'I do it for the ancestors': Meet Tybee's first Black mayoral candidate

In 1923, Charles R. Swanson left Lagrange, Georgia, because he couldn’t vote.

Some 100 years later, his granddaughter, Julia Pearce, qualified to run for mayor of City of Tybee Island as not only the first Black woman to run but the first Black person, ever.

The significance of what she’s doing isn’t lost on her; she knows it's historic, but she said she wants to do it because she wants to pave the way for the next person of color who wants to run.

"I do it for the ancestors," Pearce said. “I do it for the people who came here, built a nation and died. And there’s not even a plaque that says that they were ever here.”

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That’s also why she co-founded Tybee MLK, a human rights organization dedicated to promoting diversity on Tybee Island. The organization, alongside the city, will host delegates from Ghana in October as a way of connecting the two places and their roles in the transatlantic slave trade.

Pearce believes that she and others need to bring Tybee’s history up and out, but when you’re doing that on a small island, people talk.

“People call me and say awful things,” Pearce said. “They leave me stuff on Facebook, they say things like you’re a joke, you’re the biggest racist on the island.”

Pearce knew that was an issue she could encounter when she first considered a run for mayor. After all, when she arrived on the island in 1997 and began "hanging out" with Mallory Pearce, her second husband, people’s eyes would get as big as "saucers."

“I was the only person of color in the room,” Pearce said. “And they would wonder, and whisper, 'Where did she come from?'”

After 26 years on the island though, she’s accustomed to people telling her to her face that she should stop causing trouble.

“'You need to stop making trouble.' That’s what they say to me,” Pearce said. “It's good trouble, but it’s definitely trouble.”

Pearce founded Tybee MLK in 2012, and their first event was a Martin Luther King Jr. parade that snowballed into what it is today. She founded it in the same year her last child left home. She said the organization and her run for mayor is owed to some empty nest syndrome as much as it is to wanting to honor her ancestors and change the island.

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“Thousands of enslaved Africans died here, and those that lived were put on sale in Savannah at City Market,” Pearce said. “Those that died, their bodies and bones lay here in the ground, and there’s no marker, there’s no remembrance. I think that’s disrespectful.”

Pearce's friend, Beverly Flanagan, said that her work with Tybee MLK has helped to shape her vision.

"I think everybody was narrowly focused on a small group of issues that we were all working toward," Flanagan said. "She has gone from being a small, local, educationally-focused person to being a visionary."

Pearce said her plan for the City of Tybee Island is to get back to the masterplan, which states that citizens will be "conscientious stewards of our unique historic and cultural heritage, environmental resources and diverse economic community" and ensure that the growth does not exceed the islands carrying capacity.

“I would support city council and the planning commission to encourage housing types with a range of costs,” Pearce said.

Pearce is also really passionate about making space for older residents to remain in their homes, increasing community greenspace and supporting those who frequently use the Raising Tyde Food Pantry.

“Our first concern should be safety, and our second should be the community,” Pearce said.

Like others in her community, Pearce is concerned with the presence of short-term vacation rentals, and wants to place a focus on increased long-term rentals by offering incentives to residents who rent space or houses to local workers.

The biggest issue she thinks exists on Tybee Island is water.

"As mayor, I would keep residents informed of our water issues, and encourage city council to use the consent agenda for the good of the people, not for the council," Pearce said.

Another issue facing mayoral candidates in Tybee is a solution to non-holiday gatherings like Orange Crush that invite large crowds of people and overwhelms the workers and residents of the island, Pearce said.

She has a couple of suggestions, including partnering with the promoters and influencers to provide a no-guns and no-alcohol festival zone with fencing, portable toilets, and wrist bands.

"Make a city-sanctioned safe zone for the protection of people who came to have a good time," Pearce said. "It's worth a try."

Pat Lieby, a resident of Tybee Island and the director of community engagement for Tybee MLK, said that she thinks Pearce running for mayor opens up another dimension of issues and concerns that people may not have considered.

“It’s richer, having several candidates running for the same position,” Lieby said. “I just think that Julia’s vision of the beloved community, and how we can work together to make this town, this island, this world a better place just clicks with me. And I think it clicks with a lot of people.”

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: 'I do it for the ancestors': Here's Tybee's first Black mayoral candidate