The Center for a Better South
You can find storage sheds like this throughout the eastern Carolinas. Kingstree, S.C., photographer Linda W. Brown snapped this shot in November in the New Zion area of Clarendon County.
Copyrighted photo by Linda W. Brown, 2014. All rights reserved.
In late December, we met Travis Starkey, a Greenville, N.C., resident who is trying to focus attention on strategies to deal with endemic poverty of his part of eastern North Carolina — which fits right in with what the Center for a Better South seeks to do.
As the second post of the new year, we offer his June 2014 photo of an old shed near Rocky Mount, N.C., to highlight Starkey’s online effort, dubbed “Greenfield Southeast.” (Rocky Mount is a town of about 57,000 people that is part of Edgecombe and Nash counties in eastern North Carolina. About 19 percent of its residents live below the poverty line.)
Starkey explains in this post that there’s potential in the rural South in places like Rocky Mount that people often don’t see:
“It’s reasonable to assume that every community has unique assets and potential to create. Communities are collections of people, anchored around a place or other connective element. So my first assumption flows logically from another — all individuals have unique assets to share and deep potential to create. A community’s power, therefore, lies in its ability to generate opportunities as an outgrowth of the connections its residents share. As a country, though, we tend to ignore the potential of towns like Plymouth [and Rocky Mount] to generate growth, assuming that growth is somehow impossible anywhere outside of a major city. …
“There are nearly 24 million people living in towns smaller than 20,000 in the South. Casually ignoring the potential of those towns, not to mention the growing disparities between urban and rural quality of life, is a perilous habit that we must break.”
Copyrighted photo by Travis Starkey taken June 2014. All rights reserved.
In late December, we met Travis Starkey, a Greenville, N.C., resident who is trying to focus attention on strategies to deal with endemic poverty of his part of eastern North Carolina — which fits right in with what the Center for a Better South seeks to do.
As the first post of the new year, we offer his 2013 photo of a green field near Roper, N.C., to highlight Starkey’s online effort, dubbed “Greenfield Southeast.” (Roper is a small town in rural Washington County, N.C. About 27 percent of Roper’s residents live at or below the federal poverty level; some 22 percent of Washington County’s residents are at or below poverty.
Here’s how he explained his blog in 2013, which has evolved over the last year and a half:
“Over the past year, I have spent hundreds of hours attempting to understand the depth of what the South is currently enduring educationally and economically, especially the rural South. Heartened by the increased attention being paid to education outcomes in cities like Nashville, Memphis, and New Orleans while also wary of the long-term viability of proposed improvements, I’ve moved forward – researching (and researching) and talking with anyone I can. I’ve also been inspired by technological innovations that could deepen learning and increase economic engagement in rural communities. Over time, though, my understanding of what would be truly helpful and should therefore be immediately acted-upon within either the education or economic space has grown increasingly unclear.
“Given all of this and the fact that I am now firmly planted in eastern North Carolina, I have decided to externalize this inner conversation in the hopes that doing so will bring clarity of purpose and action to me and others. With this blog, my hope is to bring attention to and instigate focused conversation around the unique educational and economic challenges facing citizens in the South, especially the rural South. There are numerous ways to frame the conversation; but I hope to frame it loosely around people, places, and ideas that are currently playing a role or could play a role in the continued progress of this region. And I aspire to write and engage not as an authority, but as a learner alongside many others whose thoughts and deeds will surely push the conversation forward.”
Photo is courtesy Travis Starkey and is copyrighted 2013. All rights reserved.
It’s hard to believe that prices for gasoline are below $2.00 in some parts of the Southern Crescent. Several stations at the Hardeeville, S.C., exit of Interstate 95 had low prices on Sunday, although in nearby Ridgeland, gas cost $0.50 more per gallon. Both are in Jasper County.
Jasper County, population 25,833, is just over the river from Savannah, Ga. Its location near the metro area likely is why poverty in Jasper County (21.4 percent) is half that of Allendale County to the north. Ridgeland has a poverty rate of more than 24 percent, while Hardeeville’s rate exceeds 32 percent.
