Author: Andy Brack

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What’s this guy doing, Leary, Ga.

Videographer in Leary, Ga.
Videographer in Leary, Ga.

There’s not a lot that seems to go on in rural Leary, Ga., a southwestern agricultural village in Calhoun County.  So when a videographer shows up and starts filming local statues and buildings, people get to talking.  Unfortunately, the camera crew wouldn’t tell anybody why they were filming abandoned buildings, this statue, the old railroad stations and more.  Today’s photo is the fifth and last in a series that profiles what Leary looks like.

Leary, which had 610 people in the 2010 Census (56 fewer than 10 years earlier) is predominantly poor and black.  Three in four residents are black.  Some 36 percent of the people in Calhoun County live at or below the poverty line, according to the 2010 Census.

There’s not a lot of businesses in Leary.  Its train depot is closed.  Across the street from a busy convenience store is a full city block of deserted businesses and homes.  More than anything, Leary seems old and tired with little hope of a prosperous future.  Notes photographer Michael Kaynard, “The downtown area had been deserted and the jail, post office and other businesses moved away and followed the highway.”  Other than the store, the only thing that appeared to have some activity was a peanut plant, which operates seasonally.

Photo by Andy Brack of the Center for a Better South, May 2013.  All rights reserved.

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Old station, Leary, Ga.

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Old railroad station, Leary, Ga.

The old railroad station in Leary, Ga., looks solid, but it’s slowly decaying, much like the rest of the small Calhoun County town is.  You can’t see it in this photo, but vines cover the back wall of the station.

Leary, which had 610 people in the 2010 Census (56 fewer than 10 years earlier) is predominantly poor and black.  Three in four residents are black.  Some 36 percent of the people in Calhoun County live at or below the poverty line, according to the 2010 Census.

There’s not a lot of businesses in Leary.  Its train depot is closed.  Across the street from a busy convenience store is a full city block of deserted businesses and homes.  More than anything, Leary seems old and tired with little hope of a prosperous future.  Notes photographer Michael Kaynard, “The downtown area had been deserted and the jail, post office and other businesses moved away and followed the highway.”  Other than the store, the only thing that appeared to have some activity was a peanut plant, which operates seasonally.

Photo by Andy Brack of the Center for a Better South, May 2013.  All rights reserved.

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Old buildings, Leary, Ga.

Old buildings flanked by peanut plant in background, Leary, Ga.
Old buildings flanked by peanut plant in background, Leary, Ga.

With a decaying old — but recently painted — building in the foreground, you can see an abandoned brick warehouse and a peanut business in the background of this photo of the small Calhoun County town of Leary.

Leary, which had 610 people in the 2010 Census (56 fewer than 10 years earlier) is predominantly poor and black.  Three in four residents are black.  Some 36 percent of the people in Calhoun County live at or below the poverty line, according to the 2010 Census.

There’s not a lot of businesses in Leary.  Its train depot is closed.  Across the street from a busy convenience store is a full city block of deserted businesses and homes.  More than anything, Leary seems old and tired with little hope of a prosperous future.  Notes photographer Michael Kaynard, “The downtown area had been deserted and the jail, post office and other businesses moved away and followed the highway.”  Other than the store, the only thing that appeared to have some activity was the peanut plant, which operates seasonally.

Photo by Andy Brack of the Center for a Better South, May 2013.  All rights reserved.

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Old buildings look a little better now, Leary, Ga.

Two abandoned houses next to a modern water tower, Leary, Ga.
Two abandoned houses next to a modern water tower, Leary, Ga.

Today’s photo, the second of  a five-part series of the small Calhoun County town of Leary, highlights two abandoned buildings near a modern-day water tower.  We’re told that the town painted the buildings a little while back so that they’d look better than they did when they unpainted and decaying.  At least now, the thinking goes, they look a little better.

Leary, which had 610 people in the 2010 Census (56 fewer than 10 years earlier) is predominantly poor and black.  Three in four residents are black.  Some 36 percent of the people in Calhoun County live at or below the poverty line, according to the 2010 Census.

There’s not a lot of businesses in Leary.  Its train depot is closed.  Across the street from a busy convenience store is a full city block of deserted businesses and homes.  More than anything, Leary seems old and tired with little hope of a prosperous future.  Notes photographer Michael Kaynard, “The downtown area had been deserted and the jail, post office and other businesses moved away and followed the highway.”  Other than the store, the only thing that appeared to have some activity was a peanut plant, which operates seasonally.

Photo by Andy Brack of the Center for a Better South, May 2013.  All rights reserved.

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Empty, Leary, Ga.

Abandoned store, Leary, Ga.
Abandoned store, Leary, Ga.

Today’s photo marks the first of a five-part series focusing our lenses on Leary, Ga., a small agricultural village in southwest Georgia in Calhoun County near the Early County line.  Pictured above is an abandoned store near the railroad tracks at the heart of the downtown.

Leary, which had 610 people in the 2010 Census (56 fewer than 10 years earlier) is predominantly poor and black.  Three in four residents are black.  Some 36 percent of the people in Calhoun County live at or below the poverty line, according to the 2010 Census.

