DR. BRAILSFORD BRAZEAL

A Man of Morehouse

When you think of Morehouse College, you think of tradition -a tradition of higher learning for African-American college students.  When you go back seventy-five years, you think of a day unlike today when a mere few, the lucky few, had the opportunity to attend an institution of higher learning, much less one with the honorable tradition as Morehouse.  For nearly four decades, one Laurens County native helped the school rise to the prominence it still retains today.

Brailsford Reese Brazeal was born in Dublin, Georgia on March 8, 1903.  The son of the Rev. George Reese Brazeal and Walton Troup Brazeal, young Brailsford attended Georgia State College and Ballard Normal School in Macon.    Late in his life Dr. Brazeal recalled that it was his Baptist preacher father's guidance and teachings that kindled his imagination as to what was beyond his neighborhood.  Brazeal recalled that his mother and his oldest aunt, Flora L. Troup pushed him to leave Dublin because he wouldn't be able to obtain anything but an elementary education in Dublin.  His uncle and namesake Brailsford Troup gave him a job during summers as a carpenter's helper.  Brazeal realized that the life of a laborer is not what he wanted and promised himself that he would do all that he could to break the barriers of race and segregation. 

He completed his studies  at Morehouse Academy, a high school, in 1923.  While at Morehouse College, Brazeal came to know Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, who served as his debate coach in college and would later serve as President of Morehouse.   After graduating from Morehouse in 1927, Brazeal continued his studies and obtained a master's degree in Economics  from the ultimately prestigious Columbia University in 1928.  

 

Salute to Dr. Brazeal, Morehouse College 2013

Brazeal was immediately hired as a Professor of Economics by Dr. John Hope, his alma mater's first black president.    By 1934, Brazeal was chosen to chair the Department of Economics and Business.  He was also selected to serve as the Dean of Men, a post which he held until 1936.  

In his early years at Morehouse, Brailsford met and married Ernestine Erskine of Jackson, Mississippi.  Mrs. Brazeal was a graduate of Spellman College in Atlanta.  An educator in her own right, Mrs. Brazeal held a Master's Degree in American History from the University of Chicago.  She taught at Spelman and served for many years as the Alumni Secretary.  To those who knew and loved her, Mrs. Brazeal was known to the be the superlative historian of Spelman History, though she never published the culmination of  her vast knowledge.   

The Brazeals were the parents of two daughters.  Aurelia Brazeal is a career diplomat and has recently served as the United States Ambassador to Ethopia, Kenya and Micronesia.  Ernestine Brazeal has long been an advocate for the Headstart Program.

The Brazeal home in Atlanta was often a home away from home for Morehouse students.  Especially present were the freshmen who inhabited the home on weekends and after supper for the fellowship and guidance from the Brazeals.  Among these students were the nation's greatest civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Maynard Jackson, the first black mayor of Atlanta.   It was Dr. Brazeal, who first recommended the young minister for acceptance at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania.  Dr.  Brazeal wrote that King would mix well with the white race.   The Brazeal's bought the four square home near Morehouse in 1940.  Today, the home at 193 Ashby Street (now Joseph Lowery Boulevard) was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.  

Through scholarships, Brailsford Brazeal was named a Julius Rosenwald Fellow and in 1942, obtained his Ph. D. from Columbia University in economics.  As a part of his doctoral dissertation, Dr. Brazeal wrote about the formation of the of one of the first labor unions for black workers.  In 1946, Brazeal published his signature work The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.    For decades, labor researchers often cited Brazeal's writings  in his landmark work and other papers and journal articles.

During the 1950s, Brazeal worked in voter registration movements.  He wrote extensively about racial discrimination in voting, especially in his native state. He detailed many of the activities in his home county of Laurens.    In his Studies of Negro Voting in Eight Rural Counties in Georgia and One in South Carolina, Brazeal examined and wrote of the  efforts of H.H. Dudley and C.H. Harris to promote more black participation in voting in Laurens County.  He chronicled the wars between the well entrenched county sheriff Carlus Gay and State Representative Herschel Lovett and their desire and competition for the black vote.   He wrote of fair employment practices, desegregation of higher education, voter disfranchisement of black voters, voter registration, and many other civil rights matters. 

The members of the National Association of College Deans elected Dr. Brazeal as their president in 1947.   Brazeal a member of the Executive Committee of the American Conference of Academic Deans and as a vice-president of the American Baptist Educational Institutions. 

During his career Dr. Brazeal was a member of the American Economic Association, the Academy of Political Science, the Southern Sociological Society, the Advisory Council of Academic Freedom Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union, the N.A.A.C.P., the Twenty Seven Club, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Sigma Pi Phil, Delta Sigma Rho and the Friendship Baptist Church.

In 1967, Dr. Brazeal was inducted into the prestigious national honor society, Phi Beta Kappa as an alumni member of Delta Chapter  of Columbia University.  He organized a chapter at Morehouse, known to many as one of the "Ivy League" schools for African Americans.  

Dr. Brazeal retired in 1972 after a career of more than forty years, many of which he served as Dean of the College.  At the age of seventy eight he died in Atlanta on April 22, 1981. His body lies next to that of his wife, who died in 2002, in Southview Cemetery in Atlanta.  

