The Association of Black Educators meeting in Athens, Georgia, was one of many professional and social organizations founded early in the 1900's. Such groups fostered leadership and were important forums for exchanging ideas about speeding progress.

     As African Americans moved from farms into towns, a leadership class began to emerge. Entrepreneurs, physicians, ministers, writers, and teachers became the figures others looked to for cues on how to deal with life's struggles. While these leaders were usually unheralded beyond the boundaries of Elbert and Abbeville Counties, their influence among their communities was strong. Even years after their passing, these early urban figures continued to be topics for conversation.

A number of the influential leaders arose in Elberton, which became the magnet for many African Americans on the Georgia side of the Savannah River. Even those who didn't live in the town often visited there, if only to sell their cotton. Edward Brownlee described the importance of the place in the early 1900's. "At that time, [many] had to sell it [cotton] at Elberton. They ginned it there... They [tenant farmers] would put three or four bales on this one wagon and they would go up and sell it. Then they would bring back supplies and pay debts and things."

The visiting farmers, as well as the African Americans who lived in Elberton, bought many of their supplies and services from businesses owned by black entrepreneurs. The first such business that anyone could remember was called Dooley or Dooley's Corner. Both a commercial center and a meeting place for civic groups, such as the Odd Fellows, Dooley's Corner consisted of a big assembly hall, a grocery store, and a taxi service. According to Jim Pressley, "Bill Dooley, he run a store up here on Edwards Street. He just called it 'Dooley.' He'd sell groceries and he ran the taxi." Janesta McKinney added, "That corner was completely owned by Dooley, and he used to run a, what do you call it, a taxi, but it was a horse and a hack [a buggy]."

Lillie Pressley also recalled another Elberton store that was owned by an African American. "Sam Phelps. . .had a shoe shop up on the [town] square... .They'd repair shoes, just like I'd take these shoes, and [he or his employees would] repair them." Both white and African-American customers patronized the shop.

One of the most financially successful early entrepreneurs was the Reverend Addison Reynolds McKinney. Researchers were unable to discover much about his early life, but they did learn that he once labored in the granite quarries that became Elberton's economic backbone. Sometime around 1900, when he was in his forties, McKinney founded a Baptist church in Elberton for African Americans where he preached most Sundays for the rest of his life.

Around 1910, McKinney opened his own business, the first funeral home for African Americans in Elberton. His partner was John Rucker, his brother-in-law, who was also the local blacksmith. Racial discrimination was a strong factor in motivating them to start the venture, according to McKinney's daughter-in-law, Janesta McKinney. "He started it because of the white people who were carrying it out [funerals for blacks] because they were poorly burying Negroes. Sometimes they [white funeral directors] buried you at night, you had no preference. That's why they opened it up [the new funeral home], for convenience for the black people. And I think they were very reasonable 'cause long time ago people didn't have any money."

The rituals surrounding death were extremely important to African Americans and perhaps represented a link to elaborate West African funeral ceremonies, according to Eleanor Ramsey and her researchers.
 

Right: Janesta McKinney was among the
professional and social leaders to emerge.

McKinney and Rucker bought property in downtown Elberton where they erected a brick building to house the funeral parlor. They also bought a hearse that was pulled by a horse from Rucker's blacksmith business. But they didn't use the hearse for every funeral. "On bad roads, they used to use wagons. You know, where it was so extremely bad," explained Janesta McKinney. Like other funeral directors of the period, the two men didn't routinely embalm bodies, especially if the corpses were taken directly to the cemetery. McKinney recalled that eventually the government mandated embalming, an edict she associated with a major outbreak of flu that killed many people during her childhood. "I guess [the government required embalming] when they had all these doctors come into the locality. They were thinking about health reasons and how diseases are spread. I imagine it happened long about 1918, 1919," she said.

Addison McKinney also operated other businesses. He opened a grocery store and a restaurant, apparently as a hedge against tough times. As Janesta McKinney put it, "Really wasn't too much you could make doing one thing, you know."

Addison McKinney apparently enjoyed wide-spread respect in both the African-American community and among whites because of his business success and his ministry. He was one of a handful of leaders important enough to sign an invitation in November 1922 to the whites of Elberton. The invitation, which appeared in the local newspaper, read: "Noted Negroes To Speak Here Soon. Dr. R.R. Morton, principal of Tuskegee Institute, with a party of 25 leading Negro businessmen, physicians, ministers, and educators, will speak in Elberton on Monday, November 27, on 'Racial Good Will in The South'.. On his tour through other Southern states, he was heard by large crowds of white and colored, and we are sure Elbert and adjoining counties will turn out in large numbers to hear him... We extend a very cordial invitation to hear these Negroes speak." Signing the invitation with McKinney were J.L. Thornton, L.H.A. Bell, James Sims, and Paul J. Blackwell.

