FILE - Marquetta Goodwine, a local community leader who is also known as "Queen Quet", speaks to Associated Press journalists about Gullah Geechee history, at the ruins of the Chapel of Ease, where plantation owning families would attend church services, on St. Helena Island, S.C., on Oct. 29, 2021. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)

FILE - Gullah Geechee fisherman Ricky Wright casts his line as he fishes for bass in a marsh waterway with eroded banks on St. Helena Island, S.C., Sunday, Oct. 31, 2021. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)

FILE - In this May 16, 2013, file photo, a utility pole stands in the middle of a marsh at sunset on Sapelo Island, Ga., a Gullah-Geechee community. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

FILE - Sapelo Island, Ga., descendant and land owner Reginald Hall speaks at a news conference outside federal court, Dec. 9, 2015, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

FILE - The sun rises over Sapelo Island, Ga., a Gullah-Geechee community, on June 10, 2013. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

Festival goers who attended a Gullah Geechee festival on Sapelo Island leave the Elm Grove Church where they were taken to reunite with loved ones on Sapelo Island, Ga in McIntosh county, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Lewis M. Levine)