The Harrington School celebrates its hundredth anniversary this year, and the St. Simons African American Heritage Coalition celebrates its twenty-fourth! The Coalition was founded in October 2000 at the First African Baptist Church of St. Simons Island, bringing together property owners and citizens who wished to protect St. Simons’s African American history and community from new development on the island. Today, the Coalition continues with a related mission “to educate, preserve, and revitalize African American history and culture” through three goals: land loss prevention, historic preservation, and economic development.

The SSAAHC preserves African American history on St. Simons through a variety of initiatives, including programming like the annual Taste of Gullah event and historic tours of the island’s communities. Through this programming and other outreach, the SSAAHC serves an important function as both a resource for members of the existing community and a gateway for others to learn about its importance to St. Simons Island. The Mercer University Coastal Georgia Research Initiative specifically states that its work “effectively showcases the efforts of students and faculty focused on aiding the St. Simons African American Heritage Coalition in preserving African-American history and historic sites on the Georgia coast.”

All of the previous elements discussed in this month’s weekly facts—oral histories, photos of structures from the Harrington Project, and Amy Roberts’s collection of African American funeral programs—contribute to the success of the St. Simons African American Heritage Coalition. The SSAAHC has hosted researchers and their students, restored the Harrington School, and continues to serve as a vital resource for the promotion of our community’s African American history. To learn how you can become more involved with the work of the Coalition, visit this page to find information on becoming a member, volunteering, or donating.

While photographs preserve a visual window into our past, oral histories have an almost magical quality: they transport listeners not only into a specific time and place, but also into the individual life and of the person recounting their own experience. In recent years, local historians have placed special importance upon oral histories as sources for African American history in coastal Georgia. Several initiatives, like the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Center at Georgia Southern, highlight storytelling and oral tradition’s importance among Gullah Geechee people. Oral history interviews present a chance to carry on that tradition and to learn about events and changes in our community from those who lived them.

Dr. Melanie Pavich serves as the Project Director for the Coastal Georgia Research Initiative at Mercer University. This initiative, run through the University’s College of Professional Advancement, allows students to learn about historical and cultural issues in coastal Georgia “by interviewing members of African-American communities in the coastal Georgia region.” After conducting interviews, students create public presentations and digital stories that are archived for later access. Recently, the Initiative has received grants from Georgia Humanities and has presented public programs including a 2019 presentation “based on oral history interviews of African American residents of [St. Simons Island] whose families date back to the time of enslavement.”

The Coastal Georgia Research Initiative is not the only organization collecting oral histories in Glynn County. Dr. Hector Montford at the College of Coastal Georgia leads the Historic Risley School Archives Digitization Project, aided by students and faculty from the College’s American Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies programs. Their online collections include photographs, scrapbooks, and PTA materials from the Risley School, as well as valuable oral histories from former Risley students and faculty, recorded as part of a Brunswick African American Cultural Center project. Oral histories are also integral to the presentation of history in museums on both St. Simons and Jekyll islands. Mosaic, the Jekyll Island Museum, has recorded oral history interviews with individuals including Sandra Martin Mungin, the daughter of Genoa Martin, the former manager of Brunswick’s Selden Park. At the World War II Home Front Museum on St. Simons, visitors can listen to oral histories that illuminate Glynn County’s wartime efforts, including interviews with members of the Mungin family, several of whom served in World War II. 

A handwritten and typewritten document in the archives of the Coastal Georgia Historical Society, dated April 2001, gives a list of attendees and a list of photograph descriptions for a new initiative: the Harrington Project. Officially founded in 2002, the project identified the importance of the Harrington neighborhood and sought to record the history of its residents through oral histories and images. Photographs were taken of buildings throughout the area—some still in use, and some not—and were recorded along with names of people who lived in, worked in, or were otherwise associated with them. This collection of photographs in the collections of the Coastal Georgia Historical Society includes such structures as Tony Cuyler’s general store, the St. Andrew Church of God in Christ, and the Harrington School itself. Participants also photographed vacant spaces where buildings had once stood and new residential developments in the area. Although the entire collection of more than thirty images has not yet been entered into the Society’s Online Collections Search, a sample of the images may be viewed here.

