zoning process.
Most recently, the residents have also tried to override the changes through a referendum, but a Superior Court judge struck down that effort last month. An appeal could take the case all the way to the Georgia Supreme Court.
“It’s not just about housing,” Dr. White added. “This is deeper than that. This is about culture, and this is about these people who are preserving their culture, and the threat to that culture that’s coming in with economic development.”
Susan Cooper Eastman, Christina Morales, Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon and Kim Seversoncontributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.
Jacey Fortin covers a wide range of subjects for the National desk of The Times, including extreme weather, court cases and state politics all across the country. More about Jacey Fortin"
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