St. Helena woman leads quiet campaign to save Gullah land
For nine months, Theresa White of St. Helena Island has been on a mission to prevent Gullah and black property owners from losing their land.
She hasn't raised a lot of money.
She doesn't have a marketing budget.
But she has managed to bring in enough funding or find resources elsewhere to keep about 10 Beaufort County property owners from losing their land. Word has spread in the black community that her nonprofit Pan-African Family Empowerment & Land Preservation Network is the organization to turn to when all else fails.
On Wednesday, White helped three more residents keep their property.
She arrived at 4 p.m. at the county Treasurer's Office with checks to pay off their taxes. Not only will the payments help save the owners' homes, but by paying by Jan. 15, the owners can join the county's installment plan and make six smaller payments throughout the year so they don't fall behind.
Suzanne Robinson said a check of $536.69 presented Wednesday will mean she no longer has to worry about where she will live.
The 53-year-old St. Helena Island resident lost her job two years ago when the coffee shop where she worked closed.
She hasn't been able to find work since, and she's had health problems and is currently recuperating from outpatient surgery. The only income she receives is a monthly disability check for caring for her disabled granddaughter. She fell behind on the taxes for her 1993 mobile home.
"I haven't been able to get back up," she says of her financial condition.
Her disabled brother, Benjamin Heyward, who owns the two acres her mobile home sits on, has also had trouble paying taxes. The land was sold at the county tax auction this year. Family redeemed it, and White presented a check Wednesday for $409.61 so he can also join the installment plan for next year's tax bill.
"It's going to help me a lot," Robinson says of her and her brother catching up on taxes and being able to join the county's installment program. "I'll be able to keep up."
The third check Wednesday went to pay $215.71 in taxes for disabled Burton resident Mike Burns on his 2003 mobile home.
White traces her desire to help black and Gullah property owners to when she was a child in the 1950s and was told about her grandparents losing their farm. They became sharecroppers, tending someone else's land.
"I realized that people needed help to hold onto their property, and this is one thing that can't be replaced," she says. "Losing land does not give you a financial basis to break that cycle of poverty."
In March, White started a fundraising campaign for PAFEN on the GoFundMe website, where it brought in $12,786.
Many of the properties were redeemed at the last minute in October after they were sold at the county's 2014 delinquent-tax auction. Some of the checks were only for a few hundred dollars, but the combined property values are worth over $1 million, she says.
For Wednesday's tax payments, PAFEN received help from Bluffton writer Laurie K. McCall who has been donating 40 percent of proceeds from the sale of her first novel, "Swan of the Siren."
For White, the pain of seeing people lose their property, such as she witnessed at the 2013 tax auction, spurs her on.
She discovered that many of those whose property was auctioned didn't know they could get it back if they paid the taxes and penalties within a year of the sale.
"They don't know any better," she says. "They don't know about the redemption process.
"They're afraid of losing the only home they've ever had."
PAFEN fundraiser
Who/what: Bluffton writer Laurie K. McCall will read and sign copies of her first novel, "Sway of the Siren." Forty percent of the proceeds of book sales will be donated to help save Gullah land through the Pan-African Family Empowerment & Land Preservation Network. Elijah Heyward Jr., author of "Stories and Poems of a Gullah Native," will also read from his book.
When/where: 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday at The Red Piano Too Art Gallery, 870 Sea Island Parkway, St. Helena Island.
Follow city editor Don McLoud at twitter.com/IPBG_Don.
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This story was originally published December 16, 2015 at 6:07 PM with the headline "St. Helena woman leads quiet campaign to save Gullah land."