Best photos – Page 4 – Building a better South

September 29, 2013November 16, 2014

Pool hall, Fairfax, S.C.

It was quiet on a recent Sunday morning outside this pool hall in Fairfax, S.C. Down the street, people filed into churches for morning services.

Fairfax, in rural Allendale County, lost about a third of its population by 2010, which it had 2,025 people compared to 3,206 people in 2000, according to Census figures in Wikipedia. Per capita income was $8,940. About 38 percent of the people in the town, which had about two times as many adult males as females, lived in poverty.

Rural Allendale County in South Carolina’s southwest corner as one of the Crescent’s highest poverty rates — more than 40 percent of people live below the federal 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.

More about Allendale County from QuickFacts from the U.S. Census.
More about Fairfax, S.C. in Wikipedia.

September 27, 2013November 16, 2014

Baptist church, Robertville, S.C.

Robertville, a small unincorporated community at the southern tip of South Carolina, has a beautiful Baptist church that’s on the National Historic Register. But it’s also the birthplace of someone who is familiar to anyone who has been involved with a community or government meeting — Henry Martyn Robert, author of “Robert’s Rules of Order.”

Robert (1837-1923) was born on a South Carolina plantation which his father, a Baptist preacher, sold and freed 26 slaves in 1850 after concluding it wasn’t good for his children to be reared in a “slave-served society,” Robert’s grandson, Henry M. Robert III of Annapolis, Maryland, told Better South’s Andy Brack.

Learn more about Robert and his rules of parliamentary procedure in this commentary by Brack.

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.

QuickFacts about Jasper County from the U.S. Census.

September 17, 2013November 16, 2014

Red barn, near Bennettsville, S.C.

Photographer Michael Kaynard of Charleston, S.C., writes that this stereotypical barn off U.S. Highway 15 south of Bennettsville, S.C., continues to shelter equipment used on an adjacent farm. “I was drawn to the design. It was quite a fancy design for a barn.” Across the rural South, more and more barns are being lost to progress.

Bennettsville is the county seat for Marlboro County, where almost 29 percent of residents live below the federal poverty line. The county had 28,145 residents in 2012, 51 percent of whom were black, according to Census estimates.

September 5, 2013November 16, 2014

Grand farmhouse, Southampton County, Va.

Worn farmhouse, Southampton County, Va. Photo by Andy Brack.

This stately, decaying grand Virginia farmhouse is mesmerizing and sad at the same time. While you can see a well, drinking trough for animals and a couple of outbuildings, there’s also an old store and barn at this location, a few miles north of Courtland at the intersection of Wakefield and Millfield roads.

Looking at the complex at the corner of a big field, it’s easy to imagine how this farm was a focus of rural life 80 or so years ago when lots of Southerners got their start in the country. Better South President Andy Brack writes, “Of all of the photos I took in July in Virginia, I come back to the pictures of this farm. In my mind’s eye, I can almost see donkeys and horses getting a drink, kids playing barefoot in the front yard, folks dropping by the country store to sit, talk and enjoy a cold drink.

“I couldn’t find out anything else about this place despite trying to reach members of a Baptist church just down the road. I look at how this house and its buildings, once a gem of this rural area, is falling apart. Like much of the area of the Southern Crescent, it’s suffering from benign neglect.”

The complex is in Southampton County, which is known in history as the place where slave Nat Turner led a rebellion in 1831. More information is here. Today, 18,409 people live in Southampton County; three in five are white; most of the rest are black. Poverty is about 16 percent.

August 22, 2013November 16, 2014

Melton store, Allentown, Ga.

13.0822_ga_meltonstore — Melton Store, Allentown, Ga.

From Better South President Andy Brack:

My Great Uncle Gordon Brack used to be a clerk in this store in Allentown in rural Wilkinson County, Georgia, where my father was a boy. Thanks to Brian Brown of the Vanishing South Georgia project for letting us republish the photo.

My dad, Elliott Brack, recalls the store in the 1940s:

“We used to buy soft drinks for five cents out of a cooler chilled by ice, pulling the drinks out of the cold water. If we had another nickel, we would buy peanuts and pour them into the Coke or RC or Pepsi for added pleasure.”

