HILTON HEAD ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA — Between 2019 and 2023, 57 Gullah Geechee heirs' properties on Hilton Head and St Helena islands in Beaufort County, South Carolina, were sold at delinquent tax auctions, with 38 on St Helena and 19 on Hilton Head. The losses have prompted residents, advocates and county officials to launch initiatives aimed at helping families retain land passed down from formerly enslaved West Africans who remained in the southeastern coastal islands.

The average delinquent tax bill on the two islands was under $700, though some properties owed more than $4,000. In Beaufort County, Gullah Geechee property ownership has been threatened by delinquent taxes, clouded or tangled titles, family disputes, predatory development, gentrification, and the climate crisis. Hilton Head Island has experienced the greatest amount of Gullah Geechee land loss of all South Carolina sea islands due to its popularity, according to Luana Graves Sellars and Theresa White. A study in the Journal of Rural Social Sciences reported that in 2019, South Carolina had over 41,000 heirs' properties totaling more than 167,500 hectares and worth over $3.42 billion in market value.

Residents and advocates have banded together to pay each other's property taxes, educated one another on estate planning and tax-payment plans, and pressed state and local officials to make it easier for Gullah people to stay in their homes. Between 2015 and 2021, the Pan-African Family Empowerment and Land Preservation Network spent more than $160,000 paying property taxes for Gullah people on Hilton Head and St Helena islands. In 2024, the Lowcountry Gullah Foundation spent more than $38,000 to save 10.2 hectares of historical land in Beaufort County, with 59% of the properties in the city of Beaufort and 35% in Hilton Head.

"There's been a renewed emphasis now on Black people helping each other, because of all the stuff that Trump and them are doing and all the discrimination that's going on," said Theresa White, CEO and founder of PAFEN. Beaufort County created an online payment platform to streamline tax payments and partnered with local advocacy groups, including the Lowcountry Gullah Foundation, to help minimize Gullah land loss. Beaufort County treasurer Maria Walls said she was unaware how many heirs' properties were represented in the delinquent tax auction data.

Josh Walden, chief of operations at the Center for Heirs' Property, said it is impossible to say how many Gullah Geechee people have lost their homes in recent years. "It would require extensive research and money to review partition actions in civil courts and determine which properties were owned by Gullah Geechee families," Walden said.

One half-acre property on Hilton Head belongs to a family that traces ownership to 1892, when Civil War veteran Richard White and his wife Amelia bought 24.2 hectares for $600. The land remained heirs' property until 1983, when a grand uncle hired a surveyor to divide a portion among the Whites' descendants. About a decade ago, after some relatives moved away or died, the family was unclear who would pay the property taxes on adjacent marshland, and the parcel went up for delinquent tax sale at an annual Beaufort County treasurer's auction. The family contacted PAFEN, which helped them pay the tax bill so they could retain the land.