Volume XIV, No. 4 February 2018
Rev. Dr. Jamil el-Shair, D.Min, Special Contributor
Pastor of Midway First Presbyterian Church
Acknowledging the Ancestors: Preserving Burial Traditions in Midway
Binyah, the Geechee term for “native,” genealogist Rose
Mullice often walks the pristine grounds of Midway First
Presbyterian Church Cemetery located within the Gullah Geechee
Cultural Heritage Corridor east of the Georgia coast on Highway
17 in Midway, GA.
The 150-year old, five-acre burial ground holds something dear to
her. This morning, Rose is in search of someone.
As the mist melts away with the rising sun leaving
only the jewel-like dew, Rose finds the grave of her Aunt Viola
Lambert. Standing over the 126-year old entombment cracked by
the roots of a tree, Rose captures the importance of finding the
resting place of lost families when she says:
Rose Mullice holds photo of Viola Lambert at graveside
Courtesy of Hermina Glass-Hill
“Aunt Vi, so long as we say your name, you are with us.”1
Viola Hughes Lambert and her husband, Samuel
Lambert were both born in the Midway area and migrated north
to Philadelphia, PA around 1920. Even as people migrated to
places outside their homeland, they held onto the tradition of
returning their deceased to their place of origin. Upon her death,
Viola’s body was returned to Liberty County and was buried in
Midway First Presbyterian Cemetery in 1937. When her husband
Samuel died in 1958, their children also returned his body to
Midway; he was also buried in the Hughes-Lambert Family Plot
at Midway First Presbyterian Cemetery.
Midway First Presbyterian Cemetery is a planned
landscape, laid out in family plots with burials situated north and
east of the original church. The graves face east toward the ocean
and the rising sun. The numerous internments reflect various
burial styles such as simple concrete slabs and/or modest pillows,
small pillars, brick masonry encasement as well as brick-covered
slabs with a concrete dome.
There are a variety of exemplary headstones composed
of granite, concrete, slate, and marble containing emblems such
as crosses, bibles, ivy, fleur de lis, Odd Fellows three link chain
symbols, Masonic square and compass, as well as military
markers identifying people who served in American wars waged
since the founding of the cemetery. There are also headstones
with the “hand of God” image mirroring the sculpture that stood
atop the steeple of the original church.
During Reconstruction, the formerly enslaved Geechee
people of Midway founded Midway Temple Presbyterian Church
and Cemetery in April 1868 under the leadership of Reverend
John Williams, an African American Presbyterian minister from
the historic Washington Avenue Presbyterian Church in Macon.2

1 Rose Mullice, Grave Decoration Day: Midway First Presbyterian
Church, Documentary, directed by Hermina Glass-Hill (November, 2017;
Midway, GA: Sankofa African American Heritage Trail East Liberty
County, GA, 2017), video.
2 “The 5 Oldest Churches in Macon,” Gateway Macon, accessed January
17, 2018.http://www.gatewaymacon.org. 
