Black landowners from a tiny island community returned to a Georgia courtroom Friday urging a judge to let them move forward with a lawsuit that accuses local officials of illegally weakening protections for one of the South’s last Gullah-Geechee communities founded by freed slaves.
Residents and landowners of Hogg Hummock on Sapelo Island have yet to see a judge weigh the merits of their discrimination case nearly two years after they first sued McIntosh County. They say county commissioners targeted a mostly poor, Black population with 2023 zoning changes that benefit wealthy white land buyers and developers.
So far, the case has been bogged down by technicalities. A judge last year dismissed the original lawsuit, citing legal errors unrelated to its alleged rights violations. On Friday, a lawyer for McIntosh County asked a judge to also throw out an amended version of the suit, saying it failed to state a legal conflict within the court’s jurisdiction and missed critical deadlines set by state law.
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