Addison McKinney died in his seventies in 1929. His leadership mantle passed to his son, who also was a minister and had a varied background. In 1924, he went to school to learn embalming and for at least several years was chief embalmer for the family business. After his father's death, he and his wife continued to own and manage the funeral home along with John Rucker, who lived until 1942.

The younger McKinney and his wife were instrumental in bringing more than one dramatic change to the Elberton area, including introducing choirs to the local Baptist churches. Janesta McKinney spoke about how her husband developed the idea. "He would go back and forth to the Baptist Convention. That's the only thing that I know he clamored to go to. And he went to that every year in September. He'd be gone a week, and he'd come back talking bout all these choirs... .Like he would go to Chicago or Birmingham. Wherever it was, they would have music.
 

Janesta McKinney's father-in-law, Addison Reynolds McKinney, worked in the granite quarries before he founded his own, successful businesses.

When McKinney's church formed its first choir, Janesta played the accompanying music. As her husband traveled to various Baptist conventions, he would hear "thousands of songs. And he'd come back and we'd learn 'em. 'Course, we couldn't sing 'em like they could, but we tried." After their church began choir singing, the idea "spread like wildfire all over town," she said. "I mean in the county, too. And finally we began to have a special time to have 'choir versus.' They still have it. All the choirs come together and we could see who could out sing the other. Raised a lot of money."

The McKinneys also demonstrated leadership in other ways. They started the town's first African-American newspaper in the 1940's out of frustration with the policies of the white-owned paper. "The local newspaper, they wouldn't print any of our news. And we started, my husband started, printing a local newspaper around 1941. We used a mimeograph, and we sent it all over Elberton and sold it everywhere. Just 50 cents a month. Yeah, that was the first printing among Negroes in Elberton. And we would put obituaries in there, and every time somebody would have something special at the church we'd write it up, you know. And we didn't know they were reading it. But they were reading it, everybody."

They published the newspaper for several years. "And we [had] made real good and then The Elberton Star took over and started accepting Negro news. And when they took that over, they raised the price of that paper. That paper was 35 cents; they raised that paper to 50 cents. And naturally, professional printing was better than ours. [We published the paper] for about three years, maybe five years... and we discontinued that paper." Many years later, Janesta McKinney remained gratified that she and her husband had helped push the white newspaper to print their community's news.
 

McKinney's Mortuary, photographed in the early 1980's, could be traced back 70 years when an African American sought to better the treatment his neighbors received in their times of grief.

On the South Carolina side of the Savannah River in the small town of Calhoun Falls, African Americans also established businesses early in the century, including a cafe, two blacksmith sheds, and two barbershops. One of the barbershops belonged to the Reverend Spearman Edwards Reynolds, who owned several businesses. His story and the story of his family spotlight not only an intense drive for a better existence but also a respect for education that spanned generations.

Grace Wear, the woman Reynolds married, was born February 7, 1888. She spent her early life on a farm, but when she reached the age of 15 years old in 1903 she was sent away by her parents to school in Calhoun Falls because she had learned everything she could in the school close to home and her parents wanted more education for her. Then, too, the local elementary school, following the custom of the day, was in session for only three months of the year. Her new school was operated by Presbyterians and stayed open approximately eight months, during which she boarded with a family just outside Calhoun Falls. She helped pay her tuition by teaching her fellow students mathematics.

Wear later attended another school in Abbeville, South Carolina, then settled into a teaching career full-time. Her students ranged from first grade through seventh and numbered 30 to 40 at a time, all of them gathered in a one-room school house. When she met Reynolds, called "S.P." by his friends, he was a teacher as well, but he also had other strong interests. In his spare time, he cut hair in a barbershop he owned and ironed shirts and pants for white customers in his "pressing club."

"When he first come to Calhoun Falls, he taught at Brown Oak School," Grace Wear Reynolds recalled of her late husband, whom she married in 1914. "It was a country school. He had from the first [grade] to seventh and eighth. He would go in the evening to the barbershop [to cut hair and press clothes]." Reynolds opened the barbershop/pressing club in about 1909 and operated both businesses in the same building, separated by a partition.

Eventually, Reynolds worked full-time at the shop, cutting hair late into the evening. when there was a lull, he went next door to press clothes. His identical twin, Irving, worked by his side as a second barber. They had a strict policy of cutting only white people's hair. "You couldn't cut for white and colored [people] both," according to Grace Reynolds. "So he decided not to cut for colored people because....I guess he thought he could make more. He couldn't cut colored's hair. He wouldn't even cut his children's hair." Instead, Reynolds sent his children to the other barber in town, Oliver Mclntire, who cut hair only for African Americans. (Oliver Mclntire was brother to Henry Mclntire, the farmer and mill worker mentioned in the previous chapter.)

