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War
Prosperity .
When America entered World War I in the spring of
1917, the new century had already visited much anxiety
on the residents of Greene County. There had been
hints at a better future. Roads were being smoothed
and conditioned and a county tax for education had
been recommended. Progressivism was still fresh.
Diversification was introducing the cattle and dairy
industries, nudging the county ever so slightly
from its suffocating reliance on cotton. Still,
there was much uncertainty. Legalized segregation
all but locked African-Americans from economic opportunities
outside of laborer. And the dilemma of rural poverty
on the farms seemed without solution. The war would
change things, as George Tindall wrote in his work
Emergence of the New South, “the most
significant immediate effect of the war on the South
was to create situations of dynamic change in an
essentially static society.” The war would
also leave some things as they were.
Arthur Raper recorded 533 Greene County men as serving
during the country’s involvement in the war,
not quite half of which were a part of the American
Expeditionary Force that served in France. The first
wave were volunteers, and were all white. Subsequent
drafts sent more county men off to military training
camps. Overall, a little less than half of the Greene
servicemen were black, serving mostly in non-combat
roles such as teamsters, cooks, and as labor. Many
women are on record as having served in nursing
roles, the Greene County Heritage Project
having come across a photograph of a young woman
in full uniform, proudly displaying the red cross.
Thirteen county servicemen died during the war,
white and black. The rest came home to a county
that seemed to have been re-invigorated overnight.
Despite early calls of a bloc of southern congressmen
for an anti-militaristic stance, the patriotic fervor
that one could expect arose from the South with
the declaration of war. Not only did men, and women,
rush to serve, but industry and agriculture came
alive throughout the county, the South, and the
nation. In Greene, it took the shape of a sudden
spike in cotton prices. As George Tindall wrote,
“war prosperity gave the region a taste of
affluence such as it had never before experienced.”
40¢ per lb. of cotton was the source. The final
two years of the war saw earlier prices of cotton
explode from the poverty line of 10¢ per lb.
to over 35¢ per lb. Planting was set at a fanatic
rate by the time 40¢ per pound hit in 1919.
This new wealth resounded throughout Greene in the
improvement of public facilities, the repairing
of dwellings, churches, and schools, a run on mechanized
farm equipment, items of luxury such as custom furniture,
new suits, and phonographs; and the most noticeable
and revolutionary of these new luxury items, the
automobile. Arthur Raper wrote in Tenants of
the Almighty:
"Many
a farm family for the first time climbed into their
own automobile and rode off to Atlanta or Athens,
toward the mountains or the sea for their first
vacation day."
The
towns of Greensboro and Union Point, and the southern
county towns of Siloam and White Plains grew visibly
stout by the rampant prosperity. Raper documents the
busy work of Greene’s Board of Tax Receivers
in making sure the county saw its share of the boon.
An important trait of the time was that the prosperity
proved color blind. The price of cotton did not discriminate.
The delirium of this good fortune was kept at bay
only by the hard work county residents put in to secure
it. But fortune, good and bad, is cyclical. And the
post-war windfall was temporary.
The Boll Weevil and Hard Days
in Greene .
A destructive pest that had begun its migration north
from Mexico at the turn of the century, the weevil,
a small insect that destroys the boll of the cotton
plant, had slowly swept over the cotton states of
the deep South. By the war years, it had entered Georgia;
and had been seen in Greene. But by 1920, many were
claiming Greene as “weevil-proof,” for its
effects seemed to be on the wane, having never amounted
to much at all. Outsiders held that the county had
some capacity to escape the widespread desolation
that the weevil was leaving in its wake elsewhere.
Coupled with the recent days of prosperity, county
residents set to planting large tracts of acreage
in the spring of 1920, most sinking all their recent
investments, their “life-savings,” into
that year’s rows with hopes of another bumper
crop. Quite the opposite would occur.
It turned out that Greene had simply been lucky. 1920
saw large amounts of rainfall and hot days, both integral
to the spread of weevil larvae. By the fall, the damage
was obvious and the crop was disappointing. The price
per pound dropped to less than half that of the prior
year. 1921 was the first year of rampant devastation.
The farmers of Greene poured everything they had,
again, into the soil, attempting to make up for the
lean yields of 1920. But the voracious insect destroyed
the crop. Raper described, “the weevil had run
over the landowner and the landless man alike.”
Tindall wrote of the county’s catastrophe:
"The
devastation was deep, widespread, often sudden and
capricious. One example will suffice. Greene County,
Georgia . . . ginned 20,030 bales in 1919, but only
13,414 in 1920, only 1,487 in 1921, and 333 in 1922."
The
boll weevil led to a collapse of the cotton economy
in Greene, effectively bringing to an end the twentieth-century
incarnation of the plantation. This, in turn, led
to great hardship and want amongst the agricultural
community. Many sunk into irrecoverable straits, especially
tenants and sharecroppers. Many others just left.
Migration from the fields of Greene, amongst mainly
blacks, had been underway since the turn of the century.
In the 1920s, it became a “great migration.”
In 1920, Greene was witness to the brutal lynching
of a black resident who had sheltered a friend accused
of wounding a local white planter during a disagreement.
