‘I want to be left alone’: The 93-year-old Hilton Head Island woman is locked in a legal battle over her family’s land

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Josephine Wright speaks during a press conference.

CNN –

Josephine Wright and her late husband, Samuel Wright Sr., relocated from New York to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina nearly 30 years ago in search of rest and relaxation on a family property.

The four-acre property had been in her husband’s family since the Civil War, and it’s where they carried on family traditions, hosting Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations, planting trees and bushes, and building a porch, Wright said.

Wright, who is 93, acquired the deed in 2012 after her husband died in 1998, her granddaughter Tracey Love Graves said.

Now, Wright’s beloved property is at the center of a legal battle with a developer who wants to build a residential development next door. According to The Post and Courier, Georgia-based Bailey Point Investment, LLC plans to build 147 homes.

Graves said Bailey Point previously showed up at her grandmother’s house and offered $30,000 for Wright’s land, which she declined.

The developer later filed a lawsuit against Wright in February 2023, alleging that her satellite dish, shed, and screened-in porch interfered with the developer’s property and delayed the construction of new homes.

The lawsuit called for the buildings to be removed and called for “just and reasonable compensation for loss of use and enjoyment” of their property, as well as costs related to delays in development.

Wright and Graves said they had since removed the shed and satellite dish and were preparing to downsize the screened-in porch when Wright decided to file a counterclaim.

“My porch is not on their property,” Wright told CNN.

Wright’s counterclaim, filed April 25 and amended in June, accused Bailey Point of “a constant barrage of intimidation, harassment and trespassing tactics to frame this lawsuit in an attempt to force her to sell her property.”

The counterclaim also accused the developer of “vandalizing her property, trespassing on her property, cutting off brush and shrubs, dumping trash and allowing dirt and debris to cover her car, house and belongings.” The lawsuit said Wright was “deprived of the peaceful use of her property.”

Bailey Point filed a response to the counterclaim on May 24, denying all of those allegations. The developer also denied attempting to purchase Wright’s property and was told it was not for sale.

The lawsuit draws renewed attention to the historic dispossession of black-owned land. Wright told CNN she was concerned the developer was using known pressure tactics to get her to give in and sell her property.

Bailey Point’s attorneys have not responded to CNN’s request for comment.

“I want to be left alone,” Wright said. “I want to live on my property as I have always done in peace and quiet.”

Bakari Sellers, a civil rights attorney working for Wright, said land struggles with contractors have historically been a problem for the Gullah Geechee people – descendants of Africans enslaved on the lower Atlantic coast and forced to work on rice, indigo and sea were cotton plantations on the island. Wright’s late husband was Gullah Geechee.

“Your land is so precious,” Sellers said. “They (developers) have been doing this for years. That’s not new.”

Wright hopes her fight will inspire other black landowners on Hilton Head Island to defend their property.

“They were never able to fight back,” Wright said. “But once they see someone do it, they will know they have the right to do what I did.”

Wright’s land fight has caught the attention of celebrities, including NBA star Kyrie Irving, who has donated $40,000 to a GoFundMe set up to raise money for her legal fees. Filmmaker Tyler Perry also shared Wright’s story on Instagram, saying, “Please tell where to show up and what you need to fight.”