GROVER C. NASH

Soaring to New Heights

Grover C. Nash could fly a plane with the best of any pilot of his day.  Seventy years ago yesterday he made history during National Air Mail Week.  This is the story of a poor farm boy from Twiggs County, Georgia who piloted his plane into history as he became the first African American pilot to fly and deliver the U.S. mail.

Grover C.  Nash was born in Dry Branch, Georgia way back on April 4, 1911.   He was seventh child and third son of Joe and Annie Nash.   No one alive seems to remember what his life was like as a child, but history tells us that it had to be tough.  

Nash marveled in wonder when he saw planes flying overhead.  Like most boys of his day, Grover dreamed of flying like a bird.  But being black and being in the South, his chances of getting to fly in an airplane were just about as slim as his sprouting wings and flying on his own power.

Grover Nash went North in hopes of attending flight training classes.  The color of his skin prevented him from being accepted. But in 1931, Grover was accepted into flight school. A graduate of Curtiss-Wright Aeronautical University in Chicago and Moore's Flying School in Dayton, Ohio, Nash had earned a Master Mechanic's certificate within two years.  Flying his own plane, a midwing monoplane he dubbed Little Annie, Grover Nash honed his flying skills under the tutelage of Roscoe Turner in St. Louis.  Turner, a World War I pilot, was a champion racing pilot in the 1930s.  He also studied under John C. Robinson, who was one of the founders of the Challenger Aero Club, one of the first black pilots organizations.

Tuskeegee Institute was supposed to be the destination of Nash's first long distance flight.  Flying with him would be Col. Robinson and Cornelious Coffee, two of the nations' most famous pilots.  The trio were engaging in a southern tour to Birmingham, Chattanooga, Murfreesboro, as well as stops in St. Louis, Terre Haute and other cities in Illinois.  While they were approaching Decatur, Alabama, Robinson and Coffee had to crash land their two-man plane.  Being the junior members of the group, Coffee and Nash remained in Decatur, while their leader went on to address students at Tuskeegee.  Nash's disappointment vanished when he returned the following year to visit the renowned black educational institution.   

Nash made headlines in January 1935 when he gave a dazzling exhibition at an air show celebrating the seventy-second anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.  As a lieutenant of the Military Order of the Guards and a member of the Challenger Aero Club, Grover's reputation in Chicago continued to grow.  To help pay the bills, Nash managed the service department for a chain of automobile parking lots in the Chicago area and operated his own flight school for six years.  

A well-experienced private pilot, Grover C. Nash was somewhat of an automobilist.  In 1937, Nash set out from his Chicago home to visit a sick relative in Los Angeles.  Driving with little or no pauses, Grover made the 2,448 mile trip in 48 hours for an average of 50.8 miles per hour, a record for any automobile at the time.  It wouldn't be the only time that year that Grover Nash would take a long trip to see a relative.  When Grover left home in 1929, he promised his daddy that one day he would return home  in a plane.  There was much joy that day in Dry Branch when Grover's monoplane came over the tree tops and landed on the red clay soil of home.  

The United States Postal Service established National Air Mail Week in 1938.  As a part of the celebration, an experiment was conducted to determine the feasibility of picking up and delivering air mail throughout small cities and large towns throughout the country.   

It was early in the afternoon of May 19, 1938.  Excitement was escalating in Mattoon,  Illinois.  It was the first time the city's mail would be flown to its recipients around the state and the country.  As Nash landed his Davis monoplane in Mattoon, he was greeted by the post master, the police chief, city officials and somewhere near one hundred curious onlookers.   Grover was given a hero's welcome, a tour of the city, and dinner at a local caf‚.  Nash stashed about seven hundred more letters inside his plane and headed off to Charleston, only ten minutes away.

Charleston had never had airmail service either.  But, Grover Nash couldn't have dreamed that his reception there would dwarf the welcome he received on his first stop.  An estimated eight thousand people crammed the runway of the city's first airport.  A band played.  The crowd cheered.  Nash waved to his adoring admirers.     After waiting out a severe thunderstorm, Nash took off at 5:45 for Rantoul with another two thousand letters.  

An astonished Nash later told a reporter for the Chicago Defender that no one seemed to notice his color along the way - especially the  hundreds who pressed him to autograph their letters.  It was, however, the first time that an African American had carried U.S. mail through the air. And, on that day, Nash made the longest flight and carried more letters than any of the 146 pilots, before returning to Chicago, five minutes ahead of his scheduled arrival.

Five months later on Halloween Day, Grover Nash joined hands in marriage with his sweetheart, Miss Lillie Borras.

A group of black pilots in the Chicago area organized as the National Airmen Association of America in an effort to stimulate interest in aviation and understanding of aeronautics.  On August 16, 1939, a petition was filed to incorporate the organization in the state of Illinois.  Naturally, Grover C. Nash was among the founding directors.  The Airmen staged the first national all black air show in United States history earlier that summer.  

