Thanks to a grant received this week from the Coastal Community Foundation, Penn Center will be opening a new school on its historic campus.
The grant was awarded to Penn Center on Monday to assist them in creating a new school that will be focused on Heir’s Property rights.
An event was held at Penn Center on St. Helena Island, home of the very first school for freed slaves in 1865 when it was known as Penn School, and is the center of the Gullah/Geechee community today.
Fast forwarding 159 years, Penn Center now plans to open a new kind of school that will focus on educating Gullah descendants on the rights to their land and property.
Heirs property rights is a major complex situation today.
For the Gullah/Geechee people, the land is part of their identity; it represents a spiritual and cultural bond that is deeply rooted in ways that are difficult to describe.
To fully understand the complexities of heirs property, you need to examine its origins.
At one time, in South Carolina, the number of slaves outnumbered white slave owners. As a result, after emancipation, many slaves chose to remain in the area of their enslavement. Some of the slaves were given land by their owners, or they acquired abandoned land; others, through hard work and dedication, were able to purchase land.
The land, in turn, began to be transferred from relative to relative within families for generations for over 150 years. Part of the problem is that heirs property is that it is entangled with the legalities because it does not always meet traditional contractual standards of legal land ownership.
The central challenge of heirs property is that the land is not just property that whose value can be fixed in traditional ways. The value is personal, and for many, it is tied to a family’s history, and pride. The land is part of a family’s identity. When it is thought of in those terms, Gullah/Geechee land cannot meet standard forms of land valuation.
Penn Center will receive $650,000 over five years to fund the new school.
“We have friends and allies who support our efforts to continue the tradition of convening people for collective action. For providing an inclusive and community space to dream,” Robert Adams, Executive Director of Penn Center told WTOC News.
