Sapelo Island activists work to save 'one of the jewels in America'

Sapelo Island, about two hours down the coast in Georgia, is a poster child of what many say Hilton Head Island would've, could've or should've become.

Sapelo and Hilton Head have a similar history. It also has miles of wide beaches on the Atlantic Ocean. It, too, is enriched by a Gullah/Geechee community dating to slavery days. Its abundant natural resources are fed by tidal flows in lush saltwater marshes. And as the fourth-largest barrier island in Georgia, Sapelo is not all that much smaller than Hilton Head.

But Sapelo's roads are sandy and its beaches are empty.

At about the same time that most of Hilton Head was sold to timbermen who turned it into residential and resort developments, most of Sapelo also was being sold. But tobacco heir Robert J. Reynolds Jr. sold much of Sapelo to the state of Georgia, which took that island in the opposite direction. About 97 percent of the island became a wildlife refuge, research reserves and a state park, never to be developed.

Sapelo remains accessible only by ferry, while the bridge that linked Hilton Head to the outside world in 1956 was instantly a focal point for dissent. "Burn-the-bridgers" cried that all those who crossed the bridge after them were ruining paradise.

That's why it is surprising to hear what Sapelo native Charles H. Hall has to say.

The 75-year-old retired health-services entrepreneur sits in his large home on a golf course in Sea Pines -- the development that cast the die for modern Hilton Head -- and says his beloved Sapelo needs help.

Its Hog Hammock community might be the only Gullah/Geechee enclave to survive intact in what has been a 60-year rush of coastal development.

But even with no time-shares, tennis courts or traffic lights, paradise still has trouble.

Black Sapelonians want to keep their community together. They want its history, traditions, culture and old values to be preserved and appreciated. But their island has virtually no opportunity, jobs or young families. It has no school. And even with a population that has dwindled to well below 100, distrust, property disputes and racial divides still exist.

Hall and others are working to change that. He chairs the nonprofit Sapelo Island Cultural and Revitalization Society. It will host its 15th annual Sapelo Island Cultural Day Festival on Saturday to encourage the world to take a glimpse at a rare place and help the society reach ambitious goals.

'Double-edged sword'

Hall acknowledges those goals can be a "double-edged sword."

On one hand, Sapelo needs jobs and residents of child-bearing age to fill them and create them. But on the other hand, Sapelonians want the traditions, look and ambiance of the island to remain intact. They want more people to understand the culture of historic Gullah settlements with colorful names like Hog Hammock, Behavior, Hanging Bull, Chocolate, Bourbon Field and Raccoon Bluff.

They want what little land remains in the hands of the descendants of the slaves of antebellum planter Thomas Spalding to remain in those hands.

"We don't want it to develop," Hall said. "We work hard to discourage that. We want land retention. We want to get land back that we know is ours. We need jobs and housing. We want people to come back."

That will not be easy. Hall's own life shows why.

He went to one of Sapelo's two one-room school houses. Because so many grades were taught in a single room, Hall got a lot of lessons more than once, and he always listened in on more advanced work.

Hall's father went through only the fourth grade and his mother through fifth. His father had a job hauling the mail from Meridian, the mainland town where a ferry named for Sapelo midwife Katie Underwood now makes regular 30-minute runs to the island. His father also had a store, because islanders depended on him to bring back everything from salt to chicken feed. Hall's parents scrimped and recycled, saving every penny to send their sons to college -- and pennies were scarce in that bartering Gullah society.

Hall left the island young to attend a segregated high school in Darien. He went to Morehouse College in Atlanta, where the professors called him "Mister," and he saw the bright lights, and heard Tommy Dorsey. Then it was on to the Air Force, the University of Pittsburgh graduate school and a long career in physical therapy and home healthcare in Dayton, Ohio.

"My parents always told us we needed an education so we wouldn't have to work as hard as they did," Hall said. "I told them they were a little wrong on that. They implied that life would be easier if you had a good education, but the hard work has never gone away."

Hall wanted to retire close to Sapelo, where he could go often and contribute to its revival. He and his wife, Margaret, found Hilton Head to be perfect.

"Hilton Head has enough of the lights and glitter, but not so much you bog down in it," he said.

Roar of the ocean

Hall says his work with the Sapelo Island Cultural and Revitalization Society is almost full-time. His visits also allow him to see his brother, Benjamin, who retired to Sapelo.

Top society priorities include a growing, informed membership. A Community Land Trust is in place, with the goal to buy land if a native wants to sell. A 200-year-old Gullah cemetery is being documented and maintained. Land-use restrictions have been adopted. Historic districts have been put in place. A church has been restored. The old Farmers Alliance Building has been restored for community gatherings.

"We just got the state to agree to turn over 25 acres of land where we could have a cultural village with a theme of 'Africa to America,' " Hall said. "We envision a prayer chapel, gardening area, artists' retreat, gift shop, theater and museum that could show our traditional basket-weaving and culinary arts."

He calls Sapelo "one of the jewels in America. When you go to Sapelo, you go back 50 years in time. It's worth preserving. But it cannot be developed like the rest of the coast: sell land, build houses, run up taxes."

When Hall was a child, the only noise on Sapelo was the roar of the ocean.

It's still that way.

And Sapelo struggles to become a sea island poster child of a different kind: How to survive in a paradise that has not been paved.