During World War II, Grover Nash served his country as mechanical instructor at the US Army Air Force Aircraft Mechanical School.  He spent sixteen months as an instructor for the Army Air Force Training Command. In his first ten years of flight, Grover Nash  logged more than 3,000 flight hours in thirty different types of aircraft.     In 1943, Nash was the only black instructor at Keesler Field in Mississippi and Lincoln Air Base in Nebraska.   After the war, Nash was a member of the faculty of Dunbar Vocational High School in Chicago, where he taught before his retirement to Los Angeles.

While visiting his relatives back home in Twiggs County, Grover Nash died on August 10, 1970.  He was buried in the church cemetery of White Springs Baptist Church.  Ten years after his death, Grover Nash was honored by in the exhibit "Black Wings" in the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.  

HONORING WILLIAM "TEN CENT BILL" YOPP

HONORING "TEN CENT" BILL

There was something special, even magical, which took place under the golden dome of the Georgia Capitol on the 5th day of March.  The occasion was the signing of a proclamation honoring Confederate Memorial Day in Georgia.  With a few strokes of his pen, Georgia governor Sonny Perdue signed a proclamation which honored a black man, who was a soldier of the Confederate army.  After serving with master Thomas Yopp, Bill lost touch with his life long friend for more than forty years.  The winds of fate brought these men together in Atlanta after the end of World War I.  Those winds still whirl around the capital city and on this day brought together a new circle of friends, bound together for the common love and admiration of a single man, some loving him for just being their great great granddaddy and others just in tribute for his undying love for his friends, despite the obstacles society put in his way.

Rosa Chappell, of Laurens County, began inquiring about any available information on her ancestor Bill Yopp.  On another front and completely unknown to anyone else who came to the governor's office that day, local realtor Rusty Henderson, a member of Georgia's Civil War Commission, proposed to the governor's office that this year the state honor Yopp, one of the most well known black Confederate soldiers in the South.   Mrs. Chappell and Mr. Henderson met and the word spread among Bill's descendants.  

Up in Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlie Pittman was putting the finishing touches on  his historical novel, Ten Cent Bill.   Pittman, who has been studying the life of Bill Yopp for more than four years, had lost touch with his contact at the Laurens County Historical Society.  He knew nothing of the ceremony until Betty Page's call to Joy Warren at the library's heritage center.   Warren informed two researchers in the library about the ceremony.  They happened to be Pittman's sister and brother-in-law, who informed him of the pending plans.  Within a matter of minutes, the author was making plans to come to Atlanta and began making contacts with other descendants of the subject of his work.

That's where Doris Taylor and Jeanne Massey of Detroit, Michigan and Lorene Pittman, of Louisiana, come in.  Along with Mrs. Chappell, these four first cousins recently began a serious study of their genealogy.  Despite three deaths in their immediate families, these ladies made it their mission to come to Atlanta to see their ancestor honored by the State of Georgia.  

A delegation began to assemble in the Governor's outer office.  Surrounded by other groups seeking to have their picture taken with the chief executive, the group's numbers began to swell.  Charlie Lott and Ted O'Brooke, commanders of the Sons of Confederate Veterans came in.  They were joined by Debra Dennard, who was representing the Daughters of the Confederacy.  John Culpepper, Chairman of the Georgia Civil War Commission, was also there along with a couple of Georgia legislators and SCV representatives.  Keeping his distance and not wanting to intrude was a young man, whom no one seemed to know.  He may have been a part of the other dozen or so groups crammed into the office.  One by one the delegation shook hands with the governor.  All assembled quickly, smiled for the camera, and then were whisked out the door to make room for the  next group.  In an instant, the ceremony was over.

Henderson made arrangements to allow the ladies to view the battle flag of the 14th Georgia Infantry, which has been fully restored and kept in a vault on the first floor of the Capitol.  This was the actual flag that would have been carried in the position next to Yopp, who was the regimental drummer.   The young man, who didn't want to intrude, introduced himself as Shawn Peacock. He was a descendant of G.B. Faulk, who served with Bill Yopp in Civil War.  Yopp and Faulk were just teenagers when they began serving in the Army.  

Then, without a moment's hesitation, the ladies and Shawn began to hug each other.  Tears flowed.  Just as their ancestors had ignored their outward differences, these descendants  became good friends.  

Those who came to honor Bill Yopp had one more item on the agenda.  They assembled in the Confederate section of the Georgia's Confederate Cemetery in Marietta.  As they made their way down the windswept hill toward Yopp's grave, everyone seemed to notice that Bill Yopp was in a row by himself.  Yopp's remains occupy a single row, not by design, but because of the fact that he was the last of the veterans of the Confederate Soldier's Home to die and be buried in the cemetery.  Symbolically he held out until all of his friends were safe from the ravages of old age before he took his place at the head of the unit, just as he had done as he beat out the rhythms of the march.

Hanging around the cemetery was a middle age man with a ball cap.  He meekly introduced himself as Larry Blair.  Blair, who grew up in the neighborhood of the cemetery, makes it his life's mission to take care of the state cemetery, which gets little or no funding from limited state funds. Blair's adopted hero was, of course, Bill Yopp. He had studied his life for decades. Someone from the Capitol had alerted him of the visit.  Once again the winds of fate had joined another into the band of those who revered this once forgotten hero.  Tears flowed, stories were told and more friends were made.