Information from the Harrington Project’s documents identify some of its members as Kaye Horton, Pecolia Baisden, Isadora Hunter, and Ginger Miya. Their work helped to present an image of the Harrington neighborhood and its historic places as they appeared in 2002—an appearance that has since sustained much change. Many structures, especially those that were not in use when they were photographed, are now gone. The Harrington School was also slated for demolition, but through an enormous fundraising and restoration effort, today the building is a museum and celebrates its hundredth anniversary. In February, “before and after” photographs of the school building were featured in Elegant Island Living magazine, showcasing the immense amount of work and dedication that brought the building to its current state.

Heritage research often requires a variety of sources—sometimes from unexpected places. The Coastal Georgia Historical Society received a donation from Amy Roberts that provides a vital look at our area’s African American history. The collection of more than two hundred funeral programs, spanning the 1960s to the 2010s, comes from funerals on St. Simons and in Brunswick, as well as in nearby McIntosh County. Recently, the Historical Society has begun to digitize the collection. By following this link to the Society’s Online Collections Database, searchers may browse descriptions and images of each of the 224 programs. Many of the records also include information about interment and about the service’s officiant.

Funeral programs like these are recognized as good sources for both local history and genealogical research. The College of Coastal Georgia states that they are “especially [important] for African Americans whose obituaries were not traditionally published in newspapers until the 1960s and 1970s.” They include a wide range of biographical information about the deceased, and they help communities like ours to tell their local story. The College of Coastal Georgia also links to more than a dozen similar collections of funeral programs from around the southern United States. Another local resource, the Heritage Room at the Brunswick-Glynn County Library, contains cemetery records for many burial places throughout Glynn County and coastal Georgia. By combining these documents with information from funeral program collections, interested researchers may find out more about a person’s life through records of their burial.

Westley Wallace Law was born in Savannah in 1923, the eldest of three children and his parents’ only son. Law’s father died during his son’s childhood, and by age ten, Law had begun working to support his family. He continued his education and found time to serve as a member of the NAACP Youth Council during high school, later becoming president of the Youth Council during his years at Georgia State College (now Savannah State University). His work in civil rights, begun at an early age, was inspired by several figures: his mother Geneva, his grandmother Lillie Belle Wallace, his mentor Ralph Mark Gilbert (the pastor of Savannah’s First African Baptist Church), and his childhood scoutmaster John S. Delaware. Both Gilbert and Delaware also worked with the NAACP in Savannah.

In 1950, W. W. Law became the president of the Savannah chapter of the NAACP. Over the next twenty-six years, he advocated for change in Savannah and beyond—and his sphere of influence included Glynn County and the Golden Isles. Change had come to the area in the late 1950s and early 1960s, propelled by leaders like Reverend Julius Caesar Hope of Brunswick and by events like Maurice Ruddick’s visit to the Golden Isles. In 1963, Law and a group of civil rights leaders would focus their efforts on Jekyll Island, hoping to advance the cause of desegregation on state-owned land.

By 1955, Jekyll Island had designated St. Andrews Beach, at the island’s southern end, for use by African Americans. Local and tourist interest led to the construction of a beach pavilion and other facilities near St. Andrews Beach, eventually including the Dolphin Club Motel and Lounge as both lodging for visitors and a stop on the Chitlin Circuit, where black performers played for black audiences. Despite this progress, there were still many facilities on Jekyll which black visitors could not access. In 1963, W. W. Law, along with Julius Caesar Hope and a group of 25 others, visited Jekyll Island. The group used a picnic area and visited a drugstore, but were denied access to many other facilities, including motels, beach pavilions outside of St. Andrews, the island’s indoor swimming pool, its amusement park, and its golf courses. According to Law, “a cafeteria [on the island] shut its doors rather than serve his group.”

Law and his group, which was comprised of members of both Savannah’s and Brunswick’s chapters of the NAACP, quickly turned their findings into action. They filed a lawsuit, Law v. Jekyll Island State Park Authority. This led to a district court decision the very next year. In 1964, thanks to efforts by W. W. Law, Julius Caesar Hope, and other members of this group of civil rights pioneers, all facilities on Jekyll Island were officially integrated.

