By Miles Sanders
I was born and raised on St. Helena island as the fifth generation of a family that farmed the land and shrimped the waters. The majority of my life has been lived on the island. For a few years I have lived around the country, but the island always managed to stay near my heart; I made a point of returning whenever I possibly could.
I teach 7th Grade Social Studies at Lady’s Island Middle School while living in the house that I grew up in on St. Helena. This year I turned 34, but I already know that this is where I will spend the remainder of my life. There is a serenity to knowing that you are in the place you will spend the rest of your years, but also a great urgency to protect this home at all costs.
The potential development of Pine Island would forever alter the island I live on in a manner that is not sustainable for future generations.
I can imagine no other way of spending my youth than waking in the early hours of the morning to board my father’s shrimp boats, smelling salt and diesel on deck in the night air, running barefoot through aromatic, heat-baked tomato fields, and sinking up to my waist in pluff mud as I chased fiddler crabs. All of my best memories growing up are on this island and of its people.
My family wasn’t born to the Gullah culture, but we were surrounded by it and it shaped who we are. The people who worked with us on the boats and in the fields were from the island. In the classroom, I am Mr. Sanders. But at the Seaside Mini Mart, Chaps, or even at the CPO rally, I am introduced as Paul’s son. I have a tremendous amount of emotion while typing this because of the pride that swells within me at being a part of this community. Words are inadequate to describe these formative experiences, and I would see that future generations could grow up experiencing the same St. Helena.
My siblings and I own 400 acres of land, a large portion of which is under a conservation agreement with the Beaufort Open Land Trust. We are representatives of the younger generations in Beaufort and we would never willingly part with or develop our land. There is no amount of money that could ever approach the value this land has or influence us to do harm to our neighbors by changing the island. We do not have that prerogative, nor the arrogance to even consider it.
The land and the people are already precariously perched on the brink of being swallowed up by development without their neighbors hastening it. I can assure you that we are not alone in these values.
Some of you may have been recently swayed by letters and voices claiming that the youngest generations are in favor of development. I am writing to tell you that if you wish to know the heart of the youth on St. Helena, then you must not listen to the advocates that would tell you that a golf course is the answer. On a daily basis I am in contact with the island’s younger generations and I can tell you, emphatically, that they do not wish to lose their homes, their culture, and their futures to unimaginative development.
It is irresponsible to let a small cadre, formulated by the opposition, sway public policy when they are not representative of the greater sentiment within Beaufort. Reject the fallacy they are pushing. For months the people of this town have heard a multitude of the voices in staunch opposition to this development. Voices that belong to young, old, black, white, and even indigenous peoples. For our representatives to consider vacillating it tells me that small interests with deep pockets have already swayed them against the good of the whole. Do not pin your reasoning on the words of a small handful.
Months ago, I posed the question to my class of 7th Graders: Should Pine Island Be Developed? For two weeks we strove to research and write on this topic relating to our regional geography while the greater community grappled with the same question. I did nothing to sway the children to either side of the argument.
Now, more than ever, it is imperative to be able to parse out fact from fiction while recognizing the influence of bias. More than 90% of my students argued against development for reasons ranging from the environment, congestion, cultural erosion, and increased taxes. One of my students even volunteered to address a crowd of more than 400 people at St. Helena Elementary during the Pine Island community rally.
There is no evidence that the youth of the sea islands suddenly formed a zeitgeist for development, which would run contradictory to how they have been raised for generations. What you must understand is that these children that I have the privilege of teaching, are from here and they already grasp the consequences of development in their backyards. They made these arguments not because they were pushed to make them but because they have a vested interest in the future of the island.
A developer from Boston cannot fathom the stewardship and community that has been fostered on this island since Reconstruction. His obligation to this area does not extend beyond profit margins. Do not fall for his reckless myopia. He has an opportunity to create a world-class eco-resort within the bounds established by the CPO but he refuses to consider this possibility. There is room within the language to create something that is truly extraordinary on St. Helena. Instead he refutes any alternative to his agenda and is adamant in his “mission” to construct a golf course. He has done so knowing that rules very clearly state there are no allowances for any such development.
Without exception, every time a developer comes to our area, they always come under the guise of knowing what’s best for our community and people. The reality is that our values almost always fall so far outside their wheelhouse that there is no opportunity for reconciliation. The people of the island are not driven by greed, and I can assure you that we know what is best to serve our people for the road forward. How many public hearings is it going to take for our elected officials to decide that we do not need arguments of neo-paternalism to decide our future? We already decided it 30 years ago with the CPO.
If this developer held honest intentions towards minimizing impact on our community he would not make threats to develop every parcel of his property. If the rules were ignored this one time it would spell the end of the island. There are still considerable large property owners on the island. If they ever decided to sell to developers they could probably leverage building Disneyland on St. Helena so long as they made the argument that they were minimizing density impacts. This is a slippery slope we must not go down. We have developed at breakneck speed for too long without considering what is both right and necessary.
For months our representatives have remained staunchly in favor of our interests, the interests of their constituents. The people of not only St. Helena, but the surrounding Sea Islands, implore that you remain steadfast allies, that you stay true to the obligations of public office. Give us faith that electoral politics still work and that they are not corrupted by avarice. This is a community founded on the values of mutual support and solidarity. The days of old Beaufort may be gone, but we still know our neighbors and have each other’s backs. That is why we fight so hard together to see that this development does not come to pass.
I would like to leave you with an excerpt from a 1992 interview of my grandfather in the Savannah News.
“Somebody laid down this land besides me,” Sanders said, “and we want to take care of it so it will be that way, or better, when we leave it. If my sons were interested in selling the land, I’d boot them the hell off.”
Real estate people occasionally do come sniffing around, and some have made enticing offers.
“We are not growing condominiums or golf courses.
“The developers are going to have to go someplace else. I like living here.”
Miles Sanders is a 5th generation St. Helena Islander. He teaches 7th Grade Social Studies at Lady’s Island Middle School.