2
Vaughnette Goode-Walker, Special Contributor
Historian with Footprints of Savannah Walking Tours
 The 1940 census lists
Toomer as a widower, living with
his son Thaddeus at 620 West
36th Street. It was an area of the
city where many of Savannah’s
prominent blacks lived. Among
his neighbors was the Reverend
Dr. Ralph Mark Gilbert, pastor of
the First African Baptist Church
and head of the local and state
chapter of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP).6
 In 1947, a year after the
International Monetary Conference
convened in Savannah forming
the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and the World Bank, Toomer took his bank public. The
Georgia Savings and Realty Corporation moved from 509 ½ West
Broad Street to new quarters and sought a state charter and Federal
deposit insurance guarantee. It was around this time the bank
changed its name to Carver Savings Bank, most likely in honor of
George Washington Carver, the well known botanist and inventor,
who died in 1943. The Carver Savings Bank opened for business
at 810 Montgomery Street. The bank was under state and federal
deposit was insured up to $5,000.7
Like his grandfather and namesake, Louis B. Toomer was
very involved in politics. He was a Republican and campaigned
for those in the party who supported black issues. Toomer was a
delegate to the Republican presidential nominating conventions
in 1944, 1948 and 1952.8 In 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower
named Louis B. Toomer U.S. Registrar of the Treasury. The story
was featured in Jet Magazine. It stated, “The 58-year-old banker
and long-time Dixie Republican leader was appointed to the
$10,200-a-year post of Registrar of the Treasury, a job a Negro
has not held in 50 years. The first southern Negro to be named
to the top post, Toomer will maintain offices in Washington,
D. C., where he will direct a staff of more than 2,000 white
and Negro employees. He will also supervise the work of four
regional offices located in New York, Chicago, Cincinnati and Los
Angeles. His office will oversee an estimated trillion dollars in
cancelled securities, bonds, notes and other Treasury – borrowing
certificates.”9
President of the Carver Savings Bank in Savannah, GA,
Toomer, who without a college education rose to the top of Negro
banking circles, was at first considered for the post of collector of
customs in Savannah, but his name was later withdrawn because
6 U.S. Census 1940. Ancestry.com. Web
7 Charles Lwanga Hoskins. W. W. Law and His People: A Timeline and
Biographies. (Savannah, Ga., The Gullah Press, 2013 pg. 224)
8 “Ike Watches as Toomer Takes Office.” Savannah Morning News, 1 October 1953.
9 “Toomer Named U. S. Registrar of Treasury” Jet Magazine, 17
September,1953, p.
Louis Burke Toomer was born in 1897 in Savannah,
GA. His early beginnings seem to be somewhat of an
enigma; however, the impact of the businesses he founded
and the contributions he made to the community during his
lifetime continue to serve generations of Savannahians.
Toomer was the son of Edward and Hannah
Toomer. His father was a blacksmith and postal worker and
his mother worked as a seamstress. The 1910 Census lists
his parents and three siblings: two sisters, Eunice (8), Ruth,
(7) and a brother, Willie E.(5). The census lists Toomer
(17) as living at home with his family and his work is listed
as a Fireman apprentice.1 Eventually, Toomer’s career path
seemed to follow that of his namesake and grandfather
Louis B. Toomer, a very successful Savannahian in his own
right.
The elder Toomer and two of Savannah’s leading
polticians, Louis M. Pleasant, and John H. Deveaux
owned the Negro Republican paper, the Colored Tribune,
which began publication in 1875. Editorials in the
paper, later becoming The Savannah Tribune, constantly
reminded Savannah blacks that they could look only to
the Republican party if they expected to be secure in
their political and social privileges, while progressing
economically.2
 The elder Toomer had also been at the
forefront of an effort to found a black bank in Savannah. In
1874, he and Reverend Henry McNeal Turner held a mass
meeting at St. Philip’s A.M.E. Church to discuss the fate of
the Freedman’s Bank, that later closed, and the feasibilty of
establishing a black owned institution.3
Toomer served in the U.S. Army in 1917 and was
stationed in Connecticut. He began his business career,
in 1927, when he brought a realty company owned by
Howard Stiles and founded the Georgia Savings and Realty
Company with the motto: “I sell the earth and rent the
town.” Toomer was married to his first wife, Bessie, and
they had a one son, Thaddeus. In 1931 Toomer operated
his real estate business in the McKelvey building and later
moved it to West Broad and Gaston Street. John McKelvey,
a black contractor who built decent, affordable housing for
blacks, constructed McKelvey – Powell Hall. It housed a
black USO, YMCA, and various other businesses.4
In 1937 The Savannah Tribune reported on the
city’s only black bank, the Georgia Savings and Realty
Corporation, opening at 464 West Broad Street in the heart
of the city’s black business district. 5
1 United States Census Bureau. 1910. Ancestry.com. Web.
2 Robert E. Perdue. The Negro in Savannah 1865 -1900. (New
York: Exposition Press, Inc.,1973, pg. 131)
3 Lance Perlman. Louis B. Toomer: A Struggle for Equality. Research paper, Armstrong State University, 1993.
4 Jenel Williams, “When Black Businesses Prospered,” Savannah
Morning News, 23 February 1998.
