While country stores seem to be dying out in the rural South, Workman Grocery at Workman Crossroads on S.C. Highway 527 in Williamsburg County, S.C., still is in operation, says photographer Linda W. Brown of nearby Kingstree.
Just under 34,000 people live in Williamsburg County, which is about the number who lived there in 1900, according to Census figures. Population peaked in 1950 at 43,807, but has dropped slowly since then.
About two-thirds of county residents are black, with almost all of those remaining being white. Only 2 percent of those in the county are of Hispanic descent. Some 32.8 percent of residents live in poverty, according to the Census. Of the county’s 1,921 firms, 36.5 percent are black-owned — a percentage that is three times South Carolina’s average.
Copyrighted photo by Linda W. Brown taken in September 2013. All rights reserved.