Reflections- Georgia African American Historic Preservation Network, Vol. 9, no. 3 (Dec. 2010)

Volume IX, No.3 December 2010
Jeanne Cyriaque, African American Programs Coordinator
Historic Preservation Division
continued on page 2
FORT VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY IMPLEMENTS
CAMPUS HISTORIC PRESERVATION PLAN
F
ort Valley State University (FVSU), founded in 1895, is one of
three historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs)
that are land grant campuses in the University System of
Georgia and the Board of Regents (BOR). All of these campuses
possess historic properties that are significant buildings in the
early development of the colleges. These institutions, with guidance
from the BOR, develop preservation plans for their historic buildings
that serve as templates for specific rehabilitation projects. The
Historic Preservation Division provides technical assistance to
these institutions on rehabilitation projects and guidance on the
treatment of historic properties, and reviews their campus
preservation plans.
FVSU implemented their Campus Historic Preservation
Plan (CHHP) with technical assistance from Clement & Wynn
Program Managers, who assembled a team of architects, engineers,
archaeologists and landscape
architects to ensure that the
preservation plan incorporates
historic buildings as an integral
part of campus development
activities. The plan provides
the university with “…an
understanding of the history
of the institution, how that
history has shaped the
physical form of the campus
and how it is likely to influence
its future.” Besides focusing
on historic buildings, the plan
assessed conditions for all
campus buildings that are
guidelines for rehabilitating or
re-purposing buildings as the
university experiences growth.
Founders Hall is one of the buildings that form the core of the campus
quadrangle. The building was constructed in 1926 by Ludlow and Peabody
of New York City and was also known historically as the Academic Building.
Photo by Jeanne Cyriaque
The FVSU Campus Historic Preservation Plan cites distinct
periods of development in the school’s history. The Fort Valley
State College Historic District was listed in the National Register of
Historic Places on April 21, 2000. The 16-acre district contains the
core of the campus with eleven historic buildings that were
constructed between 1896 and 1952. The earliest development
period that the plan cites was from 1895-1913.
In 1895, a group of 18 citizens, including three whites,
petitioned the Superior Court in Perry to establish the school. A
few months later, the school was chartered for 20 years as the Fort
Valley High and Industrial School in Houston (now Peach) County.
One of the original petitioners, John Wesley Davison, was named
principal of the school. He was the school’s principal until 1903.
Davison solicited contributions for some of the early buildings on
the campus, and many were constructed with student labor. One of
the white founders, Francis
Gano, purchased land around
the school and the nearby
neighborhood that was known
as Ganoville. The Fort Valley
High and Industrial School
purchased his house upon his
death in 1904. The house was
the family residence of three
Fort Valley presidents through
the mid-1960s, and today it is
known as the Benjamin
Anderson House, and is used
for special campus events.
Anderson was a member of the
school faculty for over 25 years.
Principal Davison was
also successful in acquiring
funds for the school through
2
Jeanne Cyriaque, continued from page 1
FORT VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY IMPLEMENTS
CAMPUS HISTORIC PRESERVATION PLAN
the General Education Board (GEB) and Anna T. Jeanes, who
established a fund for the school. The first girls’ dormitory, Jeanes
Hall, was named in honor of this philanthropist. Though this
building no longer remains, another dormitory was constructed
named Jeanes Hall. By the end of Davison’s tenure as principal,
the campus grew to over 30 acres. Gabriel Miller, a graduate of
Tuskegee Institute, led the construction of several new buildings
on the campus. As a carpentry instructor, Miller involved students
who helped to build several campus structures. Miller served as
interim principal until the school hired Henry Alexander Hunt in
early 1904.
Philanthropist George Foster Peabody and the GEB
recommended Henry Hunt to the school, and he administered the
next period of development, identified as the American Church
Institute Period in the Campus Historic Preservation Plan, through
1938. Hunt graduated from Atlanta University and had additional
experience at Biddle (now Johnson C. Smith University) in Charlotte,
North Carolina.
In 1913, Hunt received financial backing through an
agreement with the American Church Institute of the Protestant
The current Jeanes Hall was constructed in 1952. It is an
International Style building that forms the second historic
core of the campus. Currently used as a men’s dormitory,
the Campus Historic Preservation Plan identified this
building as eligible for listing in the National Register of
Historic Places.
