Author: Andy Brack

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All that’s left, Jordan, Ga.

Tiny store, Jordan, Ga.
Tiny store, Jordan, Ga.

VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer Brian Brown writes that this tiny store is about all that’s left in the settlement of Jordan in rural Wheeler County, Ga.

According to 2011 poverty estimates by the U.S. Census, Wheeler County, which had 7,421 people in 2010, had a 42.2 percent poverty rate.  What’s remarkable about that is it is one of the few high-poverty counties where the overall rate is higher than the rate for children under 18.

About two thirds of the residents of the south-central Georgia county are white with the remaining almost all black.

Copyrighted photo taken in March 2014 by Brian Brown.  All rights reserved.

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Storefronts, Alamo, Ga.

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VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer Brian Brown offers this view of storefronts along Railroad Street in Alamo, Ga., as well as several other photos of the area around Wheeler County’s seat of government.

According to 2011 poverty estimates by the U.S. Census, Wheeler County, which had 7,421 people in 2010, had a 42.2 percent poverty rate.  What’s remarkable about that is it is one of the few high-poverty counties where the overall rate is higher than the rate for children under 18.

About two thirds of the residents of the south-central Georgia county are white with the remaining almost all black.

Copyrighted photo taken in March 2014 by Brian Brown.  All rights reserved.

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Podcast focuses on Southern Crescent

Mike Switzer of SCETV Radio’s S.C. Business Review interviews the Center’s Andy Brack on how the Southeastern United States could become a much more powerful economic engine if it could figure out a way to keep its best and brightest people from continuing to abandon its poverty-stricken rural communities.   Brack says the affected areas combine to create a huge crescent-shaped region across the south that his organization refers to, in fact, as the Southern Crescent.

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Water towers, Alamo, Ga.

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Here’s a view of Railroad Street in Alamo, Ga., the seat of government in Wheeler County, which has the highest rate of poverty in the state.

VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer Brian Brown writes:  “The modern independent hardware store in the foreground is a nice contrast to the old agricultural warehouses and water towers. Dot H. Brown writes that her father, J. F. Hattaway and his business partner Cecil Carroll built and operated the cotton gin and warehouses until about 1970.”

According to 2011 poverty estimates by the U.S. Census, Wheeler County, which had 7,421 people in 2010, had a 42.2 percent poverty rate.  What’s remarkable about that is it is one of the few high-poverty counties where the overall rate is higher than the rate for children under 18.

About two thirds of the residents of the south-central Georgia county are white with the remaining almost all black.

Copyrighted photo taken in March 2014 by Brian Brown.  All rights reserved.

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Wildflowers

Spiderwort along a South Carolina roadway.
Spiderwort along a South Carolina roadway.

It’s not hard these days to find wildflowers growing in ditches throughout the Southern Crescent region as spring sneaks up on us and leads to summer. Pictured is spiderwort, known by the three petals and six yellow stamen on each flower.

Photo taken April 20, 2014 by Andy Brack. All rights reserved.

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Old tenant house near Dublin, Ga.

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VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer Brian Brown sent along this photo of an old tenant house near Dublin, Ga., in Laurens County.

Dublin suffered during the recent recession as the unemployment rate for Laurens County, where Dublin (population 16,201) is the county seat, rose to  13.8 percent in July 2011.  Two years later it was about two points lower, but was down to 9.4 percent in December 2013, according to federal government data found at this site.

Some 23.6 percent of residents of Laurens County (population 48,434) live in poverty, according to Census data

Photo by Brian Brown.  All rights reserved.

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Storefronts, Glenwood, Ga.

Storefronts, Glenwood, Ga.
Storefronts, Glenwood, Ga.

VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer Brian Brown snapped this image of storefronts in rural Glenwood, Ga., population 884.

Glenwood is in Wheeler County, one of the poorest counties in the Southern Crescent.  According to 2011 poverty estimates by the U.S. Census, Wheeler County, which had 7,421 people in 2010, had a 42.2 percent poverty rate.  What’s remarkable about that is it is one of the few high-poverty counties where the overall rate is higher than the rate for children under 18.

About two thirds of the residents of the south-central Georgia county are white with the remaining almost all black.

Copyrighted photo by Brian Brown.  All rights reserved.

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Grand house, Dexter, Ga.

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We’re still wondering about the story behind this grand house a few miles west of Dexter, Ga., on Georgia Highway 338.  It’s got, as they say in the housing industry, great bones and appeared to be under renovation.  It’s a little hard to see the beauty of the home, which might remind you of Faulkner’s Rowan Oaks, because of the afternoon shadows from all of the shade trees surrounding it.

Dexter has about 500 people and is a few miles southwest of Dublin, the county seat for Laurens County.  Some 23.6 percent of residents of Laurens County (population 48,434) live in poverty.

Photo taken Feb. 15, 2014 by Andy Brack.  All rights reserved.

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Waring statue, Charleston, S.C.

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The late U.S. District Judge J. Waties Waring of Charleston, S.C., is being honored Friday with a statue that is a fitting remembrance for his huge role in ending segregation.

Waring became a social outcast in the late 1940s and early 1950s for civil rights rulings which culminated with a dissent in Briggs v. Elliott from rural Clarendon County, a Crescent county today.  Waring’s dissent is notable because it became the backbone for the landmark Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 that ended segregation in public schools.

Photo by Michael Kaynard.  All rights reserved.