'Our angel': New group seeks to help Gullah families reclaim their property

Charima Allen and Claressa Wright thought they had lost their father's dream when their 1.57-acre property on St. Helena Island was sold at the Beaufort County delinquent tax sale.

The sisters had been paying property taxes on the undeveloped land since they inherited it after their parents' deaths 15 years ago, until unemployment and growing families -- seven children and one grandson between them -- left them unable to pay in 2013.

Last month, Allen found herself at her church, St. Helena's True Vine Temple of Praise, praying she and her sister would find a way to come up with the nearly $1,000 it would take to redeem their ownership.

Then Theresa White spoke.

Her new group, the Pan-African Family Empowerment & Land Preservation Network, is raising money to help Gullah Geechee families redeem their property sold at tax auctions and to help pay their taxes to keep it from ever seeing the auction at all.

"It was like a blessing. Ms. White is our angel," Allen said last week. "I spoke to her after, and she said, 'Maybe you can be the first.' "

On Friday afternoon, she and her sister were. Allen, Wright and White handed a $941.54 check from the nonprofit network to the Beaufort County Treasurer's Office to pay back the sisters' owed taxes and associated fees and reclaim where their father had once envisioned a new home.

"I could just click my heels," Allen giggled. And she did, literally, during a victory lap around the Beaufort office while the treasurer's staff beamed.

"I drive past that road every day on the way to work," Allen said, wiping tears from her eyes. "I walked passed that road this morning, and I said, 'I'm going to get you back today.' And I did."

Allen and Wright's predicament is not unique, however, White said. Particularly as communities still recover from the recession, more Gullah families are finding themselves or other legal heirs unable to pay for their land, she said.

"Home ownership and land ownership are an important part of the African heritage here," White said. "Without a place to live, you are nothing. You don't even have an address to use to get assistance."

To help those families retain their ownership, White set out more than 18 months ago to create the nonprofit network to fundraise for the effort and help the families navigate the process.

The group only began soliciting donations in March but has collected more than $1,500 through direct donations and a GoFundMe.com fundraising page. No gifts have been more than $100 so far, according to White and the GoFundMe.com page.

Among the donations is $100 from award-winning photographer Pete Marovich, who has spent the past several years photographing Gullah culture in the Lowcountry, some of which was featured in The New York Times last summer. Marovich also is letting the network use one of his photos to promote the cause, White said.

"Thanks to the absolutely wonderful Gullah Geechee people that I have met for allowing me into their lives to document their culture," Marovich wrote on the GoFundMe.com page. "May it forever thrive!"

With the first reclaimed property under her belt, White is setting her sights on other local properties.

Last week she met Michelle Lewis, who is a few months away from losing her childhood home on Congress Street in Beaufort in this year's tax auction.

Lewis missed her latest tax payments on the home because she had to leave her job with a local home health care company following knee problems. She had surgery on her right knee in February, but she's still out of work and can't afford to make up the taxes and fees now, she said.

If she does not raise nearly $5,600 to reclaim her property before October, the home she, her seven children and her 19 grandchildren grew up in will be auctioned by the county to recover the tax revenue.

Lewis said she will host a dinner sale and try to have a garage sale, but she's counting on White and the network to help her make enough before time runs out. White is putting the word out to local churches and organizations that her group is "hitting the ground running" to help Lewis now, she said.

"If I would lose this house, I'd leave Beaufort and never come back," Lewis said last week. "At least four generations of our family have lived right here, and hopefully there will still be a few more."

For Allen and Wright, the help of the network means there will be a few more generations on their family's land on St. Helena Island. Now the sisters are saving to have the property cleared and prepared, and to help give back to the network, Allen said.

Wright hopes to move her trailer and three young children to the property in a few years -- completing their late father's dream of setting up home on the family land.

"He'd be proud," Allen said. "To know we got it back, he'd know he raised some kids who do what we had to do. He raised us to be strong, and we try to be strong all the time."

Follow reporter Zach Murdock on Twitter at twitter.com/IPBG_Zach and on Facebook at facebook.com/IPBGZach.

Related content:

• "Help Save Gullah/Geechee Land" GoFundMe.com page
• Pan-African Family Empowerment & Land Preservation Network website
• Underground Railroad conference returns to Hilton Head Island this summer, March 5, 2015

This story was originally published May 17, 2015 at 6:25 PM with the headline "'Our angel': New group seeks to help Gullah families reclaim their property."