Dee Taylor was thrilled and blessed to witness the accolades heaped upon her great-grandfather.  As she stood at the foot of Yopp's grave, she felt love and pride.  Her mother Lucile Davis, is Yopp's last surviving great-grandchild.  "We have come full circle back to the place where it all began with our Grandpa Bill Yopp," Taylor said, as she was representing her mother and those who had gone before her, including her great-grandmother Rosina, a daughter of Bill Yopp.

Jeanne Massey said, "In the Capitol when I saw the style of drum that our great great-grandfather played during the march into battle, it evoked a new sense of pride and elation about my heritage."   "When the actual battle flag for the 14th regiment was presented to us, along with Sean, I again felt my heart soar. But nothing compared to meeting Larry Blair and seeing his dedication to "10 Cent Bill." The location of "10 Cent Bill's" monument and his position as drummer leading the troops gives insight to the appreciation of those of the lighter nation for a great man," Massey concluded.

Henderson has for the last ten years with the Governors Office to proclaim April as Confederate History Month. “This year being the 200th anniversary of the founding of Laurens county I thought it appropriate to build the theme around a prominent Confederate from our own county. That is where Bill Yopp came, in addition it tells a story many people are unaware of. That is the role African-Americans played in the War for Southern Independence. Bill is also a role model for reconciliation and brotherhood between Black and White Georgians who have lived together as family for hundreds of years. Bill was a former slave, who like Saint Patrick returned to his home to help his people in the best ways he could. We should all follow his example today and promote the best examples of our history for all to see.” Henderson said..

Yopp's grave marker indicates that he was a drummer in Co. H of the 14th Georgia Infantry.  The color of Bill Yopp's skin  is not noted on his tombstone, and when it comes to friends, that's  the way it should be.

"TEN CENT" BILL YOPP

A Man to Whom Friendship Was Paramount

History will be made in Georgia's capitol building next week. For the first time ever, the State of Georgia will recognize and honor an African-American Confederate Soldier. Governor Sonny Perdue will sign his annual proclamation honoring Confederate Memorial Day by recognizing Bill Yopp, a native of Laurens County, for his contributions to the State of Georgia. Bill Yopp is more than just a black Confederate soldier. Bill's life was not just that of a soldier, a porter, or a servant. His life was centered on the essential element of human life. His friendships transcended slavery, racism and politics. To Bill, friendship was paramount to any barriers set in his path of life.

William H. "Bill" Yopp, the fourth of eight siblings, was born in Laurens County, Georgia. Like his parents, he was a slave belonging to the family of Jeremiah Yopp. The Yopp family owned two major plantations. One was located in the western part of Dublin centered around the Brookwood Subdivision. A second was located along the eastern banks of Turkey Creek near the community known as Moore's Station. Other small plantations were scattered over the county. Jeremiah Yopp assigned Bill to his son, Thomas. Bill once said that he followed Thomas like "Mary's little lamb." The two instantly became friends. They fished, hunted and played together. Bill's childhood, while stifled by slavery, was molded by education and religion within the plantation, which included regular church services.

On January 16, 1861, John W. Yopp attended the Convention of Secession at the state capital in Milledgeville. Laurens Countians voted to side with the Cooperationists who favored remaining in the Union. Yopp, the largest plantation owner in western Laurens County, was joined by Dr. Nathan Tucker, a wealthy plantation owner from northeastern Laurens County. Dr. Tucker, a northerner by birth, voted to remain in the Union. Yopp cast his vote with the majority who voted for secession.

The first company of Confederate Soldiers in Laurens County was organized on July 9th, 1861 as the Blackshear Guards. The company eventually became attached to the 14th Georgia Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Thomas Yopp was elected First Lieutenant. Nine days later Lt. Yopp was promoted to Captain when Rev. W.S. Ramsay was elected Lt. Colonel of the regiment. Bill desperately wanted to join Lieutenant Yopp. So, he enlisted in the Blackshear Guards as the company drummer. Marching in front of company going into battle was not the best place to be, especially if you cared about living. After the company completed its training in Atlanta, they moved to Lynchburg, Virginia just after the Battle of the First Manassas. In August, the company was sent to West Virginia, where they fought under the command of Gen. John B. Floyd, a former Secretary of War in the Buchanan Administration. Gen. Robert E. Lee was in overall command of the West Virginia campaign.

Bill often found himself between the battle lines. He often said "I had no inclination to go to the Union side, as I did not know the Union soldiers and the Confederate soldiers I did know, and I believed then as now, tried and true friends are better than friends you do not know." On several occasions, Private Yopp was sent out on foraging missions. Bill ceased to forage for food because his Captain and friend found it to be "wrong doing." Bill obtained a brush and box of shoe blackening and began to shine the shoes of the men of the regiment. He soon began performing other services for the men. Bill charged ten cents, no matter what the service was. The nickname of "Ten Cent Bill" was penned on Bill. Bill often had more money than anyone in the company. His fellow company members took delight in teaching him to read and write. When he was sick, they took care of him.

Bill had a case of home sickness. Captain Yopp paid for his trip home. Bill realized that his place was back  ith Captain Yopp in Virginia. During the winter of 1861, the company became part of the Army of Northern Virginia.

