South Carolina’s Gullah Geechee Are Denied Their Right to Bury Their Loved Ones

South Carolina’s Gullah Geechee Are Denied Their Right to Bury Their Loved Ones

For generations, Mary Mack’s family has offered free burial plots to the bereaved families on St. Helena Island. It’s an ancestral calling and a tradition.  Spanning 64 square miles, the island on the coast of South Carolina is home to one of the largest remaining Gullah Geechee communities in the southeast U.S. Surrounded by creeks, marshes and the Beaufort River, this land and its surrounding waters are sacred to the residents.  The formerly e…