January 19, 2026.

Black landowners from a Georgia island community founded by freed slaves are fighting their latest property dispute with local officials at the ballot box. Voters in coastal McIntosh County were deciding a referendum Tuesday that seeks to override county commissioner’s 2023 decision to double the size of homes allowed in Sapelo Island’s tiny Hogg Hummock community. Only a few dozen Black residents remain in the Gullah-Geechee community established after the Civil War. Some families in recent years have sold land to wealthy outsiders, raising concerns that larger homes and rising property values will pressure more Black landowners to sell. Regardless of the referendum’s outcome, officials are considering recalculating island property values for the first time since 2012.