Photo by Jeanne Cyriaque
Episcopal Church. By 1918, the school was under the auspices of
the American Church Institute for Negroes with the stipulation that
the majority of the board of trustees be members of the Episcopal
Diocese of Atlanta. George Foster Peabody was a member of this
board and made significant contributions to Fort Valley High and
Industrial School as well as Tuskegee Institute. Peabody was a
native of Columbus, Georgia, and devoted his life to philanthropy
after a successful business career in New York. His nephew, Charles
S. Peabody, was a partner in the firm of Ludlow and Peabody Architects
in New York, and constructed several buildings at Fort Valley.
Not relying on one primary funding source, Hunt and
assistant principal James Torbert, financial agent for the school,
solicited funds from wealthy benefactors to keep the school afloat
during this period. One benefactor was Arabella Huntington, who
donated $25,000 from the estate of her husband, Collis P. Huntington,
a railroad financier. Students contributed labor in constructing a
three-story brick dormitory for women. Huntington Hall is the oldest
academic building on the Fort Valley campus in continuous use
and is the last surviving building that was partially constructed
with student labor. Huntington Hall is the recipient of a National Park
Service grant that stabilized the building and FVSU is currently
renovating the 1908 structure for use as campus administrative offices.
In 1925, the Carnegie Foundation contributed $25,000 to
build a library for the school. It was named for Andrew Carnegie,
whose corporation established public libraries after his death in
1919. Ludlow and Peabody constructed a new building on campus
that same year with a gift from Mrs. Royal Canfield Peabody. It was
named the Peabody Trades Building, and the architect was her son.
By 1926, construction began on the Academic Building
that today is known as Founders Hall. It was completed by 1929
and was used as the main academic building/assembly hall.
Designed by Ludlow and Peabody, Founders Hall also received
financial support from the Julius Rosenwald Fund, who
contributed $2,100.
By 1928, Henry Alexander Hunt shifted the school’s
emphasis to teacher training and trades. In 1929, the school changed
its name from Fort Valley High and Industrial School to Fort Valley
Benjamin Anderson House was the residence of one of the
school’s founders, Francis Gano. Three Fort Valley
presidents lived in the home that is still used for special
campus events. Photo by James R. Lockhart
Carnegie Hall was the first library for Fort Valley.
The building is located on the historic quadrangle
and is currently home to the university public safety
offices. Photo by Jeanne Cyriaque
3
Normal and Industrial School. This change also brought about an
expanded curriculum that offered college level classes in education
and building trades.
Aiken and Faulkner, an African American firm in Atlanta,
constructed Ohio Hall in 1930. It was built with contributions from
the Episcopal Diocese in Ohio with plans developed by Ludlow
and Peabody. Ohio Hall was a three-story men’s dormitory
constructed of brick and stone. Aiken and Faulkner also built
Samuel Henry Bishop Hall, another Ludlow and Peabody building,
in 1932. Bishop Hall, a Colonial Revival building with large, arched
windows and a central cupola, became the cafeteria/dining hall. It
was named for an Episcopal priest who was an official with the
American Church Institute for Negroes.
In 1937, Robert William Patton Hall was completed.
Stanislaw Makielski, a professor at the University of Virginia who
was associated with the Episcopal Church, designed the building.
It originally served as the Home Economics building, and was named
to honor Bishop Patton, the executive director of the American
Church Institute for Negroes.
With the completion of several brick buildings in the 1930s,
the school’s campus was oriented towards a traditional quadrangle
rather than facing a road. These buildings and walkways that formed
the quadrangle became “The Oval” or “College Circle”, the historic
core of the campus.
Throughout the 1930s, Principal Hunt explored the
possibility of the State of Georgia taking over the school, but was
unable to reach an agreement with the Board of Regents. Leaders
of the American Church Institute for Negroes also supported this
move, and negotiations began in earnest in 1937. By 1938, Dean
Walter D. Cocking of the College of Education at the University of
Georgia issued his report that supported acquisition of the Fort
Valley Normal and Industrial School. The Report of the Study on
Higher Education of Negroes that Cocking authored recommended
that Fort Valley replace the State Teachers and Agricultural College
in Forsyth that was established by William M. Hubbard in 1900.