John F. White, the president of New York’s National Educational Television network, wrote a promotional piece about his company’s offerings for the 1964-1965 season. For more than ten years, the network had presented educational programs on topics as diverse as politics, science, theater, and music. White was proud to announce that the upcoming season would continue a public affairs program titled “At Issue,” which, as he described it, was “a monthly hour-long look at some significant national controversy.”

The program’s fifty-first episode, “Quiet Conflict,” focused on Brunswick’s move towards desegregation outside of the national spotlight. The special aired in 1965 and suggested the influence of the Albany Movement on Brunswick’s desegregation process—there were relatively few protests and sit-ins, as seen in other cities, and “At Issue” proposed that “open communication” in Brunswick had paved the way for a peaceful change over the preceding two years.

“Quiet Conflict” highlighted the role of Reverend Julius Caesar Hope, a pastor at Mt. Zion Baptist Church and a leader in the local chapter of the NAACP. In 2013, Anglican minister Robert Wright recalled that he and other local leaders like Reverend Hope, members of a “Biracial Committee,” met frequently and secretly at the time in a bank on St. Simons Island. Wright remembered that the group “would talk about the problems and if anybody knew of any avenue that could possibly help to integrate the next group that we could work with.” Over the years, the group met with business owners and community leaders to help prevent open conflict and slowly integrate Glynn County.

Although the hard work of advancing civil rights in Brunswick took place largely outside of the national spotlight, “Quiet Conflict” brought to light that the accomplishments of local leaders weren’t necessarily unopposed. While the episode showcased civil rights leaders, it also explained that the Glynn County Citizens Council had formed as a “white citizens group” to protest changes and desegregation. Still, the documentary showed individuals that persevered in the face of such opposition. Two such citizens were Dr. and Mrs. James Clinton Wilkes, a couple who lived on Jekyll Island and whose youngest child was the first African American baby born in the “white section” of Brunswick’s hospital.

The legacy of “Quiet Conflict” is still felt today. Most notably, in 2024, the Georgia Historical Society erected a historical marker to the documentary in front of Brunswick’s City Hall. The marker can be seen at 601 Gloucester Street.

In 1958, a mining disaster in Nova Scotia, Canada, would soon bring attention to the cause of civil rights in the Golden Isles. On October 23, 1958, 174 men were working in the No. 2 coal mine near Springhill, Nova Scotia, when seismic activity caused the mine to collapse. The disaster killed 75 men-but 99 remained trapped underground. Most were rescued quickly. Two small groups of miners spent days awaiting rescue with limited food and water, and often in complete darkness. The last group to be rescued on November 1 had spent more than a week underground. Among them was a musician and father of twelve named Maurice Ruddick.

The disaster and subsequent rescue effort became an international television spectacle. An aide to then-Georgia governor Marvin Griffin realized the chance to promote tourism to Georgia and to the Golden Isles, and he offered nineteen rescued miners and their families an all-expenses-paid trip to Jekyll Island for recuperation. Soon after the offer was extended, the governor and his aide learned that eighteen of the miners were white and one—Maurice Ruddick—was black. Ruddick could still take the trip, but on a segregated basis. The government that had invited him had to scramble to prepare a place for him to stay. While the white miners vacationed in motels on Jekyll, Ruddick and his family stayed in a trailer on a newly cleared portion of the island’s south end. The family’s hosts, housed in a neighboring trailer, were Dr. and Mrs. William K. Payne, the presidential couple of Savannah State College.

While celebrations for the white miners were hosted on Jekyll Island, Maurice Ruddick and his family had to go further afield for the ceremonies that celebrated them. Genoa Martin, the manager of Brunswick’s Selden Park, organized several community events for the Ruddicks on the mainland. The family also visited Savannah State College, where they participated in a special assembly and a question-and-answer session. When asked about the segregated gatherings, Maurice Ruddick answered diplomatically, saying that he seemed to be enjoying himself just as much as the other miners. At one gathering in Brunswick, Ruddick, well-known as a musician among the miners, took the stage with his guitar to sing a song called “Aren’t You Sorry Now.”