5 Charles Lwanga Hoskins. W. W. Law and His People: A Timeline
and Biographies. (Savannah, Ga., The Gullah Press, 2013 pg. 224)
Louis Burke Toomer
Courtesy of Carver State Bank
Black Republican Breaks Barriers, Leaves Banking Legacy
February 2018
3
of objections from with Dixie politicians.10 Toomer had been
originally proposed by the state GOP organization and later
considered by the White House for appointment of collector of
customs in Savannah. Word of the plan got to Senator Walter F.
George who opposed the idea.11 George, a Democrat, represented
Georgia in the U.S. Senate and was a strong supporter of racial
segregation in the 1950s.
Toomer said the nomination by President Eisenhower
showed the GOP appreciated the support of his race and reflects
“what the GOP think of the Negroes compared with what the
Democrats thought.”12 He was nominated in September and
confirmed the next month. Toomer was sworn in at the White
House and afterwards President Eisenhower told him the oath
taking “makes you a bureaucrat” and “it’s nice to have you
aboard.”13
Toomer was sworn in as the first Negro register of the
Treasury since 1911 in October 1953. Savannah Tribune editor
Sol C. Johnson wrote this about the appointment:
 Louis B. Toomer is preserving in a way, a heritage which
comes down from his grandfather, who was one of the early
Negro Republicans in this County even prior to founding of
public education for Negroes here. Mr. Toomer merits the
consideration he has received from the President because he
has stood with the party throughout the lean years when the
name Republican was a matter of amusement; when the majority
of Negroes in the states and county joined the Democratic
procession. All of us are proud of Mr. Toomer, no matter what our
party affiliations. We should have liked it if he had been given the
Customs’ Post here, but since reactionary opposition kicked him
upstairs, our best wishes for pre – eminent success go with him.
We salute Mr. Louis B. Toomer. 14
In 1954 the Men’s Club of St. Matthew’s Episcopal
church sponsored a dinner to honor Toomer being named to the
post of Registrar. At the dinner the banker surprised the group
when he handed over the deed to the lot next to the church to the
Men’s club.15
At the end of 1954, the Carver State Bank had assets of
more than $600,000. Toomer was dividing his time between the
bank and the Treasury. He held the Treasury post for four years
and split his weeks between Savannah and Washington D. C.,
working Mondays through Wednesdays in the nation’s capital and
taking the train home to work at the bank on the weekend.16
Louis B. Toomer married Janie Ruth Robinson on
December 28, 1955. The Savannah Tribune reported that Mrs.
Toomer was a native of Statesboro, GA. She moved to Savannah
in 1950 and had a daughter from a previous marriage.17
10 Ibid.
11 “GOP Grateful to Negroes Says Toomer,” Savannah Morning News, 4
September 1953.
12 Ibid.
13 “Ike Watches as Toomer Takes Office.” Savannah Morning News, 1
October 1953.
14 Charles Lwanga Hoskins. W. W. Law and His People: A Timeline and
Biographies. (Savannah, Ga., The Gullah Press, 2013 pg. 224)
15 Ibid.
16 Adam Van Brimmer, “Carver State Bank Celebrates 85th Anniversary,”
Savannah Morning News, 25 February 2012.