Hubbard started his school with seven students in the
Kynette Methodist Episcopal Church. Within two years, he
obtained white support and petitioned Monroe County to
incorporate the Forsyth Normal and Industrial School. By 1916,
Hubbard extended classes to the high school level, adding the 10th
and 11th grades. The Forsyth Normal and Industrial School was
accredited in 1917, and one year later became the state’s first
vocational school for African Americans. Another milestone
occurred in 1922, when the Georgia legislature passed an act that
made Hubbard’s school the “School of Agriculture and Mechanic
Arts for the Training of Negroes.” In 1931, the school became the
State Teachers and Agricultural College (STAC). Now a unit in the
University System of Georgia, STAC was a junior college.
When Cocking’s report was issued, STAC was
discontinued as a state school, and its educational responsibilities
were transferred to Fort Valley. In 1938, the school changed its
name to Fort Valley State College, and the following year it became
a four-year college in the University System of Georgia, joining
Savannah State and Albany State as Georgia’s African American
land grant colleges. The William M. Hubbard School became Monroe
County’s first African American public high school.
Other changes impacted Fort Valley State College when it
transitioned from a private to a public institution. Just before the
transfer, the Fort Valley Normal and Industrial School conveyed 2.5
acres of land to the American Church Institute for Negroes for use
as the Fort Valley College Center, Inc. Designed by Stanislaw
Makielski, the complex consisted of a church (presently St. Luke’s
Episcopal Church), the parish hall, two apartments and the annex
that now serves as the rectory.
continued on page 4
The Peabody building was the first building on campus
designated for the building trades. It is one of a series
of campus buildings designed by Ludlow and Peabody
of New York. Photo by Jeanne Cyriaque
Bishop Hall was constructed by Aiken and Faulkner, an African
American firm. It was Fort Valley’s dining hall and today is
used as the Mass Communications Center. Behind the building
is the historic water tank, a contributing structure in the historic
district. Photo by Jeanne Cyriaque
The St. Luke’s Episcopal Church complex reflects the
philanthropic contributions during the American Church
Institute period in Fort Valley’s evolution to a state university.
Photo by Jeanne Cyriaque
4
FORT VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY IMPLEMENTS
CAMPUS HISTORIC PRESERVATION PLAN
Jeanne Cyriaque, continued from page 3
Horace Mann Bond became President of Fort Valley State
College in 1939, and served for the next six years through the World
War II era. Bond focused on expanding the college curriculum. A
Bachelor of Science degree in Home Economics was offered in
1939. The first four-year class graduated in 1941 with 23 students.
The student body grew to 888 in the fall and 617 summer school
students. By 1944, a degree was offered in Agriculture. That year,
62 students graduated, the highest in school history, but only two
were men due to World War II.
Davison Hall was the first brick structure constructed with state
funds. Atlanta architect W.J.J. Chase designed the building, a
Georgian Revival three-story dormitory for women. Dedicated
in 1948, it was named for the school’s first principal, John Wesley
Davison. Photo by Jeanne Cyriaque
The Alva Tabor Agriculture building is an International Style
structure. It is named in honor of the man who served as the
Head Itinerant Teacher Trainer in Georgia from 1922 until his
death in 1951. Tabor came to Fort Valley in 1938 from Savannah
State College (now University). Photo by Jeanne Cyriaque
Cornelius V. Troup was Fort Valley’s next President; he led
the college for the next 22 years. Student enrollment expanded
greatly during the Troup years. There were 374 students in 1945,
but by the fall of 1964, enrollment peaked at 1,374 students. With
the boom in the student population, Troup administered a growth
in campus built resources as well. Dr. Donnie Bellamy noted in his
1996 book about Fort Valley, Light in the Valley that “the number of
buildings on campus doubled” under Troup’s leadership.
Several new buildings were completed during the last
decade of the Troup presidency. The Bywaters building was
dedicated in 1952. It served as the college’s library until 1976 and
was named in honor of Jean Leroy Bywaters, a coach and business
manager at the college. The Alva Tabor Agriculture building was
constructed in 1957 along with the Hubbard Education building.
