A Win for Georgia's Gullah Geechee
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that an island community descended from enslaved people could move forward with a referendum to overturn zoning changes that they argue will price them out of their homes.
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The Georgia Supreme Court last week offered new hope for a local ballot initiative spearheaded by members of Sapelo Island, Georgia’s Gullah Geechee community. The initiative seeks to overturn zoning changes that members of the group argue will price them out of their homes. Bailey v. McIntosh County clarifies the scope of local direct democracy rights that the state supreme court first recognized in 2023. The case is also a striking example of how voter initiatives can be a tool for communities shut out of political power.
The Gullah Geechee are descendants of emancipated slaves who live in what had long been isolated island and coastal settlements in the low country from North Carolina to Florida. Gullah Geechee communities developed distinctive traditions that retained many elements of West African cuisine, crafts, and folklore, as well as a unique creole language called Gullah. Over time, however, many of these settlements disappeared, due at least in part to overlapping trends of underinvestment, gentrification, and climate change.
One of the country’s last Gullah Geechee communities, called Hogg Hummock (or Hog Hammock), has between 30 and 50 residents and sits on less than one square mile of land on Sapelo Island. Hogg Hummock is part of McIntosh County, which has 11,000-plus residents, more than 60 percent of whom are white.
In recent years, Hogg Hummock’s residents have voiced concerns about housing affordability, pointing to an influx of vacation homes in their community. These concerns came to a head in 2023, when McIntosh County’s commissioners voted 3–2 to change the zoning ordinance governing Hogg Hummock, more than doubling the maximum allowable house size from 1,400 to 3,000 square feet.
The move prompted sharp opposition from many Gullah Geechee residents, who argued that the change would encourage more vacation homes and lead to higher taxes that would put pressure on residents to sell their land. In response, the county commission chair told the Associated Press, “I don’t need anybody to lecture me on the culture of Sapelo Island. If you don’t want these outsiders, if you don’t want these new homes being built . . . don’t sell your land.”
That might have been the end of the story, but earlier that same year, the Georgia Supreme Court had breathed life into a long-ignored clause of the Georgia Constitution: the Home Rule provision. Introduced in 1966, the provision contains a subsection stating that “repeals of ordinances, resolutions, or regulations” passed by counties “may be initiated by a petition.” In Camden County v. Sweatt, the Georgia high court ruled that this text plainly means what it says. Even though, prior to Sweatt, direct democracy had never been used in Georgia to repeal county ordinances, the court decided that the home rule provision authorized such voter-initiated ballot measures.
Relying on the Home Rule provision, Hogg Hummock residents and other supporters collected more than 2,300 signatures from registered voters in support of a referendum to repeal the zoning ordinance. A special election was set for October 1, 2024. But the county sued and a state superior court judge halted the referendum while early voting was already underway. The court ruled that the county’s zoning power came from another provision in the Georgia Constitution that did not provide for citizen initiatives. (The court also temporarily blocked the implementation of the new ordinance to allow for an appeal.)
In a unanimous ruling, the Georgia Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s decision. It concluded that the Home Rule provision governed the county’s power to pass zoning ordinances, meaning that such ordinances could be repealed via a voter-initiated ballot measure as established in Sweatt. And as in Sweatt, the court relied on a close textual analysis, including comparing how the Georgia Constitution’s treatment of Home Rule and zoning powers had evolved as the state adopted new constitutions in 1966, 1976, and 1983 (the last still operative today).
This is one of many legal battles that the Gullah Geechee residents of Hogg Hummock have fought in recent years. Residents have previously challenged property tax hikes — leading to a temporary freeze — and won access to services such as trash collection and firefighters for their community. They also challenged McIntosh County’s zoning ordinance on state and federal constitutional grounds. “We’re still fighting all the time,” one longtime Hogg Hummock resident, Maurice Bailey, told the Associated Press. “They’re not going to stop. The people moving in don’t respect us as people. They love our food, they love our culture. But they don’t love us.”
It remains to be seen whether the zoning ordinance is ultimately defeated at the ballot box. But it is now clear that direct democracy is another legal tool for Hogg Hummock residents seeking to preserve their unique community.
Alicia Bannon is editor in chief for State Court Report. She is also director of the Judiciary Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.
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