Dad says the store had a butcher and a meat market. “Items were on shelves and you told them you wanted something and the counterman reached up and got it. No self-self service much. They were general merchandise, which meant they sold feed and overalls too.”

Brown notes in his post about the store that Allentown is known for being at the intersection of four Georgia counties, although it mostly is in Wilkinson County.

Today, Wilkinson County has fewer people (9,577 in the 2012 Census estimate) than it did in the 1940s (11,025 people) when my dad was a boy here before moving to the “big city” of Macon with his family. About three in five people are white, with most of the rest being black. Poverty is about 20 percent.

More from QuickFacts from the U.S. Census.
More from Wikipedia.

August 4, 2013November 16, 2014

Old Masonic Hall, Waverly, Va.

At first, we thought this was an old church, especially since it is across a field from what we took for a newer incarnation of the Waverly International Congregational Church on Coppahaunk Avenue.

But it turns out this building with plywood over some of the windows is actually the small community’s old Masonic Hall, according to an old friend who is distressed about the slow decay of his hometown these days. “It was a great place to grow up,” he remembers.

Waverly, which had 2,149 residents in 2010 (160 fewer than 10 years earlier), is in rural Sussex County, a heartland of Virginia’s famous peanuts. Sussex County, which had more than 20 percent of people living in poverty in 2000, has some 15.6 percent of people in poverty as of the 2010 Census. About 60 percent of the county’s residents are black.

July 29, 2013November 16, 2014

House with a view, near Gasburg, Va.

Old farm house with commanding presence, near Gasburg, Va. Photo by Andy Brack.

This imposing, empty old farm house dominates a hilly cow pasture outside Gasburg, Va., near the intersection of Spraggins and Oak Grove roads.

Several people who viewed the photo said it reminded them of Andrew Wyeth’s famous 1948 painting “Christina’s World” — just without Christina.

A post office deliveryman said he recently saw a black bear chasing cows on the property where last week butterflies swarmed around blooming milkweed and Queen Anne’s lace.

Gasburg is in rural Brunswick County, a farming area on the North Carolina border with more than 17,000 residents. Like most Southern Crescent counties, poverty exceeds 20 percent.

More on Brunswick County from Wikipedia.

QuickFacts from the U.S. Census.

June 5, 2013November 16, 2014

Lobster House, Allendale, S.C.

13.0506.sc_allendale2 — 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.

More about Allendale County from QuickFacts from the U.S. Census.

June 1, 2013November 16, 2014

Clothes line, Allendale, S.C.

13.0506.sc_allendale1 — Clothes drying in the sun, Allendale, S.C., May 2013.

This clothesline in rural Allendale, S.C., represents more than drying laundry in the full sun to get that “fresh” smell and feel. It is a reminder that a lot of people in distressed counties prefer saving money by letting the sun do its work on clothes than spend a dollar at a laundry mat to get them dry.

Allendale County with just under 10,000 people is one of South Carolina’s smallest counties, but also its poorest. With just over 40 percent of 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.

More about Allendale County from QuickFacts from the U.S. Census.

May 8, 2013November 16, 2014

Man reading newspaper, Bamberg, S.C.

A elderly Hindu man reading what appeared to be an Indian newspaper outside of an old motor court on Main Street in Bamberg, S.C., represents how more foreign-born people are moving into the rural South. The man, who couldn’t speak English, was identified by a hotel employee as “Mr. Patel.” His stark white, pressed outfit stood out on a sunny day in the parking lot of the Relax Inn against the bright blue doors of its 22 rooms.

“At first, I was surprised to see someone of Indian descent in Bamberg,” said Charleston photographer Michael Kaynard, noting that S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley, also of Indian descent, grew up in Bamberg. “But I figured his family probably followed another family to this rural town.

“It reminded me that my grandparents emigrated to the United States around 1900 and they came to avoid oppression.”

Just over 30 percent of the 15,987 people in Bamberg County in 2010 lived below the poverty level, according to the U.S. Census. The county included 254 people born outside of the United States. The majority of residents are black (61.5 percent) with whites comprising 36.1 percent. Some 1.6 percent of residents are Latino while 0.4 percent are of Asian descent like Mr. Patel.

Photo taken May 6, 2013, by Michael Kaynard, Kaynard Photography.

QuickFacts about Bamberg County from the U.S. Census.