I’m not a “lister” but I do enjoy a quick review of the year’s most popular posts. These favorites helped add another million views this year. Thank you for traveling along with me. I wish you all a wonderful 2024!
Shenita Hunt with her mother and Miller’s Soul Food matriarch, Nadine Miller Hunt
If you’re a fan of home-style Southern cooking you should put Miller’s Soul Food in Dublin at the top of your list to visit. They’ve been serving up food and a strong sense of community here for several generations, and you can feel the history and the love in every dish. It’s the oldest restaurant in Dublin and one of the community’s most successful Black-owned businesses.
Inside Miller’s Soul Food
Mrs. Nadine Miller Hunt’s mother established the restaurant in 1955 and Nadine has been running the place for over 30 years. When her husband, James L. Hunt (1934-2023), passed away recently, her daughter Shenita Hunt, who has lived in the Miami area for many years, came home to help with the restaurant’s operation. Mrs. Nadine isn’t slowing down and is the very definition of a gracious Southern lady. In 2022, Miller’s Soul Food was the only Georgia restaurant awarded a Backing Historic Small Restaurants grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
I had a fried leg quarter, a baked leg, turnips, and rutabagas. Both the fried and baked chicken were perfect. The photo, made on the fly, doesn’t do the food justice, so you’ll have to see for yourself.
In the pantheon of Southern restaurants, the meat-and-three is king, because everyone is looking for food like their mamma made. In my experience, the search rarely yields acceptable results. But sometimes you come across a place so good that you want to share it with the world. Miller’s Soul Food isn’t just any meat-and-three. Nothing is too salty, nothing too greasy, and nothing too sweet. Perfectly cooked and perfectly seasoned. None of this dumped-out-of-a-can buffet stuff here. There are plenty of regular customers who will tell you it’s the best restaurant in Dublin and I believe them.
Miller’s Soul Food, Dublin’s Oldest Resturant
Of course they serve all the staples, like fried chicken, ribs, fried mullet, and sides like turnips and rutabagas. I’m more a mustard and collards fan, but on the advice of a regular customer, I got the turnips and they were cooked to perfection. For the more old-school customers, they serve up oxtails, pig’s feet and other soul food classics. Each meal comes with corn muffins and an old-fashioned hoe cake, also very good.
Longtime customers make a selection. It’s all so good, it’s not easy to choose.
When I first walked in the door, I was warmly welcomed by Shenita Hunt. In addition to being dedicated to the legacy of her family’s business, she’s an accomplished singer, has toured professionally, and is passionate about her work. She was happy to play some of her recordings and she’s very talented [my favorite was her cover of “At Last” by Etta James]. Her work is available for purchase at the restaurant and online. Her family also owned a nightclub, Miller’s Country Club, about ten miles outside town, and she learned many standards of American music from listening to their jukebox and watching the musicians who worked with her parents. That’s where she got the music bug. Her family strongly embraced and encouraged her artistic interests.
Miller’s Soul Food is only open Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, so you’ll have to plan. But really, you should pay them a visit.
Dublin Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
George Linder, while enslaved on the Cooper Plantation in 1859, established Strawberry Chapel, the oldest African-American congregation in Laurens County. A preacher and farmer, he was one of the Original 33 black legislators elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1868 and subsequently expelled from the body. Though they were reinstated in 1870, the rise of the Klan and white supremacy helped ensure the end of black politicians in Georgia until the 1960s. Nearly a quarter of the Original 33 were lynched, beaten, maimed, or jailed.
Reverend Linder owned this house in town in his later years. He is largely forgotten today but an effort to publicize the Original 33 will hopefully bring him and his fellow legislators to their rightful place in Georgia history.
Thanks to Cynthia Jennings, who is volunteering with the the Original 33 project, for bringing him to my attention and sharing this location.
This is a Prince Hall lodge. Other affiliations include: Tri-County Chapter No. 8 of the Royal Arch Masons, and Fidelity Chapter No. 45 of the Order of the Eastern Star.