17 Charles Lwanga Hoskins. W. W. Law and His People: A Timeline and
Biographies. (Savannah, Ga., The Gullah Press, 2013 pg. 223)
When Toomer resigned as Registrar of the Treasury in 1956, it
had 3,000 employees. Toomer was one of Savannah’s wealthiest
blacks; he lived at 2711 West Broad Street. The Negro Midtown
Directory that year was dedicated to Louis B. Toomer.18
 Toomer died in 1961 leaving his mark on politics,
banking, and real estate. In 1961, Jet Magazine published a note
about his death under its the “Week’s Census” column. It read:
“Died: Louis B. Toomer, prominent Republican, President and
Founder of the Carver Savings Bank of Savannah, GA, and
former Registrar to the Treasury; of a heart attack; at Charity
Hospital.”19 In 1964 a memorial was placed in Chatham Square
in his honor. It is a bronze sundial on a column from the old
Exchange Bank, a fitting tribute to a man many would say was
ahead of his time.
Today, Carver State Bank has two branches, on Martin Luther
King Jr. Boulevard, formerly West Broad Street where the
bank got its start, and at the intersection of Skidaway Road
and-ironically enough-Eisenhower Drive. Carver State Bank
is one of two African American-owned community banks in
Georgia. Robert James is only the third president in the history
of the institution. He has been at the helm since 1971, at just 24
years old, close to Toomer’s age when he went into the banking.
business.
Carver State Bank marks its 91st anniversary this year.
According to The Savannah Tribune, Carver is one of only 21
of the almost 6,500 banks in the United States owned by African
Americans. Established in 1927, it is also the oldest bank
headquartered in Savannah.20

.
18 Ibid.
19 “The Week’s Census,” Jet Magazine 1 June 1961, 48
20 Carver to Kick Off 90th Anniversary Celebration, Savannah Tribune,
1 February, 2017, p.1
Former West Broad Street branch demolished in 2010 for new building
Courtesy of SavannahNow.com
February 2018
4
secured by Brown v Board of Education. Although Grady
High School was one of the first desegregate, some critics
could argue that its urban setting made it a convenient
location for an “integration” effort. The school was situated
in an area of the city where both blacks and whites lived in
close proximity, thus the desegregation of its facility may
not have explicitly dealt with the
spatial nature of segregation at
the time.
As the Civil Rights
Movement took shape and began
to force federal legislators to
address overt Jim Crow racism
in U.S. cities, many whites found
other ways to resist these new
changes. Mass migration of
whites from cities to suburbs
became the segregationist
response to the moral demands
of the Civil Rights Movement.3

This movement of whites to
the city outskirts and other
segregated residential patterns
resulted in them opening their
own private schools in suburban
enclaves that were geographically
separated from the predominately
black inner city. With an
increasing tax base and more developers investing in the
suburbs, city housing and urban infrastructures and public
schools began to suffer. If true integration were to take place,
then city leaders and legislators would have to find a way to
increase the black presence in suburban white schools.
 The creation of portable classrooms and the
“freedom of choice” plan, which allowed children to attend
the school of their choice without race being a factor,4
were implemented to further advance racial integration in
public schools. However by April of 1965, the District
Court in Atlanta found that the city’s desegregation plans
had not adequately achieved the goal of black/white school
integration.5

Dr. Benjamin Mays, former president of Morehouse
College and mentor to Martin Luther King Jr., became the
first African American chairman for the Atlanta Board of
Education in 1970. One of his initial goals was to ensure
3 Kruse, Kevin M. 2013. White flight: Atlanta and the making of
modern conservatism. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
4 Fava, Eileen. 1991. “Desegregation and Parental Choice in Public
Schooling: A Legal Analysis of Controlled Choice
Student Assignment Plans.” Boston College Third World Law Journal
(83).
