Americus Georgia

 Americus Georgia is 58th on the list. This town has been majority Black since the 20th century, and with the legacy of slavery, tenant farming, segregation, discrimination, violence, combined with income inequality and a history of exclusionary policies, it was unsafe with threats of arrest violence or worse if our ancestors were in the wrong neighborhood at night. This qualifies Americus as a hidden Jim Crow sundown town. 

 This was not done by our ancestors wanting to exclude others, but the segregationist practices that created these communities in the first place. 

By 1913, Americus was fully sick with Jim Crow and fits the criteria of a Jim Crow sundown town. 

Let’s get into it. 

During slavery and after, this town was rich from cotton because of our enslaved ancestors free labor  

During the civil war, americus was so deep into the fight that the entire town had been turned into a Confederate hospital

By the 1870s, because we were excluded elsewhere in americus, thanks to policies that begin in the late 19th century, our ancestors found themselves in areas like McCoy Hill:

and by the 1890s our ancestors found themselves right in the middle class of America. During this reconstruction period, as Jim Crow was making himself at home and segregation was the name of the day, we built our own school, a hospital, and purchased homes. by 1912, there was no stopping segregation, dehumanization, and violence in the Jim Crow sundown town, americus. 

Fully sick with Jim Crow, June 21, 1913, now

History isn’t sure how it started, and only gives 1 account from Mr. Reddings pov, but in the end, 2 black men and 1 white man was unalived. With Mr. Redding being lynched on the corner of Lamar Street and Cotton Avenue with hundreds of local white people participating. I put his account here for you to read. Well, during the struggle, Mr. Redding, being a super human over powered 3 white men, grabbed the officers pew pew and shot him. C’mon!! An innocent bystander name Daniel Stallings was also unalived because the mob came in acting like it was the wild wild west. The chief passed a few days later from the injury, that some say came from the mob on scene.  

Well, by 1923, The Americus Colored Hospital was established by Dr. W. William Stuart Prathe and, get this, it was closed by 1953 under the guise of integration into the Sumter county hospital. The stick is..the county hospital wouldn’t hire our ancestors. This dehumanizing discrimination caused many of our ancestors a great loss as they were trying to build generational wealth, so they ended up leaving Americus, in turn, this was the start of breaking apart our once stable middle class. 

In 1942, koinonia, a Christian community, was established by Clarence and Florence Jordan and Martin and Mabel England as the first integrated community in americus. This came with daily harassment. Being a Jim Crow sundown town, it also came with violence at night. 

OWNERS we’re told they were violating local customs by eating meals with their Black day laborers. By 1956, the hoods had HAD enough with this integration and publicly denounced the farm. And on February 24, 1957, the hoods, over 150 of them, men women and children, drove to the farm to see if they’d leave town. This same year, Ms. Dorothy Day, was unalived….

The terror and violence here only got worse. 

The hoods decided to boycott koinonia, but a store downtown continued to do business with them, in turn, the hoods blew up the storefront. 

Enough was enough for our ancestors, and they started to protest. The protest lasted from 1963-1965. 

July of 1963, fifteen girls ages 12-15 were thrown in jail for getting into the whites only line, instead of the dehumanizing act of going through the back door at the Martin theater on Forsyth. They were to know their place in this Jim Crow sundown town. 12 showed up, did them so bad, and made sure these babies knew their place before arresting them. 

During this time, 

Dr. King was invited to americus, and her refused to go because he said the sheriff was the meanest man in the world. Hed already had run ins with him because December of 61 Martin Luther King Jr. was held in jail in Americus after being arrested in Albany. 

Mary Kate Fishe Bell, Mamie Campbell, Lena Turner, and Gloria Wise were arrested after trying to vote in the whites only line, and the community showed up to demand their release. They matched all day, and put blankets out at night to sleep. 

On July 28, 1965 while there was another peaceful protest in front of the Sumter County courthouse, many in attendance were kids, Mamie Campbell heard a loud bang. Well just a few blocks over, 2 black kids unalived a white kid. And boy o boy the white people in this town used this to paint all of our protests and efforts as violent. For many years, racial politics used this as their go to argument about us. Even the minister of First Baptist had to use this “the sheer product of hate, indifference and pressures on mind and heart—such as distrust and greed The unaliving was planted fully on the civil rights movement. Despite this entire history, they fully were able to paint themselves as victims. 

Anyway, the truth is, the boys that committed this terrible act….Willie Lamar and Charlie Lee Hopkins were quickly arrested, tried, and convicted. No connections to the civil rights movement were ever made. it didn’t matter. The narrative about the civil rights movement was already written in some minds. 

Word of The 1963- 1965 protests spread across America , and history says, Americus had a direct effect on the passing of the voting rights act of 1965. 

Can anyone share a first hand account about this place? Leave a comment.