Although Ruddick was still able to participate in the trip, his treatment highlighted segregation in Georgia. LIFE magazine published a feature about the miners’ Jekyll Island vacation; although it showcased photographs of both groups, the article was also notable for its headline, “Springhill Survivors on Segregated Spree.”

July 2, 2024 marks sixty years since the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. Signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, the act officially outlawed segregation in businesses like theaters and hotels as well as in public places like libraries, schools, and swimming pools. The act also protected voting rights and made discriminatory employment practices illegal. This month, we highlight individuals who made change in Glynn County, both in Brunswick and on the islands. Some grew up on St. Simons like Sam Proctor, while others came from outside the United States like Maurice Ruddick. We will also highlight W. W. Law and Brunswick’s “Quiet Conflict,” which was recently recognized with a historical marker from the Georgia Historical Society.

A Jury of His “Piers” – The Trial to Keep Proctor’s Emporium

In the 1920s, St. Simons Island resident Sam Proctor owned and operated a business in the African American neighborhood known as South End. Called “Proctor’s Emporium,” the lattice-enclosed pavilion served as both a soft drink stand and, at night, a dance floor. When it opened, Proctor’s Emporium was the only African American establishment of its kind on St. Simons. The Proctors were a prominent local family, including Sam’s relative Willis Proctor who had a wealth of Gullah Geechee musical knowledge and was a leading member of the original Georgia Sea Island Singers. Sam shared Willis’s love for music and wanted to share it with his community.

At Proctor’s Emporium, located near the intersection of Demere and Arnold roads, summer Saturdays became celebrations. Sam hired a band who played music from about 8 p.m. until midnight, attracting many eager patrons. During the 1920s, business for the Emporium only grew. The completion of the causeway to Brunswick brought more potential developments to the island—including a nearby subdivision named “Ocean Breeze.” Summer vacationers on St. Simons often brought servants with them for the season, and the African American servants frequented Proctor’s Emporium. As the Ocean Breeze development expanded and crept closer to the dance hall, though, landowners and developers in the subdivision lodged a noise complaint and requested the closure of the business, leading to what became known as the only jury trial ever to be held on St. Simons.

More than fifty years after the trial, attorney Charles L. Gowen remembered its unusual aspects. On a summer day in 1927, he arrived to represent Sam Proctor at “Judge Postell’s courthouse” on St. Simons. The one-room building was packed with people, and the justices announced that the trial would be moved to the covered portion of the St. Simons Pier, which would accommodate a larger crowd and was cooler than the courthouse. Sam Proctor testified that his business was orderly, and that the music wasn’t unnecessarily loud. Gowen remembered that during his closing statement, “all the jurors suddenly jumped up, ran to the other side of the Pier, and some of them jumped into the ocean” to rescue a swimmer. Despite the interruption, the jurors returned to deliberate. After only a few minutes, the trial was decided in Sam Proctor’s favor, and he continued to operate Proctor’s Emporium until his death about a decade later.

Two bands that receive the most unqualified votes for memorable local bands are the Original Washboard Band and the Risley High School Marching Band.

The Jug Band Hall of Fame (www.jughall.org) described the Original Washboard Band from Brunswick, St. Simons Island and Jekyll Island as “Nathan Jones, Gravelly voice, thimbles, frying pans and kazoo; Robert “Washboard” Ivory arranger, baritone and kazoo, Norman “Shorty” Feimster, tenor and left handed guitar, and Charles Ernest Jones, slap bass.” The band played for wealthy family parties for the Jekyll Island millionaires and the guests at The Cloister at Sea Island. Local African Americans recall most fondly when they played at the Sea island employees’ Christmas party. Their album Scrubbin’ & Pickin’) was recorded in 1958 on RCA and includes favorites like, “Mama Don’t Allow” “Going to Chicago Blues”, and “Who Threw the Whiskey Down the Well.” Listen to the album on youtube– I promise you will enjoy it!

