Renewed Focus on Gullah Community Needs As Sacred Sites, Heritage Face Mounting Threats

As the tour bus hisses to a stop, Melvin Campbell rises, his gaze fixed on a patch of land tucked between a Whole Foods and the Hilton Head Senior Center. He gestures toward the site, enclosed by a wooden fence and the boughs of live oaks draped in Spanish moss. Through the glass windows, weathered headstones—some more than 200 years old—rise from the earth, connecting departed loved ones to their ancestors back in Africa.

Joe Pope Cemetery is one of 10 historic Gullah burial grounds on Hilton Head Island. Although most popularly known for its picturesque golf courses and beaches, the island is also home to the Gullah people, descendants of enslaved Africans who settled along the southeastern coast. Known for preserving their distinct language, traditions, and cultural heritage, the Gullah have maintained deep ties to Hilton Head for generations.

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“Most of us thought we had a story to tell,” Campbell said. “And we wanted to tell it.”

Galen Miller traces his lineage through these burial grounds, where generations of his family lie in quiet remembrance.

“Most of the cemeteries are near water,” Miller said. “That gives the spirits access to go back to their motherland.”

Yet as development pressures and land encroachment reshape Hilton Head, sacred sites and the broader Gullah heritage face mounting threats. These changes raise urgent questions about who decides what is preserved and what is lost, and what it means for those who call the island home.

As vacationers began flocking to the island in the 1950s, local policymakers largely ignored Gullah history, making little effort to document, protect, or integrate it into community narratives. 

But 11 years ago, the election of former Mayor David Bennett marked a shift in how the local government engaged with the island’s Gullah community. In addition to ensuring all Hilton Head residents had access to proper sewage systems, Bennett supported early efforts that led to the formation of the Gullah-Geechee Land & Cultural Preservation Task Force.

“Over the past few years, we’ve definitely seen a lot of potential,” said Taiwan Scott, a real estate agent, local business owner and Gullah activist. “Hopefully, some of the concerns that we have historically stressed can be addressed.”

But some in the Gullah community are skeptical—a distrust bred from 30 years of government inaction. Since the Town of Hilton Head’s incorporation in 1983, Gullah elders have voiced their concerns to local policymakers, participating in studies that underscored their needs. One such example is the 1995 Hilton Head Island Regional/Urban Design Assistance Team (RUDAT) Report, which proposed a series of community-driven solutions to protect the Gullah people’s well-being.

“I’m not convinced that sustaining the Gullah presence here is a part of the Town’s long-term agenda,” Campbell said.

So his family has taken it upon themselves to share their history with both visitors and locals. Since founding Gullah Heritage Trail Tours in 1966, the Campbells remain dedicated to doing just this.

While Campbell acknowledges the town’s recent efforts to make amends with the Gullah community, he believes local policymakers are overlooking something essential: the power of storytelling.

“They’ve been trying to do some sit-downs and some planning,” Campbell said. “I don’t mind that, but at the same time, they haven’t engaged wholeheartedly in telling our story.”

Campbell pointed to Hilton Head’s Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park—the location of the first freedmen community during the Civil War—as an example of this disconnect.

Recognized as one of six Reconstruction Era National Historic Networks in South Carolina, the park includes historic exhibits, trails, signage, and an observation gazebo.

While Mitchelville’s mission is rooted in preserving history, Campbell argues its current narrative overlooks key aspects of Gullah culture.

Several plaques present “a white man’s story and what a white man did for the Blacks,” he said. “I don’t agree with the method of telling the story.”

Heritage Library Director Barbara Catenaci said that the lack of information about Mitchelville’s history, especially from the Gullah community’s perspective, could contribute to this issue.

“When we look at that story, the folks who could tell that story are gone,” Catenaci said. “I think that it will balance out as we understand the artifacts.”

Meanwhile, Campbell emphasized that most residents are unfamiliar with Gullah history. As such, he believes highlighting Gullah perspectives on these plaques is essential to promoting a more complete understanding of Hilton Head Island. 

“How can you discuss what’s going on and why without understanding the history?” he said.

Campbell is not alone in his reservations. Other Gullah residents share his belief that preservation efforts fall short of fully addressing the community’s needs.

Beyond concerns about how their history is told, Gullah residents also face ongoing struggles with land loss, as developers and legal disputes continue to threaten their ancestral property.

As journalist and Lowcountry Gullah founder Luana Graves Sellars explains, land is crucial to Gullah-Geechee identity and heritage.

“Enslaved people saw the value that land had with their enslavers, and enslaved people had invested blood, sweat, and tears into that soil,” Graves Sellars said. “In order to be a part of society and culture, you needed land. Land gives you power, it gives you stability, it gives you sustenance, it gives you culture and traditions.” 

Graves Sellars explained that decades of land loss, combined with the Town of Hilton Head’s historic neglect of the Gullah community, have fostered deep distrust in local legislators and developers.

For families like the Millers, this long-standing skepticism came to a head in 2021, when a proposed development threatened Talbird Cemetery. Since then, however, the local government has worked to map burial ground boundaries through a new historic asset inventory. According to Catenaci, the first phase, designed to make information more accessible online, is expected to launch this fall.

“That should eliminate further instances like what happened in Talbird,” said Alex Brown, Ward 1 Town Council Member and Mayor Pro-Tem, who is Gullah himself.

Miller highlighted another concern regarding historic Gullah cemeteries: limited public access.

“Out of the cemeteries that are here, most of them are behind a gated community,” he said. “This is a burial ground for where our ancestors, our people, are. We should have the right to enter no matter what.”

Brown acknowledged that the town has made little progress in improving access to cemeteries within gated communities, although the issue is on the Historic Neighborhoods Community Development Corporation’s (CDC’s) agenda.

Established in 2022, the CDC aims to protect the island’s 12 historic Gullah neighborhoods through education about business expansion, land planning, and financial opportunities.

“Part of my first goal was to learn more about what some of the issues and needs were that existed within the Gullah community,” CDC Executive Director Thomas Boxley said.

However, Scott argues these efforts overlook the systemic barriers that have long driven land loss, such as legal loopholes, development pressure, and government inaction.

Scott stressed the importance of proactive government involvement in educating Gullah families about preserving and maximizing the use of their land.

“There should be a willingness from the government to sit down with these families and educate them about how they can continue utilizing their land,” he said.

Scott also emphasized the need for greater government accountability, advocating for legal action challenging Hilton Head’s establishment as a “limited-service government” in 1983.

“The town now owns a lot of our land, and there are areas throughout our communities which still don’t have the services that we have been paying for,” Scott said. “The elders in the community have fought so long for so much opportunity. I honestly think they deserve to know on some type of judicial level if there has been something done wrong to them since the Town’s incorporation.”

Local government officials recognize more work lies ahead, a challenge that may be further complicated by the new presidential administration’s changing priorities. 

Brown said the town has only recently shifted its focus toward enacting policies that directly address the Gullah community’s needs.

“Whatever it takes to implement, those are my next steps,” he said.