Josephine Wright receives $10,000 donation from a West Coast rap legend. Who’s the latest celebrity to give?
A California rap icon dropped $10,000 (like it’s hot) in support of Hilton Head Island’s Josephine Wright, a Gullah grandmother who has become an international story after first sharing with the Island Packet in May she’d been sued by a Georgia-based developer.
On Friday, a new $10,000 donation was given to the GoFundMe page through the donor name “Snoop Dogg, Death Row Records.” Snoop Dogg began his rap career with the label in the 1990s, and purchased it in February 2022. The Island Packet reached out to the record label for comment, but received no response by time of publication.
The lawsuit filed by Bailey Point Investment LLC stemmed from what the company claimed were three encroachments from the Wright family’s 1.8 acres of land onto a neighboring parcel that the company is using to build a neighborhood of 147 homes on Jonesville Road. The family removed two of those alleged encroachments, including paying $1,900 to move a shed off the property, but the company has continued the suit over the final alleged encroachment, the family’s back porch.
An independent survey, the family said, has found the porch is situated well within their property.
The Wright family sees the lawsuit and alleged behavior of construction workers as an intimidation tactic and a plan to drain their finances, to eventually coerce them into selling the property they’ve owned since after the Civil War. Several prominent Black celebrities like Tyler Perry and Kyrie Irving, and former lawmakers including South Carolina’s own Bakari Sellers, have come to the Wright family’s aid.
The case’s national and international reach has led to over 5,000 donations to the Wright family’s cause, totaling $267,751 as of July 24.
The lawsuit remains in financial discovery, with no hearing dates officially set.
