‘A small win, but it’s a beginning’: Hilton Head gated community votes on ‘plantation’
A confidential vote in a Hilton Head Island gated community didn’t reach the threshold needed to legally remove “plantation” from its name, but change is still coming to Palmetto Hall.
The community’s board of directors, citing a majority of votes cast in favor of a name change, voted late last week to remove the word from the signs on U.S. 278 and Beach City Road. The change will happen in the coming weeks.
The change comes as private communities on Hilton Head grapple with calls from advocates to remove the word “plantation” and acknowledge its racist past. Reporting from The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette showed how nearly all of Hilton Head was once made up of plantations where African people were enslaved.
Of the 394 votes cast in Palmetto Hall’s referendum, 235 were in favor of the name change and 159 were against. The measure came 27 votes short of the two-thirds majority it needed to legally change the community’s name.
Although the board of directors voted to remove the word “plantation” from Palmetto Hall’s sign, the legal name and logo will remain the same.
It’s “a small win, but it’s a beginning,” Palmetto Hall resident Margaret Lucchesi said of the vote.
In the voting materials distributed to residents, leadership said the change in Palmetto Hall will cost about $15,000 and can be absorbed in the operating budget.
‘Plantation’ on Hilton Head
Palmetto Hall’s move follows a decision by Wexford’s board of directors to remove the word “plantation” from the community’s sign.
The remaining “plantation” on the island is Hilton Head Plantation, where a committee of residents has formed to put pressure on its board of directors to do the same.
Hilton Head Plantation resident Bill Patterson refers to his neighborhood as “HHP.” He tells people he lives on the north end of Hilton Head if they’re from out of town, and uses the word “plantation” only if he’s giving someone directions or it’s absolutely necessary.
“I can’t pinpoint the exact moment that I remember, but it dawned upon me that this place is called Hilton Head Plantation, and I felt really uncomfortable with that name,” he told The Island Packet. “I grew up in South Carolina recognizing the history that was here and recognizing the struggle that Black people have had. All of these things were uncomfortable, and they were things we did not like, but we had history here and my family was here.”
The word “plantation” represents a relic of pre-Civil War South Carolina where Black people were forcibly enslaved and tortured for the benefit of white planters, Dr. Amir Jamal Touré, faculty in the Africana Studies Program at Savannah State University, said at a June 7 “Rally for Justice and Change” on Hilton Head.
“If you live on plantations on Hilton Head Island, that is disrespectful,” he said. “It is shameful and hypocritical for you to say you believe in Black lives mattering. The lives of my ancestors matter right here. You are here on Hilton Head Island because of my ancestors.”
This story was originally published July 27, 2020 at 11:30 AM.