Photo by Andy Brack, taken on Dec. 28, 2014. All rights reserved.
Photographer Linda W. Brown snapped this holiday scene in her hometown of Kingstree, S.C., the governmental seat of Williamsburg County.
We hope you’ve enjoyed our photos of the Southern Crescent region throughout 2014 and look forward to providing you with more compelling imagery over the next year. Happy holidays!
Photo is copyrighted by Linda W. Brown. All rights reserved.
VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer Brian Brown snapped a photo of this tar-paper house in rural Gough, Ga., last month.
Gough (pronounced “GOFF”), located about 10 miles west of Waynesboro in eastern central Georgia, is in Burke County, which had about 23,125 people in 2012. The population is evenly split in the numbers of white and black residents (49 percent each). Its population peak was in 1920 when it had almost 31,000 people; its low point was in 1970 when it had 18,255 people.
The county, located between Augusta and Statesboro, has a median household income of $32,188. Some 28.6 percent of people live in poverty, according to a five-year Census estimate.
Photo taken in by Brian Brown. Copyrighted; all rights reserved.
VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer Brian Brown writes, “The white building in the foreground is the Gough Lodge of the Prince Hall Masons, an African-American fraternal association. Agricultural warehouses can be seen in the distance.”
Gough (pronounced “GOFF”), located about 10 miles west of Waynesboro in eastern central Georgia, is in Burke County, which had about 23,125 people in 2012. The population is evenly split in the numbers of white and black residents (49 percent each). Its population peak was in 1920 when it had almost 31,000 people; its low point was in 1970 when it had 18,255 people.
The county, located between Augusta and Statesboro, has a median household income of $32,188. Some 28.6 percent of people live in poverty, according to a five-year Census estimate.
Photo taken in by Brian Brown. Copyrighted; all rights reserved.
VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer Brian Brown says this store is a step back in time, with its old Coca-Cola sign and gas pumps right at the front door. “There’s also a restaurant next door, though I’m not sure if it’s open. The store was quite busy, though. It was late in the afternoon so the light was a bit harsh.”
Gough (pronounced “GOFF”), located about 10 miles west of Waynesboro in eastern central Georgia, is in Burke County, which had about 23,125 people in 2012. The population is evenly split in the numbers of white and black residents (49 percent each). Its population peak was in 1920 when it had almost 31,000 people; its low point was in 1970 when it had 18,255 people.
The county, located between Augusta and Statesboro, has a median household income of $32,188. Some 28.6 percent of people live in poverty, according to a five-year Census estimate.
Photo taken in by Brian Brown. Copyrighted; all rights reserved.
VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer Brian Brown says this old vernacular church, likely from the turn of the last century, is on private property near Gough, Ga., but can be seen from the road.
Gough (pronounced “GOFF”), located about 10 miles west of Waynesboro in eastern central Georgia, is in Burke County, which had about 23,125 people in 2012. The population is evenly split in the numbers of white and black residents (49 percent each). Its population peak was in 1920 when it had almost 31,000 people; its low point was in 1970 when it had 18,255 people.
The county, located between Augusta and Statesboro, has a median household income of $32,188. Some 28.6 percent of people live in poverty, according to a five-year Census estimate.
Photo taken in by Brian Brown. Copyrighted; all rights reserved.
The owner of this property in rural Burke County, Ga., told VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer Brian Brown that this 19th century tenant cabin is still in use today.
Gough, located about 10 miles west of Waynesboro in eastern central Georgia, is in Burke County, which had about 23,125 people in 2012. The population is evenly split in the numbers of white and black residents (49 percent each). Its population peak was in 1920 when it had almost 31,000 people; its low point was in 1970 when it had 18,255 people.
The county, located between Augusta and Statesboro, has a median household income of $32,188. Some 28.6 percent of people live in poverty, according to a five-year Census estimate.
Photo taken in by Brian Brown. Copyrighted; all rights reserved.