Andy Brack – Page 29 – Building a better South

November 18, 2013November 18, 2013

Busy college campus, Statesboro, Ga.

13.1118_statesborobikes — Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Ga.

More than 20,000 students attend Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, which is in the middle of the eastern part of the Peach State.

During a visit to the college’s modern campus, there are a lot of modern buildings, such as the College of Education above, as well as hundreds of student apartments that ring the campus.

While poverty isn’t as visible here as in rural farming communities, U.S. Census data show more than 50 percent of Statesboro’s 29,779 people live at or below the federal poverty level. As best as we can figure, the Census must be counting college students, who may make the community look statistically poorer than it is. (Anybody know differently or have a better explanation?)

The community is 54 percent white and 40 percent black. Its median household income is $19,554, according to the Census. If the Bureau is counting college students, the skewed demographics that Statesboro is experiencing can have a dramatic impact because it won’t be able to attract medium- and higher-end stores and shops. In a story told us by a newspaperman during a September visit, we learned that a major grocer won’t move to town because of Statesboro’s relatively low median household income. And that’s a shame because the community seems like it’s got a lot going for it — something the fast-food chains certainly have discovered.

Statesboro is the county seat of Bulloch County, which has 72,694 people (2012), two thirds of which are white. Just over 30 percent of residents live in poverty. The median household income for the county is $33,902.

Quickfacts on Statesboro and Bulloch County, Ga.
Wikipedia’s entry on Statesboro and Bulloch County

November 16, 2013November 16, 2014

Courthouse, Statesboro, Ga.

If you drive through the college town of Statesboro in mideastern Georgia, you probably wouldn’t think that 50.7 percent of residents lived in poverty, according to a five-year average by the U.S. Census. Sure, there are parts of town that have challenges, but it certainly doesn’t look like half of the residents are poor.

About the best we can figure is that the Census must have counted a lot of the 20,000+ students from Georgia Southern University as residents who live below the poverty level. And in a small town like Statesboro — population 29,779 — the number of college students, indeed, may make the community look statistically poorer than it is. (Anybody know differently or have a better explanation?)

Quickfacts on Statesboro and Bulloch County, Ga.
Wikipedia’s entry on Statesboro and Bulloch County

November 14, 2013November 17, 2013

Historic marker for tourism, Burke County, Ga.

Historic marker, Ivanhoe farm, Burke County, Ga.

Rural areas in Georgia may start experiencing an uptick in tourism thanks to a state-sponsored program to highlight what was once topic-non-grata — Union Gen. William T. Sherman’s slashing March to the Sea.

The Georgia Department of Transportation is providing almost $700,000 to the nonprofit Georgia Civil War Heritage Trails Inc., to erect interpretive historic markers along routes used by Union and Confederate armies almost 150 years ago around Atlanta and along the Sea campaign.

In the photo above, re-enactors appeared at the unveiling of a new marker at Ivanhoe, the Dye family farm in Burke County. According to Molly Dye Franklin, who provided the picture, the farm was home to a Nov. 26, 1864, skirmish between Union and Confederate troops — one of more than 100 skirmishes across the Peach State. She said the effort could help rural counties like Burke County, which needs tourism and help to rise above endemic poverty.

Burke County, which had about 23,125 people in 2012, 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.

November 13, 2013July 24, 2014

Brack: Crescent South needs attention

Published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

By Andy Brack

There’s a vitality that runs throughout metropolitan Atlanta. Expensive cars are ubiquitous around Lenox Square. Neighborhoods in bedroom communities in Gwinnett and Cobb counties have good schools, libraries and a pretty good quality of life, despite some reminders of the Great Recession and, of course, traffic.

Vivacity, however, is harder to spot in a swath of agricultural Georgia that stretches across the middle of the Peach State, a rural sash of poverty where economic opportunity is tougher to find. The busiest place around might be a convenience store, as is the case in Leary in Calhoun County. Across the street is a full city block that has been abandoned. A couple of empty houses along Depot Street have been painted green or rusted red just to make them look less dilapidated.

Across the South, from Tidewater Virginia through the eastern Carolinas along I-95, through the middle of rural Georgia and Alabama and to the Mississippi Delta, about 4 million people live in economically distressed counties. On a map, the area is crescent-shaped. It has higher rates of poverty, unemployment, single-parent households, chlamydia, obesity and diabetes. It’s easy to see that these areas correlate with another map — that of where enslaved people lived in 1860.

This “Southern Crescent” is a clear remnant of plantation life, a region that has been the soft underbelly of the Deep South for generations. Today, 150 years after the Civil War, it’s time for the Crescent to start receiving the same attention that Appalachia did in the 1960s War on Poverty.

It’s not all doom and gloom in Crescent counties. Lots of people have good lives. Some forward-looking communities have taken extra steps to plan and innovate. In recent years, Vidalia in South Georgia has branded itself as the go-to place for sweet, delicious onions. Prosperity shows throughout the town, but even today, 25 percent of the people in Toombs County live in poverty.

To focus attention on endemic poverty throughout the Crescent counties, the Center for a Better South offers a Web site — SouthernCrescent.org — to showcase life in the region. We hope to bring together nonprofits and foundations to fund research and studies on how to coordinate better and smarter delivery of services to infuse more dynamism in the region. The center encourages the White House to create a special national study commission to recommend federal and state policies to raise living standards and promote opportunity.

This effort may not cost a lot of money. If various state and federal government bureaucracies get out of their comfort zones and work with engaged rural communities, they can figure out ways to create more economic opportunities.

Ride the roads of Crescent counties in Georgia. It’s clear that rural Southerners want more opportunities for their counties. Now is the time to get moving so they don’t get left behind even more.

