Georgia slave descendants submit signatures to fight zoning changes they say threaten their homes

Residents of one of the South's last Gullah-Geechee communities of Black slave descendants submitted signatures Tuesday, hoping to force a referendum on whether to reverse zoning changes that they fear will make them sell their land.

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Elected commissioners in Georgia's McIntosh County voted in September to weaken zoning restrictions that for decades helped protect Black residents of Hogg Hummock, a group of modest homes along dirt roads on largely unspoiled Sapelo Island. About 30 to 50 Black residents still live in Hogg Hummock, which was founded by formerly enslaved people who had worked on a plantation.

Hogg Hummock residents and their supporters submitted a petition at the McIntosh County courthouse in Darien for a referendum to repeal the zoning changes. The petition had over 2,300 signatures — hundreds more than needed to put the issue before voters in an election, said Josiah "Jazz" Watts, a Hogg Hummock descendant and homeowner.