Ga. Judge Won’t Dismiss Gullah-Geechee Discrimination Lawsuit
A sticker, shown in 2013, celebrates the Geechee heritage as passengers board a ferry to the mainland from Sapelo Island. Black residents and landowners, in a lawsuit, claim they pay unfair tax rates in return for few services, putting pressure on them to leave.
David Goldman / Associated Press file
A federal judge in Georgia is refusing to dismiss a lawsuit that claims racial discrimination is eroding one of the last Gullah-Geechee communities of slave descendants on the Southeast U.S. coast.
U.S. District Court Judge Dudley H. Bowen Jr. ruled that residents and landowners from the tiny Hogg Hummock community on Sapelo Island have presented discrimination claims under the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution that are “at least plausible.”
Attorneys for the state of Georgia and officials in McIntosh County asked the court last year to throw out the lawsuit, which claims black residents and landowners on Sapelo Island pay unfair tax rates in return for few services, putting pressure on them to leave.
The judge’s ruling Monday dismissed some counts and dropped county tax assessors from the suit.
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