One generation after the end of slavery, the Reels family bought a plot of land along the coast of North Carolina. They raised their kids along the waterfront and gathered along the banks and at one another’s houses — all along Silver Dollar Road — to celebrate birthdays, parties and holidays. Their property became a safe haven for other Black families looking to enjoy the coast at a time when the state’s beaches were still segregated. Members of the family, including Mamie Reels Ellison and Kim Duhon, still reminisce about those not-too-distant rosy memories today.
As first reported in ProPublica in 2019, the Reels’ family story took a dark turn. One of the descendants, Shedrick Reels, moved away from home and tried to turn a profit by selling land that belonged to the family as “heirs’ property,” land passed down without titles in an era when many African Americans did not trust the U.S. legal system. Shedrick’s decision to sell in the 1970s came to haunt his nephews Melvin Davis and Licurtis Reels, who were fighting the new owners for their family’s land, when at a 2011 court appearance, the two brothers were arrested without being charged of a crime or given a jury trial during the eight years they were imprisoned. The pair became the longest-serving inmates for civil contempt in U.S. history at the time of ProPublica’s reporting.
