tonight, the nation. >> you're talking about the blood, sweat and tears of my ancestors being in here. >> now threatened from the troubles in the sea and huron land. >> what's the threat, development, climate change? >> all of the above. >> inside their fight for survival. >> even though the ocean may be coming, we been here, we ain't going nowhere. >> what can save this sacred american land from being lost forever? >> if nothing is done, i'm afraid a community like this may not exist 80 years from now. >> this special edition of "nightline," "keepers of the "nightline," "keepers of the land," will be right back.

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ this special edition of "nightline," "keepers of the land," continues. here now, byron pitts. ♪ >> reporter: amird the warm rays of the carolina coast -- where suffering was once a burden of

birth rose a rogual people. they are the guligichi. and for them, this land is sacred. >> the sweetness of that, i still can come here. and i can actually point to where my ancestors flowed through these waters. >> to say that we would be the same without the land is not understanding who guligichi people are. >> reporter: it's well documented around the world, a climate crisis threatens people from all walks of life. global warming. rising oceans. massive storms. stripping away land like never before. but here at home, down south

along the buckle of the bible belt, little attention has been focused on the risks, until now. >> we have broken records for the last eight-year cycle. record flooding cycles, record rain. how much more evidence do people need to say something is going on? >> even though the ocean coming, we been here, we ain't going nowhere. >> reporter: tonight, one of the front lines of climate change with the people who farmed on, bled for, and loved these lands for centuries. the guligichi nation. theirs is a dual battle. preserve their past, protect their future. >> we're people of the sea. so we will rise. and we will remain. >> reporter: there's a precise method to growing okra. part science, part art.

the ingredients are timeless. add water, sun, sweat, and patience by the spoonful. in faith, lave it like butter. joseph fields' family have been farming this land over a century. your grandparents were farmers? >> grandparents were farmers, parents were farmers, now i'm a farmer. my grandson, he wants to take over the farm. i'm the third jen race, he would be the fourth generation. >> reporter: close to nature, close to his heart. >> you're a gulla? >> yes. >> what's special about this place? >> what's special about this place? you love it, love the water. everybody over here is brothers life, free outdoor life. >> reporter: a free life forged on a graveyard of repression. these are where slave houses

once stood. it's here where the guligichi people can trace their history, the descendents of west african slaves. the hot summers brought mosquitos and malaria, keeping the slave owners inland and this free community to maintain their language, their culture, undisturbed. this coastal community is designated by congress as a cultural heritage corridor. from jacksonville, north carolina to jacksonville, forida. here "hello" can lead to a mouth-watering meal. >> you guys want barbecue sauce? it's over here. >> reporter: pork, shrimp, okra, and the core of every gulla meal, rice. >> in alabama, cotton was king wide receiver in charleston, south carolina? >> rice was king. the rice kingdom. >> reporter: what makes this place special makes it vulnerable. a life of the sea. a world where ocean rise and warming temperatures have become

a generational challenge. >> strawberries goes away, the green onions, the collareds? it will take more water to take them going. over 100 degrees is too hot. >> you've seen it get worse in your lifetime? >> oh, yeah, it gets gradually worse. >> reporter: it's a problem marine scientists and proud guligichi george have dedicated lives to understanding. >> what might this area look like ten years from now based on climate change? >> reality, it's a lot of change that's going to occur. >> you seem sad. >> it's sad because it's reality a lot of people will deal with. it's going to have disproportional impact on those people who don't have the resources to mitigate the risk. if nothing is done, i'm afraid a community like this may not really exist 80 years from now. >> reporter: the threats of sea level rise and flooding made worse by decade-long development

projects across the coastal region. it's a trifecta of troubles. decimating habitats, disrupting natural drainage systems, and eroding an already delicate coastline. what's the bigger threat, gentrification, development, or climate change? >> i would say all of the above. because you don't have one without the other, right? in the instance of this community, we're currently in a 10-mile community. a community that even without any development was dealing with flooding, risk mitigation around flood inundation. couple that to high-density development, being able to come into this community, you just took a situation that was bad, you put it on steroids. >> reporter: we are just arriving in st. helena island, home to the largest gullagichi community in the country. we're about to meet a queen. two hours south of charleston, st. helena island is in many

ways the beating heart of gullagichi nation, and queen quet its soul. an ivy league-educated author and mathematician who travels the country and the world sounding the alarm on climate change's impact on the gulla way of life. i get the sense of people i talk to, when you talk about climate change in the u.s., that the gullagichi community is ground zero? >> absolutely. i tell people, we are the front shoreline of climate change. that's how i see it, yeah. and the sad thing about it is the other people who are now paying attention to it wouldn't listen when we were talking at first. >> gullagichi aren't just people, they're people and land? you can't have one without the other? >> exactly. i say, our culture is tied to the land. the land be we, we be the land. the water bring me, the water

want to take me back. you poison the water, you poison the culture. you poison the culture, there's no cultural heritage. >> reporter: here at her ancestral home, a 10-acre family compound where she lives with 45 relatives, pride is a palpable fragrance that fills the air. this is your great grandfather's? >> my great great grandfather. >> he was a slave? >> right, he had been enslaved. >> i am struck by how casually you said, my great great grandfathgrand grandfather bought this in 1862 and we still have it. >> it's a blessing. i know it's not a common story. somebody else in the media said to me one day, i took them to a burial area, because again, our burial areas are threatened by sea level rise and construction, people trying to build on them. i took them in there, they said, well, tell me who's in here? and i said, oh, this is my great great granddaddy, and that would

have been my daddy's daddy, da da da, this is the grand uncle, that's his brother -- i think a lot of gullagichis can do that and we take it for granted. that's the unfortunate thing. >> reporter: holding on to this land is a never-ending struggle. queen quet says developers offer to buy her family land from her every week. >> you're talking about the blood, the sweat, and the tears of my ancestors being in here. when i sweat, my sweat drops on top of their sweat that was already there. so if you say to me you want to buy my land? you're asking me to sell you my family. so you're telling me, put my family back on the auction block? after all it took to break down the auction blocks? that is offensive to say the least. >> i hear a "hell no" in that sentence. >> you got it. there's no consideration. there's no price tag. there's nothing you could give me to say, sell you my land. that's insanity. >> i came in search of a story and found a sermon.

