Category: Virginia

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Haskins joins Better South’s board of directors

MARCH 22, 2016  |  Virginia community economic developer Conaway B. Haskins III has joined the board of directors of the Center for a Better South, a nonpartisan Southern think tank based in Charleston, S.C.  The Center focuses on developing pragmatic ideas, strategies and tactics to help to reduce poverty, increase economic opportunities and work with thinking leaders who want to make a difference in the American South.

Haskins
Haskins

“The Center for a Better South is committed to developing and sharing thoughtful, impactful policy ideas with thinking leaders across our region that will make a difference,” said Haskins, pictured at right.  “Its recent work with the Promise Zone in South Carolina highlights how organizing people behind a strategy to reduce poverty has the potential for real change in a rural part of the state. Continue reading “Haskins joins Better South’s board of directors”

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Quick Stop, closed, near Waverly, Va.

Davalier Quick Stop, west of Waverly, Va. Photo by Andy Brack.
Cavalier Quick Stop, west of Waverly, Va. Photo by Andy Brack.

It doesn’t take long while driving the rural roads of the Southern Crescent to encounter an old country store or joint like the Cavalier Quick Stop about four miles northwest of Waverly, Va., off U.S. Highway 460.

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.

Copyrighted photo taken July 23, 2013, by Andy Brack, Center for a Better South. All rights reserved.

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Another view, old Southampton County farmhouse

Closer view of old Virginia farmhouse. By Andy Brack.
Closer view of old Virginia farmhouse. By Andy Brack.

Here’s another look at the grand, old, decaying farmhouse in Southampton County that we reflected upon in our last post.  Read more here.

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.

Photo taken July 23, 2012, by Better South President Andy Brack.  All rights reserved.

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Grand farmhouse, Southampton County, Va.

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

Photo taken July 23, 2012, by Better South President Andy Brack.  All rights reserved.

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Old barn, near Emporia, Va.

Old barn, Southampton County, Va. Photo by Andy Brack.
Old barn, Southampton County, Va. Photo by Andy Brack.

This old barn about 2.5 miles east of the Emporia-Greensville County Regional Airport in southeastern Virginia is smack dab in the middle of a peanut field.  The barn, located in Southampton County, is just off U.S. Highway 58.

Southampton County is known in history as the place where slave Nat Turner led a rebellion in 1831.  More than 50 white residents were killed in the rebellion.  After the state crushed it, Turner and 55 others were executed.  More than 100 other blacks are thought to have been murdered by white mobs.  The rebellion led to action across Virginia and other Southern states, according to Wikipedia:  “State legislators passed new laws prohibiting education of slaves and free blacks, restricting rights of assembly and other civil rights for free blacks, and requiring white ministers to be present at black worship services.”

Today, 18,409 people live in Southampton County; three in five are white; most of the rest are black.  Poverty is about 16 percent.

Photo taken July 24, 2012, by Better South President Andy Brack.  All rights reserved.

 

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Old Masonic Hall, Waverly, Va.

Old Masonic Hall, Waverly, Va. Photo by Andy Brack.
Old Masonic Hall, Waverly, Va. Photo by Andy Brack.

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.

Copyrighted photo taken July 23, 2013, by Andy Brack, Center for a Better South. All rights reserved.

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Close-up of old store, Ebony, Va.

Neat sign on old store, Ebony, Va. Photo by Andy Brack.
Neat sign on old store, Ebony, Va. Photo by Andy Brack.

Above is a close-up of the neat sign on an old store from Ebony, Va., pictured here on July 31.  [See that post.]

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

Copyrighted photo taken July 24, 2013, by Andy Brack, Center for a Better South.  All rights reserved.

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Old store, Ebony, Va.

Old store, Ebony, Va. Photo by Andy Brack; all rights reserved.
Old store, Ebony, Va. Photo by Andy Brack; all rights reserved.

This empty, old store in Ebony, Va., is one of the favorite buildings we’ve spotted recently in our rambles around the Southern Crescent.  Perhaps one reason is how the sign above the door has faded to reveal an upside-down word, “sandwiches.” Something else was painted over it years back, but this is what’s left now.

The way we hear it from folks in Ebony, the rural village in Brunswick County once was known as the Prospect area.  But when it had grown enough to get a post office, the postal authorities said they couldn’t name it “Prospect” because there already was a post office with that name in Virginia.  So one of the town elders figured that if they couldn’t name it “Prospect,” they might as well name it after a great old black horse he had in his pasture named (you guessed it) “Ebony.”

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

Copyrighted photo taken July 24, 2013, by Andy Brack, Center for a Better South.  All rights reserved.

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House with a view, near Gasburg, Va.

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

Copyrighted photo taken July 24, 2013, by Andy Brack, Center for a Better South.  All rights reserved.