The George N. Woodward building added a gymnasium and
auditorium to the campus in 1959. The Campus Historic Preservation
Plan identified these buildings that are now at least 50 years old as
eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
From 1965-1995, FVSU expanded the campus to the south
and east of the historic “Oval”. During these 30 years, most campus
expansion focused on improved agricultural fields and research
facilities, as well as student dormitories. Since 1970, the university
has offered a program in Electronic Engineering Technology. By
1972, student enrollment had exceeded 2,000. The Goat Research
Complex, built in 1985, became the largest facility of its kind west of
the Mississippi River. That same year, the School of Agriculture,
Home Economics and Allied Programs were created. On June 12,
1996 the Georgia Board of Regents gave Fort Valley University
status. The other colleges for the university are the College of
Arts, Sciences and Education and the College of Graduate Studies
and Extended Education.
Today, Fort Valley State University consists of two land
parcels that total 1,365 acres. The main campus is 622 acres with 96
institutional buildings and seven student residential buildings. The
rest of the campus is predominantly agricultural research facilities.
Dr. Larry Rivers has served as Fort Valley’s President since 2006.
He administers a full-time faculty of 97 and an undergraduate/
graduate enrollment that exceeds 2,200 students.
The William M. Hubbard International Style building is the home of Fort
Valley’s College of Education. It is named for the founder of the Forsyth
Normal and Industrial School that later became the State Teachers and
Agricultural College. Photo by Jeanne Cyriaque
5
HELP FOR THE HELPLESS: ANTEBELLUM HEALTHCARE FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS IN GEORGIA
Joy Melton, African American Programs Assistant
Historic Preservation Division
continued on page 6
Medical care was limited for African Americans prior to
emancipation. Although few buildings remain from this
period, much history has been preserved about healthcare for
African Americans in Georgia. Plantation hospitals and a few urban
hospitals were among the institutions where blacks could be treated.
The Georgia Infirmary is recognized as the first public
hospital in the United States to provide medical care “for the relief
and protection of afflicted and aged Africans.” Reverend Thomas
F. Williams, a Savannah merchant, willed the land and $10,000 to
open the hospital in 1816. On December 24, 1832, the Georgia
General Assembly chartered the hospital on the Bethesda tract
south of Savannah. White men administered and operated the
hospital for black patients. Because the hospital was too far from
Savannah, two buildings were erected in the vicinity of east 36th
Street and Lincoln Street in 1838. Funding was provided for the
care of free blacks, while plantation owners were expected to care
for their slaves except for emergency cases. The hospital closed
for five years following the Civil War, but reopened in 1871. The
building has been modified to add electricity in 1905, an east brick
wing with a gable roof and quoins in 1944 and remodeling in 1965.
The Georgia Infirmary established a nursing school for blacks in
1904 that operated until 1937. In 1974, the structure became a day
center for stroke patients and the hospital underwent major
revitalization in 2003.
The Georgia Infirmary in Savannah is believed to be the first public hospital
in the U.S. that was established for African Americans. Today it is a St.
Joseph/Candler adult day care health center. Photo by Terry Hayes
The Jackson Street Hospital and Surgical Infirmary in
Augusta was established in 1854. This three-story structure
contained 50 to 70 beds, operating rooms and a lecture hall. Drs.
Henry F. and Robert Campbell were the brothers responsible for
erecting the hospital, and Henry led the all white staff. Although
the focus was surgical operations, Jackson Street Hospital received
any medical cases from African American patients except infectious
ones. Patients were transported from floor to floor using ropes and
pulleys. Room accommodations included gaslights, fireplaces, and
hot and cold water. Before the Civil War, the Campbell brothers
served as editors of the Southern Medical and Surgical Journal.
Their work with African American patients undoubtedly influenced
their findings. Dr. Henry F. Campbell served as an assistant
demonstrator of anatomy, professor of anatomy, and professor of
surgery and gynecology at his alma mater, the Medical College of
Georgia (MCG). The Jackson Street Hospital operated until 1865
when the Freedmen’s Bureau established a hospital in Augusta
following the Civil War.
The Jackson Street Hospital and Surgical Infirmary for
Negroes was erected on Jackson and Fenwick Streets in
Augusta, circa 1854.
Image courtesy of the Medical College of Georgia
In 1852, around the time that the Jackson Street Hospital
was established, faculty at MCG purchased a slave known as
Grandison Harris from Charleston, South Carolina for $700. Harris’
role was to illegally disinter or resurrect bodies from freshly dug
This 1877 faculty photograph includes Grandison Harris, pictured at the
top center. Harris was a body snatcher at the Medical College of Georgia
and was a teaching assistant in anatomy. Photo courtesy of the Medical
College of Georgia
6
Joy Melton, continued from page 5
HELP FOR THE HELPLESS: ANTEBELLUM HEALTHCARE FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS IN GEORGIA
The rooms each had a fireplace and two windows. The stairs were
located in the large hallway.