>> there we go. amen, hallelujah! >> reporter: here the scripture is science. measurable evidence climate change is threatening to do what slavery and jim crow could not. >> we had too many 100-plus-degree days. heat island effect has hit the sea islands. and that h threatened our food security. >> that's climate change? >> that's climate change. when we come back -- >> is there a simple villain here? >> no, there's not a simple villain. but there are a multiplicity of villains. >> a search for answers. >> i don't want to be the mayor that says, we got to head for the hills. >> what could save gullagichi nation from the coming oceans? >> sometimes you cut off your nose to spite your face, and that's what we're doing if we're not careful. now, there's skyrizi. ♪ things are getting clearer ♪ ♪ yeah i feel free ♪ ♪ to bare my skin, yeah that's all me. ♪ ♪ nothing and me go hand in hand ♪

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prevagen. healthier brain. better life. this is sullivan's island, a wealthy tourist town not far from charleston, south carolina. for many reasons, for african-americans this is our ellis island. it's estimated that 40% to 50% of enslaved africans brought to this country first touched u.s. soil here. if you've heard "make a way out of no way," folk here believe that mantra was born on these beaches. it's with that spirit many in the gullah geechee nation believe they can help with climate change, provide solutions to the problem. >> this is a sign that you're seeing, intrusion of saltwater or brackish water that is allowing this vegetation to be here. >> reporter: often when we think

about climate crisis, the effects are obvious. massive storms. melting clash eglaciers. flooded community records more often the effects are invisible to the untrained eye. telltale signs of flooding, like s one of those things? f waycra >> better believe it. >> this should be over there? >> correct. >> the fact that it's over here is not a good sign? >> it is a sign, i would say, that it's a shifting balance that's currently in play in this community. >> reporter: scientists like albert george believe some of the solutions to climate change are hiding in plain sight, if only humans would allow nature to be nature. >> a big part of how you can mitigate flood risk is through nature-based solutions. >> reporter: mother nature's built-in defense system. this very marsh we're standing on, if allowed to thrive, acts

as a buffer, absorbing water from hurricanes and flooding. >> if we could figure out ways to keep this marsh healthy and whole, not only are we protecting one of the most dynamic bayous in the world, but by doing so, who lives behind the marsh? who lives behind the sand dune? people. >> we are taking every effort, from a policy point of view, from a infrastructure point of view, from a citizen engagement point of view, to protect this city against climate change and sea level rise. it's our destiny. >> reporter: charleston mayor john tecklenburg, a blue leader in a deep red state, campaigned on the promise of protecting a city from climate disaster. >> i was struck in looking over your state of the city address of the four top issues you see climate change as one of those four? >> absolutely. well, as i say, we're at the forefront of it.

and i view it as an existential threat to this city. >> reporter: a tall order for one of the most popular destinations of the country, the charleston region alone growing three times faster than the u.s. average. that growth means more tourists, more buildings, more roads, more homes. strains on a delicate landscape already plagued by climate change's wrath. >> for years we built in the wrong places, and it caused flooding problems. and so we've revised our storm water manual so that when you build something in the city of charleston, you're not only thinking about the drainage from your property and surrounding properties, but in fact, everything in the drainage basin. everything downstream from you till it gets to the ocean. >> reporter: a plan in place, including protecting marshes and wetlands, buying up properties and converting them to natural habitats, and working with the army corps of engineers to erect a massive sea wall meant to protect parts of charleston.

but some within the gullah geechee community feel they've heard this story before. >> if this wall is around one part of the peninsula of charleston, what about the other side? water finds its own level. so the concern is, if you wall up and protect the hotels and you protect those mansions, what going to happen do we? >> the history of charleston is, whether real or imagined, historically that when money was spent to improve something, white folk got it first, black folk got it last. today, talking about building a sea wall that, as it appears, protects white communities and doesn't necessarily protect some black communities. it sounds like, oh-oh, here we go again. >> well, the wall will be eight miles long. will protect directly the east side of charleston, historic african-american neighborhood. >> as you deal with this issue of climate change, how do you

make that right, fix that for the community that we're looking at in particular, the gullah geechee community? >> well, we do the drainage basin at a time. figuring out where the water goes. addressing those areas that flood the most frequently. and try to address them first. but also look at the long-range protection of our entire city. not just from storm events, but from sea level rise. >> reporter: across gullah geechee nation, they're not waiting for anyone to save them. like the developers, they're investing in themselves. working with epa and landscape architects to tackle the problem head-on. >> you protect the coastline in a way that helps all of our health. >> we want to educate people more about what you call a living shoreline. you have those types of vegetation that actually absorb

water, but also cleanse the water at the same time. i participated in several oyster reef rebuilds here, so that we can make sure the oysters are here to cleanse the water out and increase the water quality and sustain it. god has not given us a spirit of fear. my spirit says that if people would do right, we could reverse this. >> reporter: for the gullah geechee of american southern low country, fending off climate change is a lot like farming. a little science, a little art, and a bushel of faith. for four centuries, it worked for their ancestors. now in the face of the coming storm, come hell or high water, they will remain. >> people bet against it happening and here we are. we still right here. so i always say to people, when i come to the water, i start hearing a song. i bet you know, church boy. i bet you know this one. ♪ wait in the water ♪

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