A sign on this church dates the congregation to 1878, but further research suggests that it was established in the 1860s, likely during the Civil War. In its listing for the National Register of Historic Places, Brother George Donald said that Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Church was “founded by African Americans who would slip off into the woods to pray in secret” and that the church began as “brush arbor” at Piney Grove, located southwest of Whigham. The 1878 date is likely when the congregation adopted the tenets of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
This lot was purchased from J. T. Harrell for $20 in 1878 and the first trustees were Brothers Thomas Young, Georgie Donald, Fortune Liphnidge, George Shackleford, and Even Swicord. They built a log church here, which served until it burned in 1920. The present church dates to that time. It served the congregation until the 1980s, when deterioration and dwindling membership saw worship move into the schoolhouse. Presently, the structure is stable but in serious need of further renovation.
Not unlike other Black congregations of the era, Ebenezer saw the importance of education and built this one-room schoolhouse to serve their community circa 1930.
A subscriber to Vanishing Georgia writes: Whigham had a Black school built in the 1950s. It was/is located only a couple of blocks from Whigham High School. It’s on Google Street View, but I don’t know if it’s still standing. Based on state statistics and what I’ve gleaned from Cairo Messenger archives, I’d put Ebenezer’s closure around 1950. One of my projects has been recovering names of Black schools before the earliest cumulative list of 1957.
I think I have all of Grady County’s segregated schools from the 1951-52 school year, when it reported to the state it had 12 Black schools. In 1950, however, Grady reported 21 schools, 13 of them one-teacher. Ebenezer would have been too nice to close before then, especially since it had an actual building that wasn’t the chapel itself. The Black Whigham school opened in 1956. Total integration was completed in 1970 and it doesn’t look like it was used after that, based on educational directories.
Ebenezer was nice in comparison to many of the other county schools for Black children and is an amazing survivor.
National Register of Historic Places
Vanishing Georgia: Photographs by Brian Brown 
Whigham had a Black school built in the 1950s. It was/is located only a couple of blocks from Whigham High School. It’s on Google Street View, but I don’t know if it’s still standing.
Based on state statistics and what I’ve gleaned from Cairo Messenger archives, I’d put Ebenezer’s closure around 1950. One of my projects has been recovering names of Black schools before the earliest cumulative list of 1957.
I think I have all of Grady County’s segregated schools from the 1951-52 school year, when it reported to the state it had 12 Black schools. In 1950, however, Grady reported 21 schools, 13 of them one-teacher. Ebenezer would have been too nice to close before then, especially since it had an actual building that wasn’t the chapel itself.
The Black Whigham school opened in 1956. Total integration was completed in 1970 and it doesn’t look like it was used after that, based on educational directories.
Thanks so much for this post. Blacks were/are remarkable. To think what has been/is accomplished in spite of past/present odds. There is an unmarked black grave site in Union Point Georgia not too far from Siloam Missionary Baptist Church which has an impressive history of its own. And check out Piney Grove Baptist church in Chatsworth Georgia. AND the initial site of a church now on MLK, Jr. Drive in Whitfield County, Dalton Georgia right across from Willis Funeral Home. ( can’t recall the name) Their initial site was in Murray county Georgia. The church still owns the land. Georgia/this country overflows with impressive history. Thanks for all that you do to make sure we know about it.