Dallas Mavericks star Kyrie Irving has donated $40,000 to a 93-year-old South Carolina woman in her legal battle to protect her family’s home from an encroaching developer.
Josephine Wright, a longtime resident of South Carolina’s picturesque Hilton Head Island, is suing Bailey Point Investment Group for allegedly blocking a developer’s progress on a 147-unit complex next to her property — a 1.8-acre plot that was first settled by escaped slaves and since the Civil War. is in his family. Wright inherited the land from her late husband in 2012.
The developers reportedly offered Wright up to $39,000 to buy the plot, but when he refused, they began a campaign of harassment that included slashing his tires, littering his property and even hanging a snake from his window, he alleged. by doing
‘I guess they thought I’d be so upset by the harassment that I’d say take it,’ Wright said at a recent news conference. But they don’t know me. I’m here to fight for what I have.’
A gofundme page was started in Wright’s name, which is how Irving came to donate $40,000 to his legal efforts. The campaign had raised $248,263 of its $350,000 goal as of Wednesday morning.
Wright, a resident of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, said he was being forced off his land
Kyrie Irving has donated over $500,000 to various gofundme campaigns over the years
Wright is being supported by former state legislator Bakary Sellers
While Irving has become a controversial figure in NBA circles for his vaccine stance and accusations of anti-Semitism, he has also developed a reputation for generosity.
In 2017, he paid for the funeral of a 12-year-old battling a debilitating migraine condition known as pseudotumor cerebri, as well as a 14-year-old at his old high school in Irving, New Jersey.
Most recently, Irving paid funeral and other expenses for the family of Shanquella Robinson, a woman who was murdered while vacationing in Mexico last year.
In fact, according to Brooklyn team blog NetsDaily.com, Irving has donated more than $500,000 to various gofundme campaigns.
Irving recently re-signed with the Mavericks, agreeing to a three-year deal worth $126 million. He was acquired in a trade with Brooklyn last season, but failed to propel Dallas to a playoff berth.
For its case, Bailey Point argues that it owns a portion of the land on which Wright’s property is located, including Wright’s porch.
Wright and his supportive neighbors argue that his property is 22 feet from the Bailey Point border.
‘I don’t want to say anything that could be used against me, but I think they are unscrupulous and greedy and want all the property they can get their hands on,’ Wright said.
‘I just want to keep my property and they’ll leave me alone.’
Wright now has an attorney, Bluffton-based lawyer Roberts Vox, to fight the case.
He also received endorsements from former state legislator Bakari Sellers and the NAACP.
The vendors initially tried to open a dialogue with the development agency about the situation but received no response.
“I just want to keep my property and they leave me alone,” Wright told reporters Thursday.
The property had been in the Wright family since just after the Civil War
Wright’s husband was a Gullah Ghee Islander whose relatives had moved onto the property after escaping slaves freed by Union soldiers.
Bailey points out that they own a portion of Wright’s property, even sitting on his porch.
‘Probably more disrespectful than no,’ Sellers told reporters.
Wright’s situation is not unique, and many other black landowners on the island have been pressured to sell their properties over the years, according to the Island Packet.
Despite being among the first to settle permanently there after the Civil War, Gullah landowners in particular saw their island landholdings dwindle to a fraction of private owners.
Sellers told reporters that ‘there is a concerted effort to take property from black people in our community, who have had great lives.
‘It’s about generational wealth, it’s very difficult to obtain. It’s about land ownership, it’s about heirs’ property, which we know we deal with a lot here.’
Bailey Point Investment Group blocked their progress in acquiring the land and developing acreage, 147-unit plans next to Wright’s historic property.
Wright’s granddaughter Charice Graves told reporters of the disruption her elderly grandmother had endured over the past year: ‘Unbeknownst to us, they just started tearing down the trees.
‘Our house was shaking like an earthquake. They didn’t even have the decency to tell us what was going on.’
The case is still in the discovery phase and Wright’s family has conducted an independent survey to determine whether the alleged encroachment crossed parcel boundaries.
Wright maintains that there is about 22 feet of space between the end of his porch and the property line.
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