Frances Anne Kemble, also known as Fanny, provided a
first hand account of slave conditions on Butler Island in her diary,
Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-39.
Fanny, a famous English actress, married Pierce Butler, unaware
that his fortunes were gained from southern slave labor. She wrote
about her first visit to Butler Island in January 1839. The infirmary
was a large two-story, whitewashed, wood frame building
containing four large rooms on each floor. The structure was placed
at the end of two rows of houses on the first slave settlement of the
plantation. Most slaves in the infirmary lay on the cold ground
using dirty, ragged blankets.
graves for use at MCG. The cadavers were studied for anatomy and
surgical practice, then discarded and covered in the school basement
under dirt and quicklime. Harris served as a “resurrection man” or
body snatcher from 1852 to 1904. Harris became so good at body
snatching that MCG faculty purchased his wife and son in 1858
from a South Carolina plantation to live with Harris in Augusta.
After the Civil War, Harris moved to Hamburg, South
Carolina, where he served as a judge under the carpetbagger regime.
When the carpetbaggers’ popularity declined Harris returned to
MCG and was hired for $8 per month to continue as a resurrection
man by night and a janitor by day. Most of the stolen bodies were
African American males, but some were black women, children and
poor whites. Cedar Grove Cemetery was one of Harris’ chosen sites
for body snatching. Not surprisingly, African Americans in Augusta
during that time period were skeptical of receiving medical care at
hospitals. Many blacks simply relied on home remedies. Grandison
Harris was both feared and revered in the black community for his
power to disinter buried relatives and for his high standing among
whites. He died in 1911 and was buried in Cedar Grove Cemetery in
an unknown location. The secret of the body snatcher of Augusta
was not well known until 1989 when construction workers digging
an elevator pit in the school basement struck bones.
Besides traditional hospitals, slave owners maintained
plantation hospitals for economic reasons since slaves represented
an important part of a plantation owner’s property. On some large
plantations slave owners invested in facilities for slave health.
Plantation hospitals and infirmaries or what slaves called “sick
houses” provided medical care. Sometimes slaves served as nurses
or in many cases an older black woman was in charge of patient care.
Retreat Plantation’s slave hospital, built between 1800 and
1810 according to a 1936 Historic American Building Survey, is located
on the south end of St. Simons Island in Glynn County. The tenroom, two and one-half story slave hospital was constructed of
tabby, a mixture of equal parts of lime, sand, water, ash, and oyster
shells. Women were housed on the first floor, men on the second,
and two slave nurses occupied the attic space as living quarters.
Dismayed at the condition of the slaves in the infirmary,
Fanny showed the slave midwife that she should keep the firewood
fresh, uncover the glazed windows for light, and keep unused
blankets folded and rooms swept. Fanny wrote about the challenges
of women in slavery, who frequently bore children, many of whom
did not survive. Female slaves often visited Fanny in hopes that
she would speak to Mr. Butler, the absentee slave owner, to increase
the length of time for rest after labor confinement from three weeks
to a month and decrease the intensity of work after child labor.
Although Fanny could not help the slave mothers decrease their
burdens, she gave them food or extra clothing when she could.
Fanny and Pierce Butler’s daughter, Frances Butler Leigh
wrote her own account about life on Butler Island, Ten Years on a
Georgia Plantation Since the War, 1866-1876. Although Frances,
like her father Pierce Butler, was in favor of slavery, she attempted
to adaptively use the former slave hospital for the benefit of the
freedmen. The freed people of Butler Island began to use one of
the hospital rooms as a church, where many marriages took place.
Frances attempted to set aside the other three rooms for an African
American school, a residence for older women who could not work
and for younger women during their confinement in child bearing.
Frances later housed English workers hired for plantation work in
the former hospital rooms.