The first battle of the peninsular campaign of 1862 took place on May 31st.  The 14th Georgia, under the command of Gen. Wade Hampton, got into a bloody fight with the Federal forces. Four Confederate Generals were wounded or killed.

Captain Yopp was also wounded in the Battle of Seven Pines. Bill comforted Captain Yopp and accompanied him to the field hospital. After a short stay in a Richmond Hospital, Bill went back to Laurens County with the Captain, who recuperated from his injury and went back to join the company by the fall of 1862.

At the bloody siege of Fredericksburg, Captain Yopp fell when a shell burst over him. Again Bill was there, coming to the aid of his friend. Captain Yopp recovered during the winter. The company saw Stonewall Jackson being carried off to a field hospital at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Bill witnessed the pure carnage of Gettysburg from the company's position on Seminary Ridge. The Blackshear Guards missed most of the fighting those three days in July, 1863. On August 31, 1863 Capt. Yopp cashiered, or bought out his commission. He returned to the ranks as a private until April 2, 1864. Captain Yopp transferred to the Confederate Navy on board the cruiser "Patrick Henry." Bill was not allowed to go with Thomas Yopp.

By some accounts, Bill returned home until the close of the war. By another, and more official, record, he was present at Gen. Lee's surrender at Appomattox. In May of 1865, he learned of Captain Yopp's return home. He left just in time to see the wagon train of Confederate President Jefferson Davis during his attempted escape through Laurens County.

Times were hard for people of both races. Bill worked as a share cropper until 1870. He went to Macon, taking a job as a bell boy at the Brown House. There he became acquainted with many of the influential men of Georgia. Bill accompanied the owner of the hotel back home to Connecticut. After his duties were finished, he was given train fare to return home. Bill became fascinated with New York City and worked there for a short time. In 1873, Bill returned home for a short time before taking a position with the Charleston and Savannah Railroad. He fell ill with yellow fever and returned home to recuperate and spend some time with Captain Yopp.

Bill returned to New York where he worked as a porter in an Albany Hotel.  There he again met the influential men of the state. He briefly served a family in California. In his travels, Bill visited the capitals of Europe. He worked for ten years as a porter in the private car of the president of Delaware and Hudson Railroad. Bill then worked for the United States Navy aboard the "Collier Brutus". His travels amounted to a trip around the world.

As the world was at war for the first time, Bill realized that old age had crept upon him. He returned home and found his friend Captain Yopp in poverty. Captain Yopp was about to enter the Confederate Soldier's Home in Atlanta. Bill took a job on the Central of Georgia Railroad. During World War I, Bill was given a place to live at Camp Wheeler near Macon. He made regular visits to the Soldier's Home providing Captain Yopp with some of his money along with fruits and other treats. Bill won the admiration of the officers at Camp Wheeler, who presented him with a gold watch upon his departure. Bill's generosity toward Capt. Yopp soon spread to all of the soldiers in the home. He enlisted the help of the editor of The Macon Telegraph for aid in a fund raising campaign. Bill and his friends were able to raise funds for each veteran at Christmas time. The campaign became more successful every year. The Dublin Courier Herald contributed to the campaign in 1919 when the amount given to each veteran was three dollars. Bill took time each  Christmas to speak to the veterans in the chapel of the home. The veterans were so impressed they presented him a medal in March of 1920. Bill had a book published about his life. The books were sold with the proceeds going to the soldiers in the home.

Bill and Thomas Yopp at Confederate Veteran's Home

Captain Yopp's health failed. The Board of Trustees voted to allow Bill a permanent place at the home. Bill stayed at his friend's side, just as he had done in the muddy trenches of Virginia nearly sixty years before. Captain Yopp died on the morning of January 23rd, 1920. Bill, now in his eighties, gave the funeral address.  He reminisced about the good times and his affection for his friend. Bill was a popular member of the Atlanta Camp No. 159 of the United Confederate Veterans, who held their meetings every third Monday at the capitol. Bill died on June 3, 1936. He was buried with his fellow soldiers at the Confederate Cemetery in Marietta, Georgia. After the body of Amos Rucker was disinterred to be laid next to the body of his wife, Bill became the lone African - American soldier of the Confederate Army to lie in the cemetery. His gravestone provided by the State of Georgia reads:

DRUMMER BILL YOPP, CO. H, 14TH GA. INF., C.S.A.

HEALERS OF THE BODY HEALERS OF THE COMMUNITY African American Physicians

Physicians are often called "healers of the body."  Ministers are seen as "healers of the soul."  Psychiatrists are known as "healers of the mind."  This is the story of the early black physicians of Dublin and Laurens County and their roles not only as "healers of the body," but as "healers of the community" during the turbulent times of the first five decades of the 20th Century in the rural South.

It wasn't until 1876 when the Freedman's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church established the Medical Department of Central Tennessee College in Nashville, Tennessee that black males in the South were given the opportunity to obtain a medical education.  The medical school, named Meharry Medical College in honor of its founder Samuel Meharry, became part of Walden University in 1900 and became self sustaining in 1915.