5 Ibid
The Complexities of Race and Class in the Integration of Atlanta Public Schools
Jonathan Paul Grant, MA, ABD, Special Contributor
PhD Student, Sociology, Georgia State University
Prior to the 1960s, black people in the South were forced to
live in segregated communities where life’s activities were
separated along racial lines. Out of this forced subjugation
came E.A. Ware and Booker T Washington, the first “brick and
mortar” elementary and high school for black children in Atlanta
respectively. Both schools were located in the Atlanta University
Center (AUC) National Historic District,
situated in downtown Atlanta, and
allowed the AUC colleges to grow into
the institutions we see today1
. The era of
Jim Crow forced blacks to create mixed
income communities; this segregation
allowed some African Americans to
work together across class lines for the
purpose of racial equality. Segregated
institutions, such as the Ware elementary
and Washington high schools, provided
job opportunities for black teachers and
prepared African American children for
college.
The Civil Rights Movement
became a catalyst for addressing
common racial issues that existed across
economic groups and sparking black
social mobility and racial integration.
Some scholars argue that the Civil
Rights Movement mostly benefitted
economically advantaged blacks and
their leaders and disregarded the needs of the black poor.2
 This
perceived neglect of the more disadvantaged group continued
to drive a wedge between middle and working-class blacks,
seeding tensions that would continue in Atlanta for decades to
come. The attempt to integrate Atlanta public schools helps
explains this complex divid along class lines.
The ruling in 1954 Brown v. Board of Education
prohibited state laws from creating separate public schools
for black and white students. This landmark case also set the
stage for increased desegregation efforts in other aspects of
society (public transit, colleges, lunch counters, etc.) that would
continue into the next decade. By 1961 cities nationwide were
encouraged to desegregate their public schools to offer blacks
the same education provided to whites. On the morning of
August 30, 1961, nine African American students desegregated
four all-white Atlanta high schools, including Henry Grady High
School. Some critics asked if this predicted the integration of all
of Atlanta’s public schools.
In the 1960s, like many cities across the United States,
Atlanta did not have a strategy to carry out the federal mandate
1 Scott, Jay. 2017. Demolition of Jordan Hall another sign of Atlanta’s
dereliction of historic buildings. SportaReport. https://saportareport.
com/demolition-jordan-hall-another-sign-atlantas-dereliction-historicbuildings/.
2 Wilson. William J. 1987. The Truly Disadvantaged: the Inner City, the
Underclass and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Willie Jean Black, Arthur Simmons and Donita Gaines
(left to right), Northside High School, 1961.
Courtesy of Charles Pugh / AJC Archive at the GSU Library
February 2018
5
the federal busing mandates that sought to provide educational
equality for low-income minority students. What started out
as an effort to fit the needs of a majority of blacks came to
benefit the upper echelon of middle class blacks. After a few
attempts to fully desegregate Atlanta public schools, the white
power structure made blacks choose the benefits of a few over
the needs of the masses. Benjamin E. Mays, a member of
the black middle class, saw that the struggle to create equal
opportunities for low-income black students would be a long
and arduous battle. So instead, his organization decided that
immediate opportunities for advantaged black teachers was a
sufficient victory in the overall fight for desegregation. Maybe
they would revisit the battle for further integration in the future.
Unfortunately three decades later, Atlanta still remains a city
that suffers from educational segregation along race and class
lines.
While Atlanta has
been hailed the “cradle of the
Civil Rights Movement”13
what often goes overlooked
are the class conflicts that
permeate the long history
of the racial struggle in
Atlanta. Mays and the
Atlanta Board of Education
favored the interests of the
black middle class teachers
and administrators, while
the working class and poor
blacks in Atlanta continue
to fight for access to the
opportunities naturally
afforded to whites and later
permitted to the black middle
class. Whites have the
advantage of being divided
along class lines, while still
remaining in power. However, blacks cannot afford to separate
themselves across economic categories and still be successful
in achieving overall equality. Therefore, in the continuing
struggle towards “a more perfect union,” we must recognize the
class divisions that can be used to segment our interests, and,
instead, commit to address the needs of all black people across
class, gender and other social identities.
