The front half of this old railroad depot in Ehrhardt, S.C., has been renovated into a place that reportedly has periodic auctions. The inside looks like a little cafe. The rear part of the depot, for which there are no railroad tracks these days, hasn’t been restored.
Ehrhardt, a town of about 600 people, is in rural Bamberg County where 27 percent of its 15,763 people live below the federal poverty level, according to 2012 Census estimates. The majority of residents are black (61.4 percent) with whites comprising 36.8 percent.
Two guys talking at the Hardee’s in Walterboro, S.C.
These two guys talk after a Saturday breakfast at the Hardee’s in Walterboro, S.C. Across the South, fast food restaurants are taking the place of local diners where people have met for years to discuss community business and to gossip a little.
Walterboro, which has lost about 100 people since 2010, has a population of 5,309 people. 38 percent of whom live in poverty. Walterboro is the county seat of Colleton County, a Southern Crescent county split by Interstate 95.
Colleton County, which also has a small piece of coastline, is home to 38,153 people, 21 percent of whom live at or below the federal poverty level.
Abandoned house near historic school, Summerton, S.C.
Just over the top of the front roof of this abandoned house in Summerton, S.C., you can see the American flag waving at the historic Scott’s Branch school. The Clarendon County school sits on the site that saw the start of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education education case in South Carolina.
Scott’s Branch High School plaque
Way back in 1947, the NAACP agreed to sponsor a federal case after black parents sued for inferior conditions in the Clarendon County schools. In short, they wanted money to help pay for gas for a secondhand bus provided by the county. The case, Briggs v. Elliott, became the “first case filed, tried and appealed to the Supreme Court challenging segregation in public schools,” according to a 2011 National Law Journal article by Leon Friedman and U.S. District Judge Richard M. Gergel. The article is a tribute to the courage of the late U.S. District Judge Waties Waring, whose historic dissent sent the Briggs case to the high court.
These days, the historic Scott’s Branch school has been recovered with a bright blue metal roof. It is used these days as a community resource center.
Summerton has about 1,000 people. Clarendon County has 34,357 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2012 population estimate. About half of the county’s residence are white; the other half are black. Some other statistics:
High school graduation rate of those 25 or older: 76.3 percent.
Bachelor’s degree graduates: 13.8 percent
Median household income: $33,267
Poverty rate: 22.8 percent
Unemployment rate, November 2013: 9.9 percent (2.5 percent higher than the state average)
Black-owned firms: 30.1 percent (18 points higher than state average)
Women-owned firms: 35.4 percent (8 points higher than state average)
Downtown Manning, S.C., is filled with Christmas cheer in this picture taken earlier this month.
Manning, which has a population of about 4,000 people, is the county seat for Clarendon County, a Southern Crescent county with 34,357 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2012 population estimate. About half of the county’s residence are white; the other half are black. Some other statistics:
High school graduation rate of those 25 or older: 76.3 percent.
Bachelor’s degree graduates: 13.8 percent
Median household income: $33,267
Poverty rate: 22.8 percent
Unemployment rate, November 2013: 9.9 percent (2.5 percent higher than the state average)
Black-owned firms: 30.1 percent (18 points higher than state average)
Women-owned firms: 35.4 percent (8 points higher than state average)
The Florence (S.C.) Morning News profiled the Center’s work in a story about a Dec. 5 speech by president Andy Brack to the Florence West Rotary Club about the Southern Crescent project.
“Brack believes that by pooling smart people together, his group can do three important things to improve the problems of the South: work to tell people about the problems that exist, work with nonprofits and foundations to fund research and studies and work with the White House to get a special study commission appointed to recommend federal and state policies to raise the standard of living.”
The story also reported that improving the quality of life was something that should be important to everyone who lived in it, including folks in the Pee Dee region around Florence.
“Number one, as Southerners, we don’t take the easy way out. Number two, I think there are some economic justice issues here that a lot of you have a good quality of life, but we have to remember that there are 20 to 30 percent of people in rural counties that don’t have a good quality of life.
“There is also a moral component to this in that we are a wealthy country and we need to do a little more to leave this place better than we found it. Quite frankly, if we start taking care of all of these areas that drag us down, the South will improve its image.”
This abandoned baseball field where wood is warping and steel stands are rusting seems reflective of how tired Timmonsville, S.C. seems. Per capita income for the town was $11,714 in 2000. In 2010, the town had 2,315 people. Ten years later, it had grown by five people.
Timmonsville’s poverty rate was 26.6 percent in 2000, much higher than its home county, Florence, which had 19.4 percent poverty in 2010. Florence, just a few miles away from Timmonsville, is the largest city in the Pee Dee with 37,498 people in 2012. Florence County had 137,948 people, according to a 2012 estimate.
For every business that is open on West Main Street in the Pee Dee town of Timmonsville, S.C., some six businesses are shuttered, including those pictured above. Open on the lonely street are a church, town hall, furniture shop, small chain general store and a bank. But there were 18 closed businesses along three blocks of the city’s hub street last month.
Fortunately for the community, Honda Motor Company located a facility several years back that builds all-terrain vehicles and personal watercrafts nearby, which helped employment levels. Still, per capita income for the town was $11,714 in 2000. In 2010, the town had 2,315 people. Ten years later, it had grown by five people.
Timmonsville’s poverty rate was 26.6 percent in 2000, much higher than its home county, Florence, which had 19.4 percent poverty in 2010. Florence, just a few miles away from Timmonsville, is the largest city in the Pee Dee with 37,498 people in 2012. Florence County had 137,948 people, according to a 2012 estimate.
People across the South often have to shop in convenience stores, such as this one in Estill, S.C., because their rural town doesn’t have a grocery store. Estill, a town of about 2,000 located in rural Hampton County, is lucky to have an IGA store in addition to the Mid-Mart. Towns like Greeleyville, S.C., no longer have a grocery store.
Hampton County, located in the southern part of South Carolina, was home to 21,090 people in 2010, about 4,000 fewer than a century earlier. More. Some 22.6 percent of Hampton County residents live below the poverty line. Hampton’s annual Watermelon Festival is the state’s longest, continually-running festival.
Here’s a photo that’s perfect for Thanksgiving. It’s an old Methodist church turned into a venue for special events, like today’s holiday.
The church (ca. 1908) in Oliver, Ga., between Statesboro and Savannah sat vacant for about 10 years before being bought and restored three years ago, according to its owner. Now a venue for weddings and other events, the church is interesting to some because of its Star of David windows.
Oliver, population 253 in 2000, is slightly over half black. An estimated 31 percent of residents are at or below the federal poverty line. Oliver is in Screven County, 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 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.
