- Sep 12, 2009
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By Ericka Blount Danois on Jul 2nd 2010 1:17PM
An illuminating article in the New York Times outlines the injustice endured by
the Neck Land Trust, a group of black landowners who lived in a thriving
community, hunting and farming, before the federal government seized their land
to build an airstrip in 1942. The residents are Gullah/Geechee,
descendants of West African slaves who became some of the nation's
earliest black landowners. Their distinctive culture, preserved for years by
isolation on the coastal barrier islands, has been threatened by development
to such a degree that in 2006, Congress designated a Gullah/Geechee
Cultural Heritage Corridor, stretching from North Carolina to Jacksonville, Fla.
Their story is about modernity versus tradition, black versus white and right
versus wrong.
http://www.bvblackspin.com/2010/07/02/gullah-culture-threatened-as-residents-fight-for-their-land/
An illuminating article in the New York Times outlines the injustice endured by
the Neck Land Trust, a group of black landowners who lived in a thriving
community, hunting and farming, before the federal government seized their land
to build an airstrip in 1942. The residents are Gullah/Geechee,
descendants of West African slaves who became some of the nation's
earliest black landowners. Their distinctive culture, preserved for years by
isolation on the coastal barrier islands, has been threatened by development
to such a degree that in 2006, Congress designated a Gullah/Geechee
Cultural Heritage Corridor, stretching from North Carolina to Jacksonville, Fla.
Their story is about modernity versus tradition, black versus white and right
versus wrong.
http://www.bvblackspin.com/2010/07/02/gullah-culture-threatened-as-residents-fight-for-their-land/