Benjamin Van Clark Neighborhood Documentation Project
Neighborhood Oral History Project
Savannah Department of Cultural Affairs
Oral History # 5
Joint Interview
Bingley S. Hannah
Bessie Hannah
May 16,2003
Savannah, Georgia
Bingley S. Hannah is the grandson of the Reverend Bingley S. Hannah, who was a legendary A.M. E.
minister in Savannah and other parts of Georgia. He was the presiding A.M. E. elder of the Savannah
district in the early part of the twentieth century. Bingley S. Hannah, II, is a retired district manager for
the Savannah Morning News. Mrs. Hannah is a retired Chatham County public school teacher who
taught tor many years at Florence Street Elementary School.
The following is an abstract of the interview, for a complete recording of the interview please see the
corresponding tape:
Remarks by Mr. Bingley S. Hannah:
I was bom January 27, 1917 to Henry B. Hannah and Nettie Gibbs Hannah. My name is
Bingley Hannah, II, because I was named after my grandfather Reverend Bingley S. Hannah. My
family moved to Wheaton Street when I was ten or eleven (1928 or 1929). I remember when we had a
terrible fire on Second Street off Wheaton, and we had to leave our homes because it threatened the
entire neighborhood. My neighbors on Wheaton Street were Irma Curley Callen, Dr. and Mrs. Smith,
John White, the Hamiltons on 7"' Street, Eddie Smith the cab driver and his daughter. Mr. Philander
Moore lived on Wheaton Street. Wade Madicus Simmons, Sr., was head bellman at the DeSoto Hotel.
Henry Singleton, Jr., lived on 1
61 Street, and was the caretaker of the white Elks Club. Dicky Singleton,
his brother, was a mail carrier. Nellie Walker and Mag Harris lived next to 'Nick the Greek's' grocery
store. My family moved from Wheaton to East Gwinnett then to the 1200 block of East Waldburg in the
1930s. The whites lived on Collins Street.
Comments from Mrs. Bessie Hannah:
Mrs. Maxwell taught us typing and Mrs. Emma Lewis taught me in sixth grade. I lived near
them on East Waldburg Street. Bee Road, Henry, Harmon, and Anderson Streets had heavy white
populations in the thirties. However, once you left Waldburg Street, Wheaton Street was a black
populated area. From Harmon to Live Oak was white. Behind Richardson's Florist on Wheaton Street
small side streets ran toward the north to the direction of President Street the same as 5"', 6"', 7"', and
Bouhan Streets did. All the little streets behind Richardson's Florist, like Adair Street and others near it,
were all white in population in the 1930s and 1940s. I know whites lived there up to 1941. I observed
these neighborhoods many times as I rode the streetcar to and from school. I remember whenever 
 Page 2 of2 August 27, 2003
realtors moved one or two blacks into an area where there were whites, the whites would move out in
large numbers. This was in the thirties and forties.
-End of interviewAbstract prepared by:
Charles J. Elmore
Project Historian