Attorneys for Georgia slave descendants urge judge not to throw out their lawsuit over island zoning

Attorneys suing a Georgia county over zoning changes that they say threaten one of the South’s last Gullah-Geechee communities of Black slave descendants asked a judge Tuesday to let them correct technical problems with their civil complaint to avoid having it dismissed.

A lawyer for coastal McIntosh County argued the judge must throw out the lawsuit because it clashes with a 2020 amendment to Georgia’s state constitution dealing with legal immunity granted to state and local governments.

Residents of the tiny Hogg Hummock community sued in October after county commissioners voted to weaken zoning restrictions that for decades helped protect the enclave of modest homes along dirt roads on largely unspoiled Sapelo Island.