Issue 002 // Coast to Coast

I watched a Vice doc on the Gullah Geechee a while back and thought I understood the situation. Read this week's Guardian piece and realized I didn't. They're still going. Same land, same mechanisms, same developers. The story didn't end when the cameras left.

That's the thread this week. The ground keeps shifting under people who've already been through it once. The Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act and Florida had a new gerrymandered map ready within the hour. Lagos is demolishing thousands of homes for luxury development. Nauru is renaming itself before someone else does it for them.

The camera might move on. The story never does.

— Corey // Louisville, KY

Sunday, May 17, 2026

🌍 US South · South Carolina

Seven hundred dollars. That's the average delinquent tax bill that starts the chain. The one that ends with a developer owning land a Gullah family has held since before the Civil War. Not thousands. Not some complicated financial instrument. Seven hundred dollars, unpaid, and the county puts your ancestral property up for auction.

Here's the mechanism nobody's explaining. Heirs' property is land passed through generations without a formal will, and it can be owned by thirty people simultaneously. A developer only needs to buy one of those thirty shares. Once they're in, they're a co-owner with the legal right to force a sale of the entire property. The family members who stayed, who paid taxes, who maintained the land, get bought out at market rate and that's it. The land that Gullah people were given specifically because nobody wanted it, too hot, too humid, too bug-infested, is now half-million dollar townhomes. One family's ancestral 8 hectares in Hilton Head is now a subdivision called Old Stoney Village. The remaining family members live in mobile homes on the 0.8 hectares the developer set aside. A gray fence separates them from their own land.

The numbers tell the rest. In 1940 most of Hilton Head's residents were Black descendants of freedmen. By 2020 that number was 6%. Gullah land ownership dropped from 1,400 hectares before 1956 to 390 hectares in 2023. The bills to stop it are stalled in committee. The climate crisis is flooding the coastal land that's left, making it unusable while the taxes keep running. Last week we watched Congo's minerals get carved up by foreign consortiums while Congolese people held nothing. This week it's South Carolina. Different coast. Same mechanism. The ground was always theirs. Until it wasn't.

🇺🇸 The Voting Rights Act just got gutted Five civil rights activists are slamming the Supreme Court's decision to gut the Voting Rights Act. Last week we watched Memphis get redistricted. This week the legal framework that was supposed to prevent it got weaker. The room keeps getting smaller.

The Guardian → https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/09/activists-supreme-court-voting-rights-act

🇳🇷 Nauru is renaming itself The Pacific island nation of Nauru is proposing a name change to break from its colonial past. When a nation reclaims its name it's reclaiming the map. Small country. Massive statement.

Africanews → http://www.africanews.com/2026/05/13/pacific-island-nation-of-nauru-proposes-name-change-in-break-from-colonial-past/

🇬🇧 Black people in England are twice as likely to have a stroke New data shows Black people in England suffer strokes at twice the rate of white counterparts. The ground shifts under your health too. This isn't a lifestyle story. It's a structural one.

The Guardian → https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/06/black-people-twice-likely-stroke-white-england-study

🇨🇦 A Black Inuk researcher is surfacing histories the Arctic buried A researcher is unearthing hidden Northern histories that connect Black and Indigenous identity in Canada's far north. The ground shifts when the record gets corrected. This one's worth your full attention.

The Caribbean Camera → https://thecaribbeancamera.com/black-inuk-researcher-unearths-hidden-northern-histories/

🇹🇹 The Hilton Trinidad workers don't know if they have jobs The Communications Workers Union is raising alarm over the uncertain future of the Hilton Trinidad. Hospitality workers in the Caribbean hanging on while ownership figures out what the property is worth to them. Sound familiar?

Trinidad Guardian → http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/cwu-raises-alarm-over-uncertain-future-of-hilton-trinidad-6.2.2583375.84182de484

Divers are making pilgrimages to the wreck of an 18th century slave ship to connect with the remains of people who never made it to shore. Most outlets covered it as a human interest story. A moving moment. People seeking roots.

But sit with the property question for a minute. Who owns a slave ship wreck? Who controls access to it? Who decides whether it gets excavated, preserved, or left alone? In most jurisdictions the answer is the federal government or the country whose waters it sits in. Not the descendants. Not the communities whose ancestors are down there. The people making these dives are doing it themselves because they're not waiting for an institution to decide when and how they get to grieve.

That's the through-line connecting it to everything else in this issue. Gullah families banding together to pay each other's taxes because the state won't protect them. Nauru renaming itself without asking for permission. The ground shifts when people stop waiting for institutions to do what institutions were never designed to do for them.

AP → https://apnews.com/article/slave-ship-shipwreck-pilgrimage-black-divers-florida-a02e92c53955675db142cae24eba43a4

MON · 18 South Carolina legislature expected to begin redistricting
session in wake of Voting Rights Act ruling. Gullah Geechee
districts directly in play.

WED · 20 Louisiana primary election deadline looms state must submit
new congressional map after Supreme Court struck down
majority-Black district.

FRI · 22 Watch for additional state redistricting announcements Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi flagged as next to move.

SUN · 24 Next issue lands.