Despite society's prohibition against the same neither of Reynolds' daughters, nor his wife, barber grooming hair of both blacks and whites, recalled him ever encountering "racial problems." As one daughter put it, "You would be surprised how many men, fellows on the street, now say, 'Your Daddy used to cut my hair when I was a child'... .Yeah, people loved him."

To many, the Reynolds family must have seemed tireless. The elder Reynolds worked six days a week at his businesses, then preached on Sundays. As the years passed, he added a shoe shine shop to his other ventures and enlisted his children to help polish the shoes. His wife, when she could, worked mornings at the shop pressing clothes. "I had a steam iron and a table," she remembered. But she always left by noon because that was when the white men started arriving for hair cuts. Some of them talked in "common language," she explained.

With the profits from their many interests, the Reynolds bought their own home in Calhoun Falls. They also rented land outside of town where Grace Reynolds farmed with help from the children. They grew cotton to pay the rent and often had a little money left over for extra spending cash. Primarily, however, they grew food to feed the family. The goal of all their hard work was to be able to afford the best education possible for their children. Explained one of the daughters, "My mother decided that going away to school [was preferable]. The terms were longer, and she wanted the best for us. She wanted all of us to graduate and get out... All of us did. She worked very hard and made many sacrifices." Her father also appreciated the value of learning, she said. "Well, he was so proud of me. He used to call me his bookworm."

Left: African-American women found careers in nursing after training at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.
 

Indeed, education was often the key to higher stature for African Americans. In Elberton, for example, one of the earliest prominent blacks was a dentist, William D. Burney, who earned his license on December 15, 1887. Later, another Elberton citizen, Williams Miles Brewer, distinguished himself with a doctoral degree and as editor of the prestigious Journal of Negro History. African-American physicians in Elberton were also important and sometimes controversial. The killing of one physician early in the century remained an emotionally charged subject among some African Americans questioned about the death in the 1980's.

Samuel Pitt was among the first African-American doctors in Elberton. Pitt 'lust drifted in here," remembered Rufus Bullard. Edward Brownlee, as a child, also heard talk about Pitt from adults who discussed the doctor with a tinge of awe, particularly his rousing Emancipation Day speeches. "I can remember they talked about Dr. Pitt, the great speaker there," Brownlee said.
 

Ministers in the community were influential in many ways and active in professional societies like this group, the Georgia Colored Methodist Episcopalians.

Another Elberton physician, Rembert Crispus Jones, studied at Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia, then Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he received his medical degree in 1930. Jones served both whites and African Americans, according to Brownlee. "Whites have some trouble.. .they run and get Doctor Jones." Even in the 1930's when automobiles had become commonplace, Jones walked on his round of house calls. He specialized in helping with childbirth and treating skin diseases. "Any kind of itch, he could cure it," according to Brownlee.

But most renown of all the physicians was James Thompson, perhaps the first African-American doctor in Elberton, whose career ended violently in its prime. In 1915, at the age of 42, Thompson was shot dead. Some elderly African Americans questioned by investigators still doubted that justice had been served concerning his killer.

Aspects of Thompson's early life are unclear, but researchers determined that he was born in 1873 and apparently grew up in the Flatwoods section of Elbert County, not far from the Savannah River. His father was an ex-slave named Lloyd Thompson who had a twin brother, George. The brothers were almost inseparable. Randolph Davis, grandson of George Thompson, shared tales that he had heard as a child about the twins. "One named Lloyd and the other one named George. And them two stuck together," he said. Born into slavery, apparently in Virginia, the twins were taken as young boys to Dublin,

Georgia, where they were auctioned to the highest bidder. "They sold 'em on a block.... They had a round table and a bell hanging right in the middle of it. Every time they sold anybody, they rang that bell... .Dr. Baker bought 'em off that string.... Old Dr. Baker, he raised 'em. He raised 'em from two little boys," explained Davis.

The twins apparently continued to live together even after they were freed. Said Davis, "They were livin' in a log house. They couldn't find no livin' nowhere else in them days. They built a log house... In them days, that's the only kinda house you could live in. They came up the hard way. They came up a way that we wouldn't think about now, how they came up in those days."

Eventually, the brothers went looking for mates. "They courted two sisters, one name Emeline and the other one named Betsy," Davis said. "So, they married when they were two young boys. One named Lloyd and the other one named George." The twins built one of the earliest African-American churches in the area. "Never had no church there... They the ones started that church... They the ones [who] went in the woods and cut down trees and built that church. They had to build that church out of logs. And they named that church Saint Paul.

Lloyd Thompson, father of Dr. James Thompson, managed to buy about 50 acres of land, Davis said. "He paid for it with a little bit of a mule. It was a little, small, yellow mule. Well, they took that mule and paid for them 50 acres, him and his wife, one named Betsy." The other twin, George, likely continued tenant farming.

