James Bradley, 90, has worked the tidal creeks and coastal waters around St. Helena Island his entire life. He is seen here at the family’s seafood shop, which they have run since the early 1970s.Â
Her instinct to hedge reflects a state in transition. Flooded streets on sunny days, ghost forests created by saltwater intrusion, and growing community pushback against data centers and gas plants near the ACE Basin have made outright climate change denial harder to sustain.
But while South Carolina’s leadership speaks readily of resilience, it has been slower to hold the industries driving the change to account.
For the Gullah-Geechee, many of the forces threatening their survival go beyond politics.
When Jimmy went to buy his own boat less than a decade ago, the asking price jumped by tens of thousands of dollars the moment the seller realized he was Black.
“He was shocked,” Bertha said. “Because he didn’t think — this is less than 10 years ago — that you still had racism.”
They have outlasted it, just as they have outlasted the developers, the resort economy and competitors.
“I watched them come,” James said. “And I watched them go.”
The Bradleys have paid their own price for staying. Bertha manages diabetes and a pacemaker, her medications running to hundreds of dollars a month. When either of them needs specialist care, the nearest reliable option is Savannah, an hour’s drive away.
“I always tell my family, ‘I hope I don’t be too sick that you all have to stop me in Beaufort,' †Bertha said. “ ‘I want to go straight to Savannah.' “
Many primary care doctors and other specialists have flocked to Bluffton, about an hour's drive from Beaufort and a hub for retirees and golfers.
James, at 90, has learned to manage his own health quietly. When he doesn’t feel well, he sometimes does not tell his son. Jimmy works long hours on the water, and James does not want to be the reason he stops.
“I’ve got to be real sick before I tell him,” he said.
It is a calculation familiar to many elderly Gullah residents — weighing the cost of care not just in dollars but in disruption, in dependence, in the fear of becoming a burden to the people holding everything together.
