VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer Brian Brown says this old vernacular church, likely from the turn of the last century, is on private property near Gough, Ga., but can be seen from the road.
Gough (pronounced “GOFF”), located about 10 miles west of Waynesboro in eastern central Georgia, is in Burke County, which had about 23,125 people in 2012. The population 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.
This simple country church sits among the pines in rural Clarendon County, S.C. Kingstree photographer Linda W. Brown writes, “There is a newer church building across the road, so this particular building may be used for other functions now, but I’m glad that it’s still standing.”
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.
Ripe grain spreads out in front of this rural Clarendon County church, reminding us that we need both bread and faith to survive, writes photographer Linda W. Brown of nearby Kingstree, S.C.
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.
Two guys walk past an empty building on Main Street in North, S.C., on a chilly January day. What caught our attention about the deteriorating grand-looking commercial building was the red sign of the establishment at the right — a church that appeared to be closed. Emblazoned at the top: “Im Still Here and Still Standing For Jesus.”
North, which has an old military air strip outside of the town limits that is still used for military touch-and-go landings for C-17 Globemaster transport jets, seems to be a tired, rural town. The reason: It got its oomph more than 100 years because of the railroad, which isn’t a player these days. [History.]
North, which has a population of about 800, is in Orangeburg County, which is South Carolina’s largest. Some 91,476 people were thought to live in the county in 2012, according to the U.S. Census. Almost two in three residents are black. Some 24.5 percent of residents live below poverty.
Carswell Grove Baptist Church, Jenkins County, Ga.
The historic Carswell Grove Baptist Church, pictured above, about 10 miles northwest of Millen, Ga., has a complicated history, writes Georgia photographer Brian Brown in this post on VanishingSouthGeorgia.com. The current church building, now on the National Register of Historic Places, was constructed in 1919 after a lynch mob burned down its predecessor during a time of racial violence that was known as “Red Summer.”
According to an excerpt of an article in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin, the church had one of the largest black congregations in eastern Georgia in 1919. An April 13 of that year as hundreds gathered to celebrate its founding, an altercation broke out after two white police officers arrived. Both police officers and a black man were killed. Another man, Joe Ruffin, was severely wounded. According to the story, which writer Cameron McWhirter published as a book in 2011(Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America):
“A white mob quickly formed and went on a rampage. The mob burned the church down, then killed two of Ruffin’s sons—one of them a thirteen-year-old. Rioters threw the bodies in the flames, then spread out through the area, burning black lodges, churches, and cars. They killed several other people; no one knows how many. The wounded Joe Ruffin was saved from the lynch mob only because a white county commissioner drove him at high speed to the nearest big city, Augusta, and put him in the county jail there.”
Brown said efforts were ongoing to preserve and stabilize the current church structure.
Jenkins County, whose county seat is Millen, was home to 9,213 people, according to the U.S. Census in 2012, an increase of 10 percent from two years earlier. Almost 30 percent of residents live in poverty.
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.
Members of the First United Methodist Church in Sylvania in eastern Georgia are shown leaving church on a fall Sunday. Despite the fact that Southern states tend to be more conservative than states in other parts of the country, Southerners tend to be more generous with larger percentages of their discretionary income going to charity.
According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, four Southern states — Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina — are in the top five most charitable states. Georgia ranks eighth, according to a 2012 study.
Sylvania, the county seat of Screven County, had 2,675 people in 2000, according to the Census. Screven County got its start 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.
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.
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.
During the Great Depression, the Farm Security Administration hired documentary photographers like Marion Post Wolcott to take photographs of rural and small-town life across the country to highlight the effects of economic stagnation. The collection offers more than 164,000 black-and-white photos and 1,600 color photos taken from across the nation.
What’s interesting about this 1939 photo by Wolcott, described as “A Negro church in a corn field” near the South Carolina Crescent town of Manning in Clarendon County, is how it could have been taken just as easily today, 74 years later. According to the 2010 Census, almost 21 percent of Clarendon County residents live in poverty.
