Dallas Mavericks star Kyrie Irving has donated $40,000 to a 93-year-old South Carolina woman in her legal battle to protect her childhood home from an encroaching developer.
Josephine Wright, a long-time resident of South Carolina’s picturesque Hilton Head Island, is being sued by Bailey Point Investment Group for allegedly blocking developer progress on a 147-unit complex adjacent to her property – an 1.8-square lot. care that was first settled by escaped slaves and has remained in her family since the Civil War. Wright inherited the land from her late husband in 2012.
The developers reportedly made offers of up to $39,000 to buy Wright’s lot, but when she declined, they began a campaign of harassment that included slashing her tires, throwing garbage on her property, and even hanging a hose out of her window, she claims.
“I think they thought the harassment would make me so nervous 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 founded in Wright’s name, which is how Irving ended up donating $40,000 to her legal efforts. That campaign had raised $248,263 of its $350,000 goal by Wednesday morning.
Wright, a resident of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, says she is being forced off her land
Kyrie Irving has donated over $500,000 to various gofundme campaigns over the years
Wright is backed by former state legislator Bakari Sellers
While Irving has become a controversial figure in NBA circles, he has also developed a reputation for generosity.
In 2017, he paid school fees for a 12-year-old battling a debilitating migraine condition known as pseudotumor cerebri, as well as funeral expenses for a 14-year-old at Irving’s old high school in New Jersey.
More recently, Irving paid for funeral expenses and other expenses for the family of Shanquella Robinson, a woman who was killed while on vacation in Mexico last year.
In fact, Irving has donated more than $500,000 to various gofundme campaigns, according to NetsDaily.com, a Brooklyn-based team blog.
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.
As for the lawsuit, Bailey Point claims they own part of the land on which Wright’s property sits, including her front porch.
Wright and her supportive neighbors have argued that her property is 25 feet from the Bailey Point boundary.
“I don’t want to say anything that can be used against me, but I think they are unscrupulous and greedy and they want all the property they can get their hands on,” Wright said.
“I just want to keep my property and they leave me alone.”
Wright has now commissioned an attorney, Bluffton-based attorney Roberts Vaux, to challenge the case.
She has also received support from former state legislator Bakari Sellers and the NAACP.
Sellers initially tried to start a dialogue with the development company about the situation, but received no response.
“I just want to keep my property and they should leave me alone,” Wright told reporters Thursday
The property has been in the Wright family since just after the Civil War
Wright’s husband was a Gullah Geechee Islander whose relatives were escaped slaves freed by Union soldiers and moved to the estate
Bailey Point claims they own some of the land on which Wright’s property stands, even her front porch
“Perhaps more disrespectful than a no is a non-answer,” Sellers told reporters.
Wright’s situation is not unique and many other black landowners on the island have been pressured over the years to sell their property. according to the island package.
Gullah’s landowners, in particular, have seen their share of the island’s land dwindle to a fraction of private owners, despite being among the first to settle there permanently after the civil war.
Sellers told reporters that “there is a concerted effort to take property from black people in our community, who have lived great lives.
“This is about generational wealth, it’s very hard to come by. This is about land ownership, this is about heir property, which we know we have a lot to deal with here,” he explained.
Bailey Point Investment Group for encroaching on their land and blocking their progress in developing a 147-acre scheme adjacent to Wright’s historic property
Charise Graves, Wright’s granddaughter, told reporters of the disruption her elderly grandmother had to endure over the past year: “Unbeknownst to us, they’ve just started cutting down trees.
“Our house was shaking like it was an earthquake. They didn’t even have the decency to let us know this was happening.’
The lawsuit is still in the discovery stage, and Wright’s family has commissioned an independent investigation to see if the alleged infringement crosses the property boundary.
Wright claims her porch has about 22 feet of space between the end and the property line.