Little else is known definitively about James Thompson's upbringing. However, stories about him show that even as a teenager he rebelled against what he considered to be unjust. According to Edward Brownlee, some whites were using an examination of some sort to impede the progress of young African Americans. Thompson somehow managed to obtain the answer sheet to the test and distributed it to those about to take the examination. Said Brownlee, "Thompson thought it [the test] was terrible. So, he stole the thing and just gave it to everybody.... See, if they could have proved it, they'd put him in jail, but they couldn't really prove it. And all these Negroes [were] making high scores."

Soon after, Thompson left the state for further study, but Elberton had not heard the last of him. He grew to adulthood in a time of great debate among African Americans about how best to gain equal rights with whites. Booker T. Washington, advocate for a measured, conciliatory approach, and W.E.B. Du Bois, proponent for more assertive behavior from African Americans, led the clash of ideas. As Eleanor Ramsey reported, Thompson seemed at times to veer towards the Du Bois stance, but he was far from radical in his behavior. Thompson involved himself in the business of his community and consistently exerted effort to help others achieve better lives.

He studied at Brown University, then Shaw Medical School, where he earned his medical degree. After he returned to Elberton, he married Lula Brewer, daughter of another of the town's prominent citizens, William Miles Brewer, Ph.D. Before long, the young physician developed a thriving practice, serving both black and white patients. Once again, however, he also courted controversy.

Dr. Samuel Pitt was a widely respected physician.

Bishop William Alfred Fountain of Elberton was a leader in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Thompson perhaps further provoked resentment by helping other African Americans find lawyers when they had disputes with whites. He may have also stirred ill will by starting local Emancipation Day celebrations. These were popular events where African-American leaders delivered inspirational speeches, praising the end of slavery and advising listeners how to make the future better.

"And I don't think they [some whites] liked it 'cause Thompson started that [the Emancipation Day celebration]. They used to have it at this K.P. [Knights of Pythias] building," said Edward Brownlee, who remembered his family attending the events. "I can't remember [exactly when African Americans first held the celebrations]. Only thing I remember, they used to go to it when I was a small child. My Mama's brother was a great one and loved to go to them things, and he would talk about 'em.... Paul Blackwell was a great speaker. He didn't have a great education but he had the gift.... Oh, Paul could really speak. The people who owned the fields didn't like this [the celebration] either. They thought your place was out there in the fields."

Considering Thompson's active involvement in trying to end racial inequities, lingering suspicions among African Americans about his death are understandable. As Ramsey pointed out, Thompson was "no humble voice for the status quo." Certainly, his actions ran counter to the perception that the black professional class in the South followed a path of least resistance. There were also hints that some white physicians may have resented Thompson's successful medical practice. Whether the white doctor who killed him, A.S. Oliver, shared such resentment, is unknown, but the killing was suspicious enough to lead police to charge Oliver with murder.

The death occurred February 19, 1915, when Oliver shot Thompson in the chest. Oliver, claiming the shooting was accidental, was arrested. The Elberton newspaper reported that Oliver appeared to have been drinking the day of the killing. The paper also printed what appeared to be Oliver's version of the event: "Oliver was preparing to discontinue the practice of medicine in Elberton. He was selling out his office equipment and such other personal effects as he did not wish to take with him. Dr. Thompson already bought and removed some of these things. He was in Dr. Oliver's office last Friday afternoon on the same business. Dr. Oliver was trying to sell him the pistol. Dr. Thompson was examining it. He did not know how to work it and in showing him how, the pistol fired."

There were no witnesses, and the trial, held March 11, 1915, was swift. The newspaper reported: "The jury was selected and the evidence all in by twelve o'clock. The speeches of Judge Worley and Solicitor Brown were less than two hours in length. Judge Meadow completing a fair and impartial charge at two o'clock. Court adjourned for dinner at three o'clock and in less than an hour later the verdict of accident was returned." Oliver was exonerated of any wrongdoing by the jury.
 

Elberton's first hospital for African Americans, photographed in the early 1980's, eventually became a private residence.

The newspaper called Thompson's death tragic, describing him "...as one of the most prominent men of his race in Elbert County. He was generally regarded as a leader... and was accumulating money. He owned considerable property...."

There were also details in the article about Thompson's funeral. More than 1,000 people attended the services honoring the slain physician. "The funeral over the body was one of the biggest ever seen in Elberton," the paper reported. "It was preached at St. Mary's C.M.E. Church by Rev. W.A. Fountain, president of Morris Brown College, Atlanta. Rev. Fountain is an Elberton negro. He is president of a college that has an endowment larger than that of all the white colleges in Georgia, and is a brainy negro. Dr. Watkins, former partner of Dr. Thompson, spoke of the deceased as a doctor and P.J. Blackwell spoke of him as a citizen."

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Hot Suppers and Good Times

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