REEL SOUTH

[CHRISTOPHER WILDER] I can always remember my granddaddy, how he cared for the land.

He wanted the land for the grandchildren.

[LORETHA WILDER] We want to keep that family connection.

[THADDEUS JOHNSON] My name is Thaddeus and this is my family.

We are Gullah Geechee people from the coast of South Carolina, descendants of enslaved West Africans known for our unique accent and deeply rooted African traditions.

We own part of this beautiful island.

Thanks to my fourth great grandfather, Harrison, a Union soldier during the Civil War, he worked hard to secure part of this former plantation for his family.

Today, that land is what's known as heirs' property.

Back when many Black families couldn't afford lawyers, passing down land informally without a will became a way to keep it in the family.

But that also means every one of his descendants now has a say in what happens to it.

That's why we gather over a shared meal to decide how this land stays in our family for generations to come.

It's, it's good for us to get here together and, you know, talk about the last time that we were at Taylor Island and what we gonna do next?

[ARTHUR WILDER] Yeah.

So, why Uncle Christopher, was it important to you to, for us, the family to get together and explore the island?

[CAMERON JOHNSON] How did the Wilder family come to own Taylor Island?

Well, that property right now, at least the Wilder- Harrison Wilder portion is held in heirs' property.

And, what do you see as like the benefits or the challenges with heirs' property?

[ARTHUR WILDER] Well, one thing I was going to say is with heirs' property, to me it's like money in the bank, you know, that you can, donate or pass on to, children and grandchildren just like to pass it on to us.

And that would be to be the same.

They would always have something, you know, be, or do, you know, to own something that way.

Heirs' property.

It's fine, so long as everybody agrees.

[LORETHA WILDER] That's, that's the thing.

The challenge now is the form of ownership that we should have going into the future.

Should it be some sort of, corporation?

Should it be a trust?

Where there're rules and or, or something like an LLC where there's a, a more beneficial form of ownership.

we'll have to make it, make some sort of stipulation where a sale cannot be forced because of one individual.

[music] [THADDEUS JOHNSON] Untangling heirs' property ownership isn't easy.

Harrison's six children had children of their own, and now, generations later, each of us holds an equal stake in the land we've gathered to protect.

Or at least give, Give the family an opportunity to buy it back, you know, because, you know, if I decide I don't want to own something anymore.

Yeah.

You know, at least give her the opportunity, you know, to take to take possession of it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because I figured it's just like, we got this group here, right?

Suppose we were sitting under the tree, and, and Taylor.

and camp out.

in, like, a camp bound situation, right?

Yeah.

Wouldn't it be great?

I see Taylor being some place for, you know, friends, family, fun and some business, you know.

You know with the proper clearing.

There's a lot that we could do.

We want to keep that family connection, keep it going.

You know, for Cameron, for Cameron's children and her children.

Same thing for my, my children and my children's children.

Right.

You know we always want to try to keep that in line for the simple fact we know what our parents had to go through to keep it for us.

[THADDEUS JOHNSON] Taylor Island is a microcosm of the challenges Gullah Geechee families face with ancestral lands.

It and our future hang in the balance.

Will our history be lost to the waves, or can our legacy be preserved?

Around this dinner table, Stories were shared, wounds began to heal, and a new generation was inspired to write their own chapter in Taylor's story.

This is not just our family's fight.

It's a story that calls on all of us to protect and honor the places that connect us to our past.

[music]