There’s not a lot of businesses in Leary.  Its train depot is closed.  Across the street from a busy convenience store is a full city block of deserted businesses and homes.  More than anything, Leary seems old and tired with little hope of a prosperous future.  Notes photographer Michael Kaynard, “The downtown area had been deserted and the jail, post office and other businesses moved away and followed the highway.”  Other than the store, the only thing that appeared to have some activity was a peanut plant, which operates seasonally.

Photo by Andy Brack of the Center for a Better South, May 2013.  All rights reserved.

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“Black Belt,” Bellamy, Ala.

Bellamy, Ala., March 2009. Photo by Bill Hawker for the Center for a Better South.
Bellamy, Ala., March 2009. Photo by Bill Hawker for the Center for a Better South.

The term “Black Belt” means different things to different people.  For geographers, it means a swath of black topsoil that cuts through the middle of Alabama that was the foundation of cotton crops and an agricultural economy.  For sociologists, though, it is a term that reflects a crescent-shaped region that includes the same area of Alabama, but stretches westward toward the Delta area and eastward through Georgia, hooking northerly to the Carolinas and Tidewater Virginia — the area we call the “Southern Crescent.”

The picture above is from Bellamy, Ala., and is representative of the poverty found throughout the Crescent.  Bellamy, which has about 500 people, a post office and a health center, was several miles from the closest gas station or country store on our last visit to the area in 2009.  Bellamy is in rural Sumter County, Ala., where 38 percent of the population lives at or below the federal poverty level.

Photo by Bill Hawker, Sydney, Australia, in March 2009 for the Center for a Better South.  All rights reserved.

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Rural Studio, Hale County, Ala.

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Corrugated cardboard pod, Rural Studio, Newbern, Ala. Photo by Bill Hawker, March 2009.

 

Hale County, Ala., the locale for the 1941 book “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” by James Agee with photographs by Walker Evans, remains poor today.  Some 26 percent of people in Hale County live in poverty, according to the U.S. Census.

But also today, Hale County has Auburn University’s Rural Studio, an undergraduate architecture program that has been designing creative houses and public structures throughout the county since 1993.  Above is the outside wall of a corrugated card building built in 2001 on the Rural Studio campus in Newbern.  Click here for more. 

In 2013, students worked on four structures, including a solar greenhouse and converted an old bank building into a community library in Newbern.  More.

Photo taken in Marcy 2009 by Bill Hawker, Sydney Australia, for the Center for a Better South.  All rights reserved.

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Tenant house during Depression, Hale County, Ala.

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Tenant farmhouse, Hale County, Ala., by Walker Evans. Image courtesy of the U.S. Library of Congress.

 

The new publication of a 70+ year old unpublished essay by James Agee on the terrible poverty of the American South during the Great Depression has folks looking anew at the issue that has plagued the region since the Civil War.

“Cotton Tenants: Three Families,” published this week, chronicles the lives of people in rural Hale County, Ala., as outlined in this story in The New York Times.   Along with stunning documentary photographs by Walker Evans, Agee eventually published the 1941 work, “Let us now praise famous men,” which garnered more attention in the early 1960s than it did when originally published.

Agee originally was hired to write an essay for Fortune magazine, but apparently argued with editors about a 30,000 word draft, which was first published in full this week.

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Lobster House, Allendale, S.C.

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Former restaurant is now a convenience store, Allendale, S.C.

 

Most people in Allendale County, South Carolina’s poorest county where more than 40 percent of people live at or below the federal poverty level, can’t afford to eat lobster.  Nevertheless, this now-closed restaurant represents how times were much better years back before Interstate 95 sucked sun-seeking tourists traveling through the county.

Today, part of the Lobster House is at least used — as a small convenience store, which is a better fate than many closed rest stops, gas stations, restaurants, clubs and factories that dot U.S. Highway 301.

Allendale County, also one of South Carolina’s smallest counties by population, has a median household income is about $23,000 a year — half of South Carolina’s average and well below the nation’s $50,000 average.

Photo by Andy Brack, Center for a Better South, May 2013.  All rights reserved.

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Closed grocery store, Allendale, S.C.

Galaxy Food Center, Allendale, S.C.

Galaxy Food Center, Allendale, S.C.

“Food deserts” are often found in poor urban and rural communities because  it’s hard to find grocery stores with lots of healthy options.  People who live in food deserts may only have one store that stock more packaged and canned food than they do fresh foods.  In turn, having fewer options tends to support unhealthy eating habits that lead to higher incidents of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, obesity and more.

Pictured above is the Galaxy Food Center in Allendale, S.C.  It was one of the poor, rural communities two grocery stores, until it closed.  Now empty, it’s a reminder of just how Allendale, county seat of South Carolina’s poorest county, is cut off from lots of amenities and services found in larger communities like Charleston, Savannah, Augusta and Columbia.

With just over 40 percent of Allendale County’s 10,000 people living at or below the poverty level, the median household income is about $23,000 a year — half of South Carolina’s average and well below the nation’s $50,000 average.

Photo by Andy Brack, Center for a Better South, May 2013.  All rights reserved.