Andy Brack is president of the Center for a Better South (bettersouth.org) based in Charleston, S.C.

November 12, 2013November 17, 2013

Bottle tree, Williamsburg County, S.C.

Bottle trees are artificial trees found throughout the South. While generally filled with colored bottles, this version outside a rural Williamsburg County home features a nice vase as well as colored plastic bottles — something we’ve never seen on bottle trees.

According to Mississippi artist Stephanie Dwyer, bottle trees have been displayed in the South since the 1700s and are a remnant of African tradition. “Placing colorful bottles on the ends of broken limbs is said to keep evil spirits (or maybe just nosy neighbors) away from the home. As the story goes, the sun’s glimmer through the glass mesmerizes the spirits and traps them in the bottles,” Dwyer’s Web site says.

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.

November 10, 2013November 17, 2013

Single silo, Clarendon County, S.C.

From what photographer and retired editor Linda W. Brown of Kingstree can tell, the area around Davis Station in rural Clarendon County used by be dairy country, “but the broken-down silos show that that is now a thing of the past.”

Clarendon County, split in half by Interstate 95, had almost 21 percent of residents living in poverty, according to the 2010 Census.

Quick facts about Clarendon County from the U.S. Census

November 8, 2013November 16, 2014

Autumn barn, Williamsburg County, S.C.

13.1108.barn — Autumn barn, Williamsburg County, S.C. Photo by Linda W. Brown.

Not only does the autumn sunlight dance warm shades and shadows on this old barn off McIntosh Road in Williamsburg County, S.C., but it highlights how the barn is in the autumn of its days, according to retired editor Linda W. Brown.

Such pastoral scenes dot the landscape of the Southern Crescent to reflect two realities — the relaxed beauty of the area and the slow decay of infrastructure that once powered the rural South.

November 6, 2013November 17, 2013

Sign, Cedar Swamp, S.C.

It’s hard to go far in rural Williamsburg County, S.C., without encountering a “Jesus Loves You” or “Trust Jesus” sign such as this one taken in September 2010 in the Cedar Swamp community.

Retired editor Linda W. Brown tells us the story behind these signs: “They were the work of the late Jimmie Stephenson, who was a sign painter by profession, but had a Bible Study and maybe a small regular congregation, as well.”

November 4, 2013November 17, 2013

ArtFields, Lake City, S.C.

ArtFields, a new annual arts festival in rural Lake City, S.C.

You don’t expect to find a world-class art gallery in Lake City, a rural South Carolina community in the Southern Crescent between Kingstree and Florence.

The Center for a Better South’s Andy Brack wrote about Lake City last week in the online magazine Charleston Currents:

“But that’s just what you can experience thanks to millions of dollars being pumped into the community by native daughter and financier Darla Moore. There’s a lot of redevelopment — even a boutique hotel being built downtown — and an annual art festival, ArtFields, that has $100,000 in cash prizes to draw attention to the area and promote opportunities.

We stumbled upon the Jones-Carter Gallery last week in a visit to the Pee Dee and were blown away. Right now, the gallery is showcasing the work of modern painter William H. Johnson (1901-1970), an African-American master born in Florence. He moved to New York City when he was 17 and saved money to pay for classes at the National Academy of Design. He enjoyed some success with his modern paintings with folk influences, but by middle age, he wasn’t able to sustain himself through art. He reportedly stopped painting in 1956 and lived in a state hospital for the last 23 years of his life.

Johnson’s art — more than 1,000 pieces — almost was thrown away, but was rescued by friends and later given to the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In 2012, the U.S. Postal Service honored Johnson’s talent by issuing a postage stamp in recognition of being one of the country’s most important African-American artists.

The exhibit in Lake City is worth the trip. Developed by Morgan State University and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, it offers oils, woodcuts, watercolors and more that dazzle.

But what’s more interesting is the fact that this gallery is in Lake City, home to about 6,500 people, about a third of whom live below the federal poverty line. Like Charleston Place was a linchpin of an economic resurgence in Charleston, the gallery, which was a hardware and grocery store in a previous life, and the hotel under construction may become a similar lure. According to a brochure, the gallery “is convenient to contemporary shops, clothiers, antique stores and several restaurants.”

A dozen years ago, few would have conceived as Lake City as a “destination,” but it’s worth seeing what’s happening in this small Pee Dee town.

Lake City is in the Pee Dee’s Florence County near Interstate 95 in northeast South Carolina. One in five people in Lake City, population 6,715, is white, while some 77.5 percent of residents are black. The city’s poverty rate is more than 32 percent, according to the U.S. Census. The high poverty rate is a testament to Lake City’s rural nature since its home county, supported by the regional city of Florence, has a 19.4 percent poverty rate.

November 2, 2013November 25, 2013

Paradise Restaurant, Cooperville, Georgia

The old Paradise Restaurant, which apparently suffered a fire in recent years, is closed, as is the gas station at right. Both are adjacent to a spooky old motel featured on Halloween in this post.

The complex is in Cooperville at the intersection of U.S. Highway 301 and Georgia Highway 17 in Screven County, Ga., which got started after the Revolutionary War and soon became part of the Black Belt of Georgia where cotton became an important staple crop tended by enslaved African Americans.

The county’s population jumped from 3,019 in 1800 to 8,274 by 1860, according to Census figures. While it had 14,593 people in 2010, the county lost an estimated 391 people — 2.7 percent — by 2012, according to the U.S. Census. In 2010, Some 25.4 percent of county residents lived below the federal poverty level, 9 points higher than the state average.

More QuickFacts from the U.S. Census

Screven County in Wikipedia