Tag Archives: Civil Rights Movement in Georgia

Women’s Dormitory, State Teachers and Agricultural College for Negroes, 1936, Forsyth

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Back side of the Women’s Dormitory. This is the side that faces Georgia Highway 83/Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive.

The State Teachers and Agricultural College for Negroes (STAC) was established by William Merida Hubbard (1865-1941) in 1902 as the Forsyth Normal and Industrial School, and was one of three Black colleges added to the University System of Georgia in 1932. The Women’s Dormitory and the Teacher’s Cottage are the only two public buildings associated with the school still extant and have been restored. Besides being home to Monroe County Cooperative Extension offices, the dormitory is also home to the Hubbard Museum and Cultural Center.

W. M. Hubbard was born in Wilkinson County to Edinborough and Betsy Hubbard, who had been enslaved in Virginia until Emancipation. He is likely one of the most important figures in Georgia’s African-American history that you’ve never heard of and I hope more people learn his story. He worked his way through the Ballard Normal School in Macon and then attended Fiske University and Cornell University. While getting his education, he taught in Irwinton, Monroe County, and Jacksonville, Florida. After graduation from Cornell, he spent four years in Cuthbert before finally settling in Forsyth around the turn of the century. Since there was no accredited local Black school at the time, Hubbard worked for a few years as a professional photographer. According to the Hubbard Alumni Association: In 1900 William Merida Hubbard opened a school with seven students in the Kynette Methodist Church in the city of Forsyth. Like many schools in the Jim Crow South, churches presented the only option for educating black children. He opened this school at a time when there was little interest and minimal financial support for African American public education in Georgia. Undaunted by this challenge, William Hubbard cultivated partnerships with the white community in Forsyth. In 1902, Hubbard and five white men from Forsyth successfully petitioned the Superior Court of Monroe County to incorporate the Forsyth Normal and Industrial School with one small building on ten acres of land.

The Normal School added 10th and 11th grades in 1917, receiving full accreditation, and was the first Black vocational school in Georgia. It became a junior college in 1927 but sadly, several buildings were lost to fire soon thereafter. Undaunted, Hubbard oversaw the building of newer facilities, including the dormitory and teacher’s cottage. It became the STAC in 1931. The school merged with Fort Valley State College in 1938 and Mr. Hubbard finished his career there. The following year, the campus became Forsyth’s first Black high school, known as the Hubbard Training Center. William’s son, Samuel Hubbard, oversaw its evolution into the Hubbard Elementary and High School and served as its principal until desegregation in 1970.

It speaks volumes of Hubbard’s legacy that Governor Eugene Talmadge, an avowed racist, praised the man and his accomplishment at his memorial service in 1941.

National Register of Historic Places

Teacher’s Cottage, State Teachers and Agricultural College for Negroes, 1930, Forsyth

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This house was built for teachers at the State Teachers and Agricultural College for Negroes between 1929-1930. It’s one of two contributing properties of the school that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is an important resource. It still serves an educational purpose, as the Monroe County Workforce Development Center.

National Register of Historic Places

Shiloh Baptist Church, 1953, Albany

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Like its neighbor across the street (Old Mount Zion), Shiloh Baptist is one of the Mother Churches of the Albany Movement. The congregation was organized in 1888. The present structure was built by contractor A. S. Cobb in 1953, during the pastorate of W. H. Calhoun. Jim Bishop notes in his 1971 book, The Days of Martin Luther King, Jr., that one of his most famous phrases was first delivered in a sermon here: “We shall overcome. Don’t stop now. Keep moving. Don’t get weary children. We will wear them down by our capacity to suffer.”

A 2014 historical marker notes: The Albany Movement began here, at Shiloh Baptist Church, in November 1961. A coalition of black improvement associations and student activists from SNCC and Albany State College, the protest group set an unprecedented goal: the desegregation of an entire community, from bus stations to lunch counters. Demonstrations over two years resulted in the detention of 1,500 protesters. The participation and repeated arrests of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. brought national attention to the Albany Movement. Music sustained the campaign in Southwest Georgia and gave birth to the SNCC Freedom Singers. Legal action and the increase in black voter registration led to school desegregation, the end of public employee discrimination, and the election of black political officials in the region. Lessons learned in Albany influenced events in Birmingham in 1963.

Old Mount Zion Baptist Church, 1906, Albany

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Mount Zion is one of the largest congregations in Albany today. Their old home, now a part of the Albany Civil Rights Museum, was built in 1906. But the history goes back to just after the Civil War. According to their website: The Mount Zion Baptist Church of Albany, GA was organized December 8, 1865 by the late Rev. R. R. Watson. The church’s original location was in a building then known as the Jerry Walter’s Blacksmith Shop, which was located on the corner of State Street (now Highland Avenue) and Jackson Street. A successful financial drive made it possible to purchase land for the church at Washington Street and Highland Avenue. Twenty-six hundred dollars was raised for this purpose. However, before the structure was completed, it was destroyed by a storm. Nevertheless, the site at South Street (now Whitney Avenue) and Jefferson Street was purchased. An old house brought from Leesburg, Georgia was donated to the congregation by a Yankee Colonel named Howard. This became the first church structure at that location. Northern teachers taught school in that building until a schoolhouse was later erected.

Old Mount Zion hosted some of the earliest meetings of the Albany Movement of the Civil Rights Movement and hosted important figures including Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, Andrew Young, and Ralph David Abernathy. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Freedom Singers, who participated in the March on Washington, gave their first performance here.

This church served the congregation until 1972, when they relocated to a larger facility.

National Register of Historic Places

Ralph Quarterman House, Circa 1937, Allenhurst

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This was the home of businessman and Civil Rights leader Ralph Waldo Quarterman. It’s located adjacent to Mr. Quarterman’s grocery store.