Oconee High School was the black high school in Dublin from 1952 until its closure in 1972. Like most equalization schools, it had a relatively short history, but an active national alumni association keeps its memory alive. The gymnasium, football field, and one other building [which I haven’t identified] survive, but the school itself is long gone.
Oconee High School, Unidentified Building
A marker placed by the alumni association gives a brief overview of the school’s history: In 1952, land was purchased from W. H. Lovett to build a new high school for African “colored” American students replacing Washington Street High. The school was named by Marine C. Bacote after the Oconee River nearby. It was the home of the “Mighty Trojans”, the “Blue and Gold” our sons shall ever defend. Lucius T. Bacote served as the first principal (1952-1959); he was succeeded by Charles W. Manning, Sr. (1959-1970). The school’s spirit of excellence, pride, and philosophy were the foundation for the success of African-American students during segregation.
The gymnasium and football field are still used as community resources today, as the Oconee Community Center, administrated by the Dublin-Laurens County Recreation Authority.
This community landmark, while in sound condition, has been closed and vacant since the 1980s and was recently named, along with Dudley’s Retreat and Amoco Station No. 2, a 2023 Place in Peril by the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation. It’s an important resource and part of a larger story of an amazing family of entrepreneurs who provided travel options for the African-American community during the Jim Crow Era.
Mr. Herbert “Hub” Horatio Dudley (1892-1965) was the most successful Black businessman in Dublin during his lifetime and had numerous businesses in the neighborhood. As anyone who’s seen the movie Green Bookwould understand, travel from town to town was dangerous during the Jim Crow Era and African-Americans relied on publications to direct them to safe places.
Mr. Dudley’s entrepreneurial spirit, along with a genuine concern for his community, led him to establish this property, which opened in 1958.
The rear of the Amoco Station [at left in this photo] was adjacent to the motel, which featured 12 rooms in several units with all the modern amenities. The Retreat cafe was also on the same property, which allowed patrons to move about more freely at a time when just being on the street after dark could be ominous. The architecture is a type of vernacular commercial construction which is quite rare in Georgia. I’ve seen similar properties in older beach communities in Florida.
As the epicenter of black culture and business in Dublin, Dudley’s Motel hosted many luminaries of the day, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Andrew Young, Ralph David Abernathy, Maynard Jackson, and other prominent figures.
I hope the property survives and perhaps becomes a museum or community resource center.
This structure was built to house the growing food business of the Dudley family when Dudley Funeral Home became the sole occupant of the nearby C. D. Dudley & Sons General Merchandise building. Herbert (Hub) and Mayme Ford Dudley were already leaders of the black community of Dublin and their Retreat Cafe became a community center. Well-known entertainers, including Little Richard, James Brown, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe all visited here while traveling through Dublin. I met a nice lady while I was photographing the property who remembered Mrs. Mayme Dudley quite well.
Original neon “EAT” sign, dating to World War II
During World War II, Mr. Dudley operated a USO in this building for Black servicemen. The structure remains sound today but was listed as a 2023 Place in Peril by the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation because it has been in disuse for many years.
I’ve admired this structure for many years, thinking that it must have originally been an automobile dealership, but in the process of documenting some historic properties of the Dudley family, I discovered it is actually a well-established funeral home, celebrating its centennial this year. It is one of the best-known landmarks of Dublin’s African-American community and features some of the finest commercial brickwork I’ve seen in rural Georgia.
The brickwork is what first caught my eye and is obviously the work of a very skilled mason. Dudley Funeral Home notes that the building originated as a general merchandise store circa 1900, one of the first Black-owned businesses in Dublin. In 1922, the funeral home was established in the store building, typical of the era. Other business originated here, as well, including a barber shop, casket showroom, and realty and investment business. During the early 1940s, the funeral home and casket business had grown to a point that they occupied the entire building; the other businesses were relocated. The present brick facade was added at this time.
Though I can find no indication that this church is still in use, it is a wonderfully preserved example of a town church in the two-steeple style that has come to be associated with African-American congregations.
African-American brick masons were often highly skilled and sought after in their communities and the CME relief in the eave of this church is a good example of the craft.
Vanishing Georgia: Photographs by Brian Brown 