13 Reed, Kayla. 2015. “Atlanta: Cradle of the Civil Rights Movement.”
The Voice of Public Relations. Public Relations Society of America
(PRSA).
that Atlanta public schools would be properly integrated along racial
lines.6
 The institution of forced busing was put in place to ensure that
blacks and white students went to school together. Inner-city black
students would be bused to suburban white schools to increase access
to “quality education.” However, with many whites moving their
children to private parochial schools, this led to a reduced success of
forced busing,7
 and urban schools remained predominately non-white.
Later, U.S. District Judge Frank A. Hooper ruled “that
there was no legal precedent requiring the busing of pupils.”8
 When
addressing all-black and all-white schools, he stated they “do not
exist because of discrimination, but exist because the residential
pattern of ... Atlanta is such that said schools cannot” be desegregated
by any additional mandates put forth by the court.9
 This ruling was
a huge blow to racial integration because it reinforced segregation
as residential patterns, replacing Jim Crow laws as the basis for
educational inequality.
One positive aspect of
the ruling was that Judge Hooper
required that school boards integrate
their teaching staff. However, this
aspect did not come without conflict.
The New York Times reported white
Georgia teachers were in fear of
their lives and refused to teach at
predominately black schools.10 In
opposition to this aspect of the
ruling, Georgia Governor Lester
Maddox encouraged white students
to boycott the new ruling, and white
teachers to refuse their transfers. In
addition to teacher integration, there
was still the issue of busing and
how the city would integrate black
students into white schools. Tension
between the black community and
the Atlanta school board flared until
officials finally agreed to limit student
busing in return for a more integrated faculty and staff.11 The Atlanta
Board of Education along with Benjamin Mays as the chair decided
that busing was impractical and expensive. Instead, they decided
to increase the number of blacks in key positions. Tomiko BrownNagin (2011) states, “The same board that rejected racial balance
for students, embraced it wholeheartedly for administrators.”12 This
example shows value of teacher integration and job opportunities for
middle-class black teachers and professionals took precedence over
6 Ibid
7 Frum, David. 2000. How We Got Here: The ‘70s. New York, NY: Basic
Books pp. 252–264
8 The New York Times. “Busing of Students Barred in Atlanta.” 1970. The
New York Times. New York
9 Ibid
10 The New York Times. 1970. “Georgia Troopers Halt Negroes Marching to
Hear Maddox Talk.” The New York Times. New York.
11 Cities Atlanta. The desegregation of Atlanta Schools. Freedom on Film:
Civil Rights in Georgia. http://www.civilrights.uga.edu/cities/atlanta/school_
desegregation.htm. 11/10/2017.
12 Brown-Nain, Tomiko. 2011. Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Henry Grady High School, built 1922-24 as Boys High, renamed in 1947
Courtesy of the Society of Architectural Historians/SAH-Archipedia.org
February 2018
6
Acknowledging the Ancestors: Preserving Burial Traditions in Midway
Rev. Dr. Jamil el-Shair continued from page 1
In October 2017, public historian Hermina Glass-Hill
uncovered documents that runaway slave, resistance freedom
fighter, Civil War nurse, educator, and early social justice activist
Susie (neé Baker) King Taylor was married on 20 April 1879 at
Midway Temple Presbyterian Church across from this cemetery
by its second pastor Reverend James T.H. Waite. She married
Edward King, a black noncommissioned officer in the Union
forces. Both were members of Midway First Presbyterian church.
The Midway Temple Presbyterian Cemetery is the
resting place of several luminaries of Liberty County including
the earliest teachers, carpenters, farmers, and other significant
Geechee ancestors. Among the nearly 450 marked and unmarked
burials are the noted Frazier Brothers. Dr. Simon Fennimore
Frazier, MD, was the first African American doctor in East
Liberty County. He graduated from Meharry Medical School
in Nashville, TN in 1915. Simon Frazier Homes, a 400-unit
affordable housing community in Savannah is named in his honor.