Laurens County's first known black physician was Dr. C.P.  Johnson.  Though little is known of his practice in Dublin in the mid 1890s, Dr. Johnson was known to have been educated by Alexander Hamilton Stephens, the Vice-President of the Confederate States of America.  Dr. Johnson left Dublin in 1895 and moved his practice to Cordele.

The first native black Laurens Countian to practice medicine was Dr. Benjamin Judson Simmons.    Dr. Simmons was born in Laurens County on October 16, 1870.  His family moved to Macon, where the young man dedicated his youth to obtaining the best education available.  Simmons attended the Ballard School in Macon and the Georgia State Industrial School in Savannah before returning home to teach in the county school system.  Simmons dreamed of becoming a physician.  With little or no money in hand Ben Simmons set out on foot for Nashville, Tennessee and Meharry Medical College.  When he walked out of Meharry in 1897 with his medical diploma in hand, Simmons was the school's most outstanding student in his studies of human anatomy.

One day when he walking back and forth from home to Meharry, Ben Simmons met and later married Clementine Slater of Baldwin County.  Dr. Simmons passed his state licensing exam and immediately set up his practice in the old capital city of Georgia.    The first black physician in Milledgeville, he was recognized by his white colleagues as a doctor with outstanding diagnostic skills.  Dr. Simmons successful career came to an untimely end on January 7, 1910, when he accidentally shot himself.  Though he had accumulated quite a fortune, his white friends pledged to pay for a handsome monument over his grave in the mostly white ancient Milledgeville burial ground.

 Henry Thomas Jones, Sr. was born on Oct. 3, 1875 in Hepzibah, Ga.  Like many of his local colleagues, Jones attended Georgia State College in Savannah.  Dr. Jones graduated on Feb. 21, 1900 from Meharry Medical College, where he was the first of his class to graduate under the four year program at Meharry.  Jones began his practice in Dublin on Sept. 23, 1901 and continued here until his death on July 29, 1945.  Henry Jones  married Theodosia Hinton of Warrenton, Ga.  By faith he was a Baptist and served as a Sunday School Teacher and a deacon of First A.B. Church, Dublin, Ga.  Civically, Dr. Jones was a Knight of Pythias and a 33rd degree Mason.

Perhaps of all of the African-American physicians of the early 20th Century, the most well known and admired was Benjamin Daniel "B.D." Perry.  Dr. Perry was born on April 12, 1876 in Laurens County.  He graduated from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn. on February 26, 1902.  He began his practice in Brewton, Ga. on May 10, 1902 near his ancestral home on the Wrightsville Highway.   In his early adult hood, Perry, like many physicians of his time, taught school during the day. Dr. Perry practiced in Dublin for over 40 years  and was a member of St. Paul A.M.E. Church.   He married Eliza J. O'Neal and died on Oct. 8, 1957.  In the 1950s, Dr. Perry was honored by Laurens County with the naming of B.D. Perry High School, which is located across the highway from his family home.   Dr. B.D. Perry was buried in Perry Cemetery on Highway 319 opposite East Laurens Middle School.

The fourth of a group of early black physicians was Dr. J.W.E. Linder.  Dr. Linder graduated from Meharry in 1908 and began his practice here seven weeks later on May 23, 1908.  Very little is known of Dr. Linder and he may have moved on to another city to practice his profession.

Dr. Ulysses Simpson Johnson was born on July 18, 1882 in the Jones County town of Clinton.  A son of Henry Johnson and his bride Elizabeth Bland,   Johnson attended local schools before matriculating at Georgia State College from 1895 to 1897 while he was in early teens.  At the age of 17, Ulysses graduated from Claflin University in Orangeburg, South Carolina.  During the time he was attending school, Johnson taught school during his free time.  

Dr. Johnson graduated from Meharry Medical College in 1908 and set out to practice medicine in Dublin in 1918.  A convert to Christianity from the age of fourteen, Dr. Johnson believed that he was given the call to heal the souls of his community's citizens.  On March 17, 1922, Dr. Johnson also became known as Rev. Johnson when he was licensed to preach at St. Paul's AME Church in Dublin.  Nineteen months later, he was ordained a Deacon in the church and in 1925 was designated as an elder.  He pastored churches at Cadwell, Dexter, Wrightsville, the Strawberry Circuit, Smithville and Eastman before his appointment as Presiding Elder of the Hawkinsville District in 1937.  From 1938 to 1940, Rev. Johnson served as the Presiding Elder of the Dublin District, before returning to Hawkinsville to service.  During his long career, Rev. Johnson attended dozens of annual conferences.

In 1924, Dr. Johnson, who lived on South Jefferson Street and practiced in his office across the street, began publishing  "The Record." the city's first newspaper exclusively for black citizens.  Dr. Johnson served as a Trustee of Morris Brown College for more than thirty years.  He served as President of the State Medical Association of Black Doctors and was Vice Chair of the National Medical Association. He was active in many local civic organizations, including the Masons, Knights of Pythias and Woodmen of the World.  His first wife, Josephine Hutchings, died early in his life.  His second wife was Miss Cleo P. McCall.

