DARIEN, Ga. (AP) — Black landowners from a tiny island community returned to a Georgia courtroom Friday urging a judge to let them move forward with a lawsuit that accuses local officials of illegally weakening protections for one of the South’s last Gullah-Geechee communities founded by freed slaves.
Residents and landowners of Hogg Hummock on Sapelo Island have yet to see a judge weigh the merits of their discrimination case nearly two years after they first sued McIntosh County. They say county commissioners targeted a mostly poor, Black population with 2023 zoning changes that benefit wealthy white land buyers and developers.
So far, the case has been bogged down by technicalities. A judge last year dismissed the original lawsuit, citing legal errors unrelated to its alleged rights violations. On Friday, a lawyer for McIntosh County asked a judge to also throw out an amended version of the suit, saying it failed to state a legal conflict within the court's jurisdiction and missed critical deadlines set by state law.
The zoning rules being challenged doubled the size of homes allowed in Hogg Hummock, one of a dwindling number of small communities started by emancipated island slaves — known collectively as Gullah, or Geechee in Georgia — scattered from North Carolina to Florida.
Scholars say these peoples' separation from the mainland caused them to retain much of their African heritage, from their unique dialect to skills and crafts such as cast-net fishing and weaving baskets.
Hogg Hummock's few dozen remaining residents and their advocates say the changes will bring unaffordable tax increases, threatening one of America’s most historically and culturally unique Black communities.
“We're in limbo,” said Richard Banks, who owns the Sapelo Island home of his late father, built on land passed down in his family for generations. “You don't know what decisions you have to make in regard to your property.”
The lawsuit by the Southern Poverty Law Center asks a judge to declare the zoning changes violate the landowners' constitutional rights to due process and equal protection by discriminating against them “on the basis of race.” It also accuses the county of violating Georgia laws governing zoning procedures and public meetings.
McIntosh County's lawyers deny commissioners violated anyone's rights. But they argue the lawsuit should be dismissed without getting into those claims. They say fears of hypothetical tax increases don't present a valid legal conflict for a judge to decide.
“There's no allegation that existing businesses must close,” attorney Patrick Jaugstetter said in court Friday. “There's no evidence that any current use of a property must cease.”
Jaugstetter also said the refiled lawsuit came too late, well beyond Georgia's 30-day deadline for challenging zoning decisions and its six-month deadline for alleging violations of the open meetings law.
Malissa Williams, a lawyer for the Black landowners, said those deadlines were met by the original lawsuit filed in 2023.
“They should be allowed to challenge the (zoning) amendments because they will have a ripple effect on every aspect of their lives,” Williams said.
Senior Judge F. Gates Peed did not rule from the bench Friday. He asked both sides to submit proposed orders by the end of August.
A second legal battle between Sapelo Island residents and county officials is pending before the Georgia Supreme Court. A decision is expected by mid-November on whether residents can attempt to repeal the 2023 zoning changes by forcing a special election.
A scheduled referendum last fall was halted by a lower court judge, who ruled the vote was illegal.
FILE - The sun rises over Sapelo Island, Ga., a Gullah-Geechee community, on June 10, 2013. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)
FILE - A sticker saying "Keep Sapelo Geechee" is worn on the shirt of George Grovner, a resident of the Hogg Hummock community on Sapelo Island, during a meeting of McIntosh County commissioners, Sept. 12, 2023, in Darien, Ga. AP Photo/Ross Bynum, File)
FILE - In this May 16, 2013, file photo, a utility pole stands in the middle of a marsh at sunset on Sapelo Island, Ga., a Gullah-Geechee community. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)
ALEPPO, Syria (AP) — First responders on Sunday entered a contested neighborhood in Syria’ s northern city of Aleppo after days of deadly clashes between government forces and Kurdish-led forces. Syrian state media said the military was deployed in large numbers.
The clashes broke out Tuesday in the predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Achrafieh and Bani Zaid after the government and the Syrian Democratic Forces, the main Kurdish-led force in the country, failed to make progress on how to merge the SDF into the national army. Security forces captured Achrafieh and Bani Zaid.
The fighting between the two sides was the most intense since the fall of then-President Bashar Assad to insurgents in December 2024. At least 23 people were killed in five days of clashes and more than 140,000 were displaced amid shelling and drone strikes.
The U.S.-backed SDF, which have played a key role in combating the Islamic State group in large swaths of eastern Syria, are the largest force yet to be absorbed into Syria's national army. Some of the factions that make up the army, however, were previously Turkish-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.
The Kurdish fighters have now evacuated from the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood to northeastern Syria, which is under the control of the SDF. However, they said in a statement they will continue to fight now that the wounded and civilians have been evacuated, in what they called a “partial ceasefire.”
The neighborhood appeared calm Sunday. The United Nations said it was trying to dispatch more convoys to the neighborhoods with food, fuel, blankets and other urgent supplies.
Government security forces brought journalists to tour the devastated area, showing them the damaged Khalid al-Fajer Hospital and a military position belonging to the SDF’s security forces that government forces had targeted.
The SDF statement accused the government of targeting the hospital “dozens of times” before patients were evacuated. Damascus accused the Kurdish-led group of using the hospital and other civilian facilities as military positions.
On one street, Syrian Red Crescent first responders spoke to a resident surrounded by charred cars and badly damaged residential buildings.
Some residents told The Associated Press that SDF forces did not allow their cars through checkpoints to leave.
“We lived a night of horror. I still cannot believe that I am right here standing on my own two feet,” said Ahmad Shaikho. “So far the situation has been calm. There hasn’t been any gunfire.”
Syrian Civil Defense first responders have been disarming improvised mines that they say were left by the Kurdish forces as booby traps.
Residents who fled are not being allowed back into the neighborhood until all the mines are cleared. Some were reminded of the displacement during Syria’s long civil war.
“I want to go back to my home, I beg you,” said Hoda Alnasiri.
Associated Press journalist Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.
Sandbag barriers used as fighting positions by Kurdish fighters, left inside a destroyed mosque in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
Burned vehicles at one of the Kurdish fighters positions at the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
People flee the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
A Syrian military police convoy enters the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
Burned vehicles and ammunitions left at one of the Kurdish fighters positions at the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