His brother, Felix Frazier was a founder of Limerick Lodge
#437, Prince Hall Affiliate in the Freedman Grove Community in
Liberty County. The masonic cornerstone identifies Felix Frazier
for his role in establishing the lodge in 1918.3
As well maintained as the cemetery is, church property
manager Elder Willie Mae Washington is acutely aware of the
depressions in the cemetery ground that are probably unmarked
and unidentified graves. Working with a landscaper, she pays
particular attention to the cypress trees on the property as some
were planted to indicate a grave when people could not afford
a headstone. The church is committed to identifying unmarked
graves and connecting family members to relatives buried in this
sacred space.
3 Rose Mullice, Grave Decoration Day: Midway First Presbyterian
Church, Documentary, directed by Hermina Glass-Hill (November, 2017;
Midway, GA: Sankofa African American Heritage Trail East Liberty
County, GA, 2017), video.
To acknowledge our ancestors means we are aware that we did not
make ourselves, that the line stretches all the way back, perhaps to
God ... -- Author Alice Walker
~
Ancestor Grave Decoration Day is held here to
acknowledge the continuity of the Geechee Gullah and ancient
African practice of decorating graves with artifacts that honor
the deceased. The event also seeks to reclaim lost African
burial traditions that has existed among the Geechee people of
coastal Georgia for centuries. One such tradition is the use of
shells to represent water and the bottom of the ocean where in
African beliefs the afterworld or “realm of the dead” reside.4

This year’s Ancestor Grave Decoration Day is set for Memorial
Day on May 28, 2018.
 Also, Midway First Presbyterian Church and
Cemetery are represented on the Sankofa African American
Heritage Trail, a collaboration of the Susie King Taylor
Women’s Institute and Ecology Center and Trail Committee of
East Liberty County. This partnership’s key objectives are to
identify, preserve, restore, educate, and advocate for sustainable
stewardship of significant cultural and historic sites related to
Georgia Geechee heritage in Midway and East Liberty County.
Come discover these treasures and celebrate the 150th
anniversary of the Historic Midway First Presbyterian Church
and Cemetery, 672 North Coastal Highway, Midway, Georgia.
Please visit www.midwayfirstpres.org .
4 Vlach, John Michael 1990, Afro-American Tradition in Decorative
Arts, University of Georgia Press, Athens, 1991; By the Work of Their
Hands: Studies in Afro American Folklife, University Press of Virginia,
Charlottesville, 1992.
These grave goods used to honor ancestors reflect African traditions.
Courtesy of Hermina Glass-Hill
Church and family members help maintain the park-like grounds.
Courtesy of Hermina Glass-Hill
February 2018
7

Greene County Farmer and Family Launches
Farm-to-Table Cafe In Atlanta
Congratulations to Willie E.
Adams, a fourth-generation
farmer, and family on
opening the Jim Adams
Farm & Table market and
cafe this month.
The new Atlanta-based
agri-business continues the
legacy of James and Rosa Adams who purchased 60
acres in Greene County GA in 1938 under President
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program.
Jim Adams Farm & Table
2011 Bolton Road, NW Suite 109 Atlanta, GA 30318
Email: contact@jimadams.farm | jimadams.farm
Image credit: Willie E. Adams
Announcements
Five Perspectives Exhibit Spans Two Madison
Museums through March 17
Five Georgia contemporary
artists boost the 2018
season at the Morgan
County African American
Museum and the Steffen
Thomas Museum, both in
Madison. Shuttle service
takes patrons between the
two musems to see works
of Kevin Cole, Alfred Conteh, Shanequa Gay, Lynn
Marshall-Linnemeier, and Kevn Sipp.
Morgan County African American Museum
1156 Academy Street Madison, GA 30650
706 342-9191| www.mcaam.org
Image credit: The Steffen Thomas Museum of Art

2018 Susie King Taylor/ Mami Wata Rising
Conference Premieres This April
Featured presenters
and attendees explore
Reminiscences: GeecheeGullah Women’s
Spiriturality, Liberation
and Literature April 13-15
in Midway.
