Week 8 – COMMUNITIES – Mutual Aid Societies

Mutual Aid Societies within the African American community provided emergency support to fellow residents. For a small donation, or deposit, a mutual aid society allowed residents to pool resources to care for widows and children, to serve as a credit union when banks would not serve Blacks, and even to post bail for jail, fight eviction, and buy land. Most recently, societies such as the Sandfly Betterment Association, Harris Neck Land Trust, and St. Simons African American Heritage Coalition work to help their community.

In 1873 members of Harris Neck’s Gullah community purchased lots on old Peru Plantation in McIntosh County. Residents lived off the land and waterways and preserved traces of their native African culture and language, now known as Gullah Geechee. The community included churches, cemeteries, a school, lodges, and various businesses including the Timmons Oyster Factory, Ethel’s Store and E.W Lowes’ Store. In the fields and gardens surrounding their houses, individuals grew corn, potatoes, cane, and fruit trees. Many in the community worked in the commercial fisheries or on farms. Others were employed as teachers, carpenters, brick masons, seamstresses, servants and/or cooks in private homes, and nurses.

In the 1930s the U.S. Government filed condemnation proceedings for tracts on the north end of Harris Neck to establish an Army Airfield. Construction destroyed much of the original Harris Neck Gullah community. In mid-1942, the Army Air Force decided to build a base at Harris Neck. The land was “expropriated” and families were given two weeks to remove themselves. At the time of transfer the black families (who owned 1,102 acres) were given an average of $26.90 per acre and the white families (who owned 1,532 acres) were given an average of $37.31 per acre. The Army’s decision to add a third runway required the acquisition of additional land. After the war, the War Assets Administration transferred 2,686.94 acres to McIntosh County. The Harris Neck Land Trust LLC (HNLT) formed in 2006 works to help the descendants of former Harris Neck landowners reclaim their original land.

On the south side of Savannah, Sandfly was established by African Americans in the nineteenth century. Many families in this community trace their ancestry to former slaves from nearby Wormsloe Plantation who bought land as free persons and established homes and churches. The slave descendants placed churches at focal points in the community: Speedwell United Methodist, Southside Worship Centner, Macedonia Baptist Church, Isles of Hope Union Missionary Baptist Church and Union Skidaway Baptist Church. The families who lived and worshiped in Sandfly instilled the values of hard work, education, and thrift in the children of each succeeding generation. All the skilled trades involved in construction are represented among descendants of the early settlers, and many of the later generations graduated from college and entered the education field as teachers or principals. Sandfly was made a crossroads between the city of Savannah and Isle of Hope after 1870 when Central Avenue became the main route for the Industrial Streetcar System. In late 1990s and early 2000 construction of the Truman Parkway split the community in half. The Sandfly Betterment Association enlisted the Georgia Conservancy to conduct a Blueprints study which empowered them to negotiate with the incoming Wal Mart, and work with the county towards a Historic Preservation ordinance.

The population of Brunswick and the Golden Isles has always swelled with “come yah” people. In Gullah language a “come yah” person is one not born on the island. “Been yah” are those whose families can be traced back to slavery on the island. SSAAHC member Chip Wilson blames President Jimmy Carter. When the President vacationed here, Wilson said, “the island really changed cause people started coming here to find this little island that Jimmy Carter was vacationing on…they just started coming and coming and they haven’t stopped.” In the 1990s developers set their sights on land in the traditional African American communities. Heirs property that had been in families for nearly a century was sold off for money unheard of in the black community. And then taxes went up. SSAAHC was founded to educate residents about land value and taxes, and to take a stand against the developers who persistently knocked on their doors. “Don’t Ask Won’t Sell “was the slogan on a float created by Chip Wilson for a Brunswick parade. Soon those signs appeared in the neighborhood. As did the new subdivisions. Finally, the SSAAHC took a stand to restore the historic Harrington School so that at the very least the roots and heritage of the community could be told. Phoebe Abbot-Johnson had a wonderful childhood in a close knit Gullah Geechee neighborhood on the island’s north end, but she recalled one day when with a passing glance a stranger looked at her as if she didn’t belong on the island. “But you’re in my neighborhood,” Abbot-Johnson thought to herself. “This is where I grew up. This is my dirt.” She summed up in an interview with Mercer College students, “It’s very important they know we have history here. That we are here and we keep a footprint in the sand. Just a footprint in the sand. That’s all we want.”