Ulysses Simpson Johnson was named after one of the 19th Century's most popular Republican presidents, U.S. Grant.  Fittingly it seemed only popular that nearly one hundred years after the end of the Civil War, Dr. Johnson served as one of the old line black delegates to the Republican National Convention in 1960.  He died on March 17, 1962.  Dr. U.S. Johnson was the last of the old school black physicians, who dedicated their lives to serving their community in every possible way.

ANNIE YARBOROUGH

Georgia’s Second Female African American Dentist

Dr. Annie Yarborough may or may not have been the first African-American female dentist to practice dentistry in the State of Georgia, but she was certainly the second African-American woman ever to be awarded a license by the state. Dr. Yarborough was the first woman ever to practice her profession outside of Athens, Georgia, where Dr. Ida Mae Hiram hung her out her shingle in 1910.

Born Annie E. Taylor on July 18, 1882 in Eatonton, Georgia, Dr. Yarborough was the mulatto daughter of the Rev. Hilliard Taylor and Anna E. Pennaman.  Her maternal grandfather, Morris Penneman, was a successful farmer and mill right and for his time a large landowner among a small group of former slaves who owned land in post Civil War Georgia.

Annie attended the public schools of Eatonton. After she graduated from high school in 1896, Annie enrolled at the Atlanta University.  Life was difficult for Annie and her family after Rev. Taylor died all too young.    She was educated in the field of education and took her first job in her hometown.    Miss Taylor moved out of town and taught in the Putnam County schools before moving to Jasper, Dodge and Laurens Counties.   In her spare time and between school terms, Annie was quite a successful dressmaker and fancy seamstress.

It was during her tenure in Laurens County that Annie met Dr. Adolphus Yarborough.  They fell in love and married on February 22, 1906.    Adolphus Yarborough learned his dental skills while working as an office boy.   Before he entered Dental School, Adolphus worked as a porter.   He was regarded by many as the best mechanical dentist of his race in Georgia.    Adolphus Yarborough, born in September 1881,  was a son of Nelson and Charley Yarborough and was the first African American dentist to practice in Laurens County.  When they first got married, Adolphus and Annie lived in his father's home on Marion Street in Dublin. 

Annie longed to work beside her husband.  Adolphus' office hours and home visits rarely allowed the couple to see each other, so Annie made up her mind that she was going to become a dentist.  There was only one problem.  There were no black female dentists and Georgia and no black dental schools in the state either.     

Annie had to leave Dublin and move to Nashville, Tennessee where she enrolled at Meharry Medical College.  During her first year at Meharry, Annie was elected to teach sewing and domestic science at Walden University.  In another rarity, Annie was both a student and a teacher at the same time.  

In the spring of 1910, Annie Taylor Yarborough walked across the stage and accepted her diploma as a graduate.  Dr. Ida Mae Hiram, credited as the first female African-American dentist in Georgia was also a member of Class of 1910.    Later that same year Dr. Hiram passed the dental board examinations and joined her husband in their dental office in Athens.    It would be another year before Dr. Yarborough would be officially licensed to practice in Georgia.

Dr. Yarborough was active in the Baptist Church.  She was an outstanding member of the Household of Ruth and the Court of Calenthe.  

The onset of World War I provided new opportunities for dental students and practicing dentists as well.  Black dentists finally thought this may be their chance to expand their practices beyond their own race.  Applications to the newly created Dental Reserve Corps poured in.  Annie Yarborough was one of the first to apply.   On June 6, 1917, just two months after the United States officially entered the war, Dr. Yarborough volunteered for service.  Her two brothers had served in the 9th and 10th Cavalry during the Spanish American War and at the age of thirty four, Annie believed it was her duty to serve her country.  She informed the Army that she was one of the few female dentists in her state (either black or white) and had completed four years of dental education at Meharry College.

Four weeks later, the office of the Surgeon General of the Army issued its standard denial of all women applicants, though the offer was appreciated.  As the war progressed, the policy of no women in the Dental Corps changed. 

During, or shortly after the war, the Yarboroughs divorced.  Annie, with no children, changed her name back to her maiden name and lived in a house at 626 South Jefferson Street in Dublin with her mother and her sister Leola Smith and her husband Henry.

Following the 1920 Census, Dr. Annie Taylor seems to vanish from Dublin.   I could find no records of her.  Perhaps she, like her father, died young.  Maybe she moved to another town.  Who knows?  If you know, contact me immediately.

Dr. Annie Taylor Yarborough was a woman of high integrity, high education and one whom all of Laurens County can rightfully and deservedly be proud of.

STEWARDS OF THE LAND

Laurens County African American Farmers.

For more than two centuries they have toiled in the fields, first as slaves, then as sharecroppers and, eventually, as owners of farms.   Throughout our past the contributions of these men, and women too, have left an invaluable impact on our local economy and our way of life.  This is the story of the African American farmers of Laurens County.

When Laurens County was created in 1807, the first black farmers were slaves.  Three years later the first census of the county enumerated 485 slaves.  Most of these people lived in the northern regions of the county on the large plantations.   By 1860 that number had increased to nearly 3,300 persons, some of whom were employed in non-agricultural positions or were too old or too young to work in the fields.