Dr. Clarissa MyrickHarris, President of
One World Archives Institute and former Provost
of Savannah State University, will give the keynote
address. To register, please visit
https://www.susiekingtaylorinstitute.org/schedule
Susie King Taylor Women’s Institute and
Ecology Center
912 884 3605 | susiekingtaylor@yahoo.com
https://www.susiekingtaylorinstitute.org/
Image credit: Hermina Glass-Hill
African American Quilt Domentation Project
Records History of Family Heirlooms
Bring your grandmother’s
quilts to Memories Day
at George Washington
Carver Park on February
24, 2018 at 10 am.
Historians will document
these artifacts for
inclusion in the Bartow
History Museum Archives.
This project aims to rescue endangered quilts,
promote the importance of family histories, and
strengthen the history of Bartow County.

The Noble Hill Wheeler Memorial Center
2361 Joe Frank Harris Pkwy Cassville, GA 30123
770 382-3392 | www.facebook.com/
Noblehillwheelermemorialcenter/
Image credit: Noble Hill Wheeler Memorial Center
The Georgia African American Historic Preservation Network (GAAHPN)
was established in January 1989. It is composed of representatives from
neighborhood organizations and preservation groups. GAAHPN was formed in
response to a growing interest in preserving the cultural and built diversity of Georgia’s
African American heritage. This interest has translated into a number of efforts
which emphasize greater recognition of African American culture and contributions
to Georgia’s history. The GAAHPN Steering Committee plans and implements ways
to develop programs that will foster heritage education, neighborhood revitalization,
and support community and economic development.
The Network is an informal group of over 3,000 people who have an interest in
preservation. Members are briefed on the status of current and planned projects and
are encouraged to offer ideas, comments and suggestions. The meetings provide
an opportunity to share and learn from the preservation experience of others and to
receive technical information through workshops. Members receive a newsletter,
Reflections, produced by the Network. Visit the Historic Preservation Division
website at www.georgiashpo.org. Preservation information and previous issues of
Reflections are available online. Membership in the Network is free and open to all.
About GAAHPN
This publication has been financed in part with federal
funds from the National Park Service, Department of
the Interior, through the Historic Preservation Division,
Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The contents
and opinions do not necessarily reflect the views or
policies of the Department of the Interior, nor does
the mention of trade names, commercial products or
consultants constitute endorsement or recommendation by
the Department of the Interior or the Georgia Department
of Natural Resources. The Department of the Interior
prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color,
national origin, or disability in its federally assisted
programs. If you believe you have been discriminated
against in any program, activity, or facility, or if you desire
more information, write to: Office for Equal Opportunity,
National Park Service, 1849 C Street, NW, Washington,
D.C. 20240.
Published quarterly by the
Historic Preservation Division
Georgia Department of Natural Resources
Dr. David Crass, Division Director
Melissa Jest, Editor
Velmon Allen
Jeanne Cyriaque
Lillian Davis
 Barbara Golden
Terry Hayes
Richard Laub
Isaac Johnson, Chair
Dr. Gerald Golden, Vice-Chair
Steering Committee
Isaac Johnson
Chairman
Melissa Jest
African American
Programs Coordinator
Reflections Editor
Voice 770/389-7870
Fax 770/389-7878
melissa.jest@dnr.ga.gov
Staff
8
Since its first issue appeared in December 2000, Reflections has documented
hundreds of Georgia’s African American historic resources. Now all of these
articles are available on the Historic Preservation Division website
www.georgiashpo.org. Search for links to your topic by categories:
cemeteries, churches, districts, farms, lodges, medical, people, places,
schools, and theatres. You can now subscribe to Reflections from the
homepage. Reflections is a recipient of a Leadership in History Award from
the American Association for State and Local History.
About Reflections
Ieshia L. Hall
African American
Programs Assistant
Voice 770/389-7879
Fax 770/389-7878
ieshia.hall@dnr.ga.gov