The ruins of the Retreat Plantation slave hospital and cemetery remain on
the property of the Sea Island Golf Club. Photo by Linda Cooks
The bodies of approximately 250 people were stored in the basement of
the Old Medical College building in Augusta. Constructed in 1835, the
building is a National Historic Landmark. Photo courtesy of the Medical
College of Georgia
Lillian Davis
Dr. Gerald C. & Barbara Golden
Terry & Cynthia Hayes
Richard Laub
Christine Miller-Betts
Kenneth Rollins
Isaac Johnson, Chair
706/738-1901
Velmon Allen, Vice-Chair
GAAHPN Network
912/261-1898
STEERING
COMMITTEE
Jeanne Cyriaque
African American
Programs Coordinator
Reflections Editor
Voice 404/656-4768
Fax 404/657-1040
jeanne.cyriaque@dnr.state.ga.us
STAFF
Isaac Johnson
Chairman
Joy Melton
African American
Programs Assistant
Voice 404/657-1054
Fax 404/657-1040
joy.melton@dnr.state.ga.us
7
Susie Baker, later
known as Susie King Taylor,
was a nurse during the Civil
War from 1862-1866 in
Company E of the First South
Carolina Volunteers (later the
33rd United States Colored
Troops or U.S.C.T). In 1848,
Susie was born a slave on the
Grest Farm, in a coastal area
near Midway in Liberty
County. While in Savannah,
several people taught Susie to
read and write. Although hired
as a laundress during the war,
Susie taught soldiers to read
and write. She also cared for
sick and afflicted soldiers
despite the possibility of
catching a disease. When
soldiers asked Susie why she
was so kind treating them as
she did soldiers in her own
company, she responded “you are all doing the same duty, and I
will do just the same for you.” In her narrative of the war,
Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd United States
Colored Troops, Late 1st South Carolina Volunteers, she wrote
that her aversion to seeing suffering was overcome during war and
replaced with feelings of
sympathy and pity for others.
Following the Civil
War in 1865, the Freedmen’s
Bureau established a medical
department in Georgia. There
were five hospitals in the major
cities of Atlanta, Augusta,
Columbus, Macon and
Savannah. C.H. Taylor, a black
assistant surgeon, and
Alexander T. Augusta, a black
physician who previously
served as surgeon with the 7th
U.S.C.T. and worked at the
Freedmen’s Hospital in
Washington D.C., were
assigned to work at Lincoln
Hospital in Savannah. After a
smallpox outbreak in 1865, A.T.
Augusta requested a new,
permanent pest house and
additional medical assistance for the Savannah Bureau. He was
refused both, but this caused the City of Savannah to take
responsibility for providing medical service to all of its smallpox
patients at the smallpox pest house lest the outbreaks continue. A
news reporter who visited the Lincoln Hospital in 1867 remarked,
“true charity and pure philanthropy are not wiped out of the earth
even under the fiercest whirlwinds of political passions . . .”
Susie King Taylor served as a nurse
with the 33rd U.S.C.T. from 1862-
1866. Her narrative records a rare
perspective of female African
American military life during the Civil
War. Photo courtesy of the New Georgia
Encyclopedia
Despite the tensions between the Freedmen’s Bureau
desire to persuade local authorities to eventually take responsibility
for services to freedmen and southern resistance to federal
interference, some good resulted in medical care during
reconstruction. Services were offered through hospitals,
dispensaries and home visitation programs. Unfortunately, medical
services from the Freedmen’s Bureau ended on January 1, 1869,
leaving many blacks with limited or no options for professional
medical care in a period of segregation. By 1872, the Freedmen’s
Hospital in Washington, D.C. was the only hospital allowed to
continue under the War Department and later the Department of
the Interior.
Although living conditions were not ideal during slavery,
African Americans received some medical care from public
institutions and private slave owners. During reconstruction
emancipated blacks had an opportunity for medical care through
the Freedmen’s Bureau. Limited post-reconstruction healthcare
options for African Americans eventually led to greater reform in
black hospitals during the segregation era.
Alexander T. Augusta, the first black
surgeon with the 7th U.S.C.T. during
the Civil War, rallied support from
benevolent soceities, churches and the
Freedmen’s Bureau for the care of
former slaves in Savannah.
Photo courtesy of Arlington National
Cemetery
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 ethnic 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 meets regularly
to plan and implement 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.gashpo.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
Jeanne Cyriaque, Editor
A Program of the
Historic Preservation Division
Georgia Department of Natural Resources
254 Washington Street SW
Ground Level
Atlanta, GA 30334