Few local musical groups call up more enthusiastic memories than the Risley High School Marching Band. During the 1950s and 1960s most high school bands played the same songs in the same routine for football half time shows, but not Risley, and not Band Director Robert Griffin. ”We did a hell of a half time show” recalled Griffin. He orchestrated the newest pop songs so that the band had a new half time show every week. Griffin boasted that “grown men and women still talk about” the time he invited his friend popular American rhythm and blues performer Joe Tex to perform with the band at half time. At any Risley show, alumni reminisced, “You gonna see precision.., a design, a figure.” And always, “We outdid anything Glynn Academy even thought about.” Why? “We stepped, not marched.” The band performed at events around the coast — Georgia Teachers Conference or Savannah State College anniversary. If an event called for a band, Risley was there, and Griffin pointed out, “We didn’t miss a beat.” Alumni recall their favorite parades were in their hometown. Led by drum major and “the stepper of the town” Leon Days, nicknamed “Pretty Boy,” the trees trembled on Albany Street.’

The St. Simons African American Heritage Coalition welcomes your memories about the music and musicians who performed in Brunswick and the Golden Isles. Write harringtonschool@ssiheritagecoalition.org, or call 912-634-0330.

In the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s the best music was made in the juke joints and nightclubs that catered only to African Americans. Brunswick was a well- known stop on the “Chitlin Circuit,” a nickname for the string of venues in the 1920-1970s where African American musicians and entertainers could perform.

The Chitlin Circuit provided musicians of color with safe lodgings and food and on the job training for young players who showed promise. These venues were also the explosive incubator of some of the greatest blues and soul music ever played.
“Traveling Down the Chitlin’ Circuit” May 9, 2022, Floridahumanities.org

Young musicians like Louis Armstrong, BB King, Clarence Carter, Aretha Franklin, and Chubby Checker cut their teeth and polished their skills in small venues catering to black audiences. Some played here, too. The Dolphin Club on Jekyll Island brought in Wilson Pickett, Joe Simons, Jerry Butler, and Otis Redding. At Selden Park, Genoa Martin booked popular acts like Sam Cooke, Percy Sledge, James Brown, Duke Ellington, and Lena Horne. One week these performers might play Carnegie Hall or The Apollo; the next week, en route to another gig, they would trade a meal and a place to sleep in an African American neighborhood and sit in at the local juke joint. Smokey Robinson told Billboard magazine, “We couldn’t even stay in the hotels in the South. We had to go to the Black side of town to stay in rooming houses …” In the same article Stax singer William Bell said “we usually found some Black family that had an extra room that would put us up.”
(Rascism on the Road: The Oral History Black Artists Touring in th4e Segregated South” by Steve Knopper, 11/10/2020, billboard.com)

Often a local musician such as Chic Morrison who toured with big bands brought the bands here. Buddy Johnson, an American jump blues pianist and bandleader active from the 1930s through the 1960s, described it this way in an interview with Down Beat magazine, “Personally I like classics… , but our bread and butter is in the south. The music I play has a southern tinge to it. They understand it down there.” (Wikipedia). 

On St. Simons Island the clubs located on the South End and at Harrington were not large venues for big entertainers. They were small neighborhood clubs in buildings “only about half the size of the schoolhouse,” said SSAAHC member Emory Rooks. Many had a juke box loaded with the latest hits (you had to pay 10 cents per play). “The clubs were a way of living….a place to relax and gather after a hard week of work,” described Rooks.

The Dew Drop Inn was on South Harrington Road and the Tacadero was on North Harrington Road. Alphonso’s Plantation Supper Club started as a nightclub before opening as a restaurant. Henry Morrison’s Camp was located on the marsh between North and South Harrington with a view over the marsh towards Sea Island, “Morrisons was the coolest place on the hottest day,” recalled Rooks. On the South End near the pier were clubs called Atlantic Inn, The Pig, The Pavilion, The Blue Inn, The Melody Lounge, and LeQuart. Amy Roberts and Chip Wilson remember that part of their fun growing up was to sneak down to the club on the river “because kids weren’t allowed to go down there. But after dark we’d take a path which went right almost through almost on the other side of the school here and we would sit down there just to see who gets the drunkest … cause we would love to see them staggering around.”

When asked what the church people thought about the clubs? Rooks replied matter-a-factly: “Folks went to the clubs on Friday and to the clubs on Saturday, and to church on Sunday. Anyone who had restrictions, kept to themselves.”