The end of the Civil War brought about the liberation of the black farmers.  While many farmers were relegated to living and sharecropping on the lands of their former masters, some were given land or were quickly successful enough to buy their own piece of land.  In 1870, there were fifty black farmers who were more than just farm laborers.  Among these, David Lock, William Coats, Jacob Coney, Moses Yopp, S. Ellington, Sandy Stanley, Robert Stanley, J. Yonks and Jordan Burch owned their own land.  The granddaddy of these farmers was 80-year old William Coats.  Harriett Harvard was the only female farmer in that census year.

During the latter decades of the 19th Century, the leading black farmers included Ringold Perry, Daniel Cummings, Hamlet McCall, D.  McLendon, Jacob Fullwood and many members of the Yopp and Troup families.  Adam McLeod, of Lowery's District, was so successful that he was known to have been the first black man to buy a car in Laurens County.  

In 1910 near the zenith of cotton production in Laurens County, there were 2266 black farmers in Laurens County, ten more than their white counterparts.  In that year, 274 farms were owned and cultivated by their black owners.  Nearly three fourths of all of Laurens County's five thousand farms were cultivated by tenant farmers, 2027  of them were black.  Though the net wealth of a black farmer was less than $40.00 per person, farm ownership increased by 76% in the first decade of the Twentieth Century.   

The rapid growth in the impact of the black farmer came to a screeching halt in the next decade when the boll weevil came to Laurens County and all but eliminated cotton as the most important part of the local farm economy.  By the mid 1920s, many of the tenant farmers were leaving in masses for the North and better paying and more reliable industrial jobs.  One notable migrant was Walker Smith, Jr., father of boxing great Sugar Ray Robinson, who moved to Detroit to make $60.00 per week as opposed to $30.00 per month on his Laurens County farm.

In effort to lessen the devastation of the coming of the boll weevil, Laurens County hired the first black farm agent, a man known only as Mr. Robinson and later Mr. Carlton of Tuskegee.  Essex Lampkin took over the duties in 1930.  Five years later, Emory Thomas came to the county and organized community farm clubs and 4-H clubs throughout the county.  The work of these pioneers continues today under the leadership of Gary Johnson and his staff and volunteers.

These farm programs worked and worked well.  Emmett Hall won national recognition for his planning and budgeting procedures.    With the aid of Farmers Home Administration and Georgia Extension Service, Hall, a tenant farmer for twenty six years, bought his own farm.  Through careful planning and hard work, Hall not only managed to pay off the farm's debt in five years, he bought two more farms.  Hall and his sons built nearly six miles of terraces to prevent erosion on their hilly farm north of Dublin.  Hall needed the extra money, for had eight children to feed.

Henry Josey followed Emmett Hall's example.    In a good year as a sharecropper, Mr. Josey would make about $5.00 a week.  With the aid of extension agents P.L. Hay and Luther Coleman and state leader P.H. Stone, Josey turned a hilly farm, with most of its top soil eroded down to the clay, into a highly profitable six thousand dollar a year enterprise.  Josey built terraces and planted lupine, kudzu and legumes to halt erosion.  He added to live stock to supplement his field crops.  Josey's yield of corn increased five fold.  After saving up enough money to put down on a farm, Josey said, "We had $29.00, 35 bushels of corn, and a broken down mule to make a crop with."    But Josey and his wife persevered.  The former sharecroppers paid off their loan in a few years, and increased their acreage from 40 to 184 acres by the end of World War II.   After thirty years of struggling to make a living on the farm, life was good for the Henry Josey family.

During the war years farm production was critical to the war effort.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt organized the Farm Security Administration to ensure increased production.  The Federal agency gave out awards to families who had gone above the goals set by the department for food production for home use and marketing with a special emphasis put on hogs, poultry and peanuts.  In 1942, six black farmers - Dempsey Wright, Johnny Beard, Jordan Wright, Ed Mathis, Emmett Hall and Bob Blackshear - were awarded certificates of merit for food for freedom production in a special ceremony held in the Laurens County Courthouse.

The location of the Georgia 4H Club for black youth in Dublin only helped the work of 4H programs in the community.  Willie Brantley lost his father and had to drop out of school in the 8th grade.  With no hint of hope in sight, Willie turned to Emory Thomas and his friends in 4H.  With their encouragement, Brantley worked hard and gradually began to increase his production of corn and livestock.  He served as chairman of the Laurens County 4-H Council for three years and garnered several awards.  In 1940, all of Willie Brantley's hard work and prayers were answered when he was awarded a scholarship as the state's most outstanding 4H club member. 

With the advent of the Civil Rights movement, black farmers, and especially their children, were afforded opportunities outside the farm.  Tenant farming was becoming a part of the past.  Farmers, like Robert Coleman of Dudley, took jobs in industry and worked on their farms on a part time basis.  Coleman told a reporter for the New York Times in 1992, " It's twice as hard for the black farmer.  We lose our land after a bad year or through bad management practices.  Some of us just can't afford new techniques to produce higher yields.  As for me, I'd have lost my farm if it wasn't for my job at the mine."  Fifteen years after the New York Times predicted that the extinction of black farmers was near, there are now less than sixty black farmers left in Laurens County.

Though the time of the black farmer in Laurens County may be coming to an end, their legacy of their steadfastness, dedication and hard work will endure for centuries to come.