Many black residents took it as a harbinger, and moved
away. The white supremacy movement, though never highly
organized and often encountering fervent condemnation
from within Greene, occasionally lit out in its ignorant
fear, targeting, as Raper noted, the “convenient
scapegoat in the nominally free but defenseless Negro.”
Following the war, the returning black soldiers were
viewed by these groups as having developed “insolent
attitudes” during their service, and became targets
of an enlivened KKK. Race-related violence was widespread.
No where were blacks more susceptible to these acts
of cowardice than on the isolated farms. Few felt
safe. This alongside the dismal fact that 9/10 of
the county’s black farmers were tenants or lower
on the social ladder, and outside of being hand-picked
few blacks could ever hope for landownership, made
for a bleak future. The disaster that was the boll
weevil made the decision to leave that much more imperative.
Almost half of the black population of Greene had
left by the end of the decade. Whites were leaving
too. Being an agricultural community, it was a hard
time to make a living in Greene. Many could not, and
by 1930 well over 7,000 residents, a full one-third
of the county’s population – including half
of its farmers – had left. This would have a
reciprocal effect as many left for the cities, north
and south; nearly a third moving to Atlanta alone.
A brief history of Greene in the New Georgia Guide
states, “manufacturing employment and population
growth undergirded an urban boom that seemed wholly
incompatible with the economic deterioration of the
countryside.” Many had simply given up “living
off the land,” as Raper documents in his sociological
field study, Preface to Peasantry, “they
were fleeing from something rather than being attracted
to something.”
Despite what seems a freefall of despair amidst a
time of rabid terrorism, there were individuals who
penetrated the uncertainty using nothing more than
the strength of their character. In 1921, an era ended
in Greene. A. T. Chisolm died that year. He had been
the county’s first “real” black physician,
providing almost twenty years of service. It would
have been a much more difficult time to lose such
an individual had it not been for the arrival of Dr.
Calvin M. Baber in 1923. Baber soon after became Greene’s
“respected colored physician,” serving the
county until his death in 1945. Black landowners,
though rare, were more prevalent in the early 1920s
than they had ever been. Such advancement could have
been encouraging had it not been for the economic
trials of the day. They were hard-working and saw
the need for blacks to educate themselves. They were
respected as community leaders often directing the
building of schools or standing in as a mediator between
black tenants and landed whites. Raper aptly states
that they helped to create a much needed ligament
in race relations at the time, and were often held
up as an example of hard work paying off. In tune
with such progress of the mind was then governor of
Georgia, Hugh M. Dorsey. In 1921, he issued a public
statement condemning over a hundred atrocities committed,
mainly by white racist mobs, against blacks in the
state. Dorsey protested, “if the conditions indicated
should continue, both God and man would justly condemn
Georgia.” A local county hero who would document
the most trying of times in Greene since the Civil
War, James “Uncle Jimmy” Williams, editor
of the local Herald Journal, picked up on Dorsey’s
denunciations, in turn stepping up his courageous
attacks on the KKK at the height of their power in
the mid-1920s. “A civilization that is at the
mercy of violence and lawlessness is no civilization,”
he wrote. In another direct rebuke, Uncle Jimmy leveled
his pen at the Klan and its members, proclaiming,
“if you want to be missed when you’re gone,
you had better get busy and do something for humanity.”
It was a brave soul that stood so openly against the
Klan in those days. Uncle Jimmy was that and much
more. In the great tradition of the progressive southern
press of the era, Williams was a tireless voice for
the improvement of living standards for all of the
county’s residents. He was an early champion
of the cattle & dairy industries; more so following
the boll weevil. He pleaded for much needed reform
at the medieval county convict camp, and spoke out
against capital punishment; this in addition to his
high profile attacks on the Klan. The re-born Ku Klux
Klan of the 1920s never amounted to much in Greene
thanks in no small part to James C. Williams and his
willing ally Judge James B. Park, who levied indictments
and punished Klan-style violence with proficiency.
Thoughtful progress is found in the reporting of “Uncle
Jimmy,” whether he was airing out an injustice
or offering suggestions to the farmers. Raper records
an editorial that appeared in the February 8, 1924
edition of the Herald Journal, in which Williams,
his eyes on the future, predicted, “The big farms
must go. The future farmer must be the small one who
owns his own land.” His sure, confidant direction
was a lantern of hope amidst what was two decades
of discouragement.
Despite the determined efforts of county leaders,
having in 1921 even sponsored a prize to the boy or
girl who could bring in the most weevils, the economic
plight wrought by the boll weevil was unavoidable.
The weevil was being subdued with expensive poisons,
the situation beginning to stabilize, but the damage
done was irreparable. The most lasting effect was
on landownership. As mentioned, there were a few black
landowners at the time. They lost nearly half their
acreage. By the 1930s over 17,000 acres in Greene
had been forfeited to mortgage & loan companies.
At one point, the John Hancock & Metropolitan
Life Insurance Company was the largest landholder
in the county. The tenant class swelled, as farms
were foreclosed. Had it not been for migration, the
tenant and sharecropping situation may well have overwhelmed
the county. One more note of hard times came with
the termination of the Union Point to White Plains
line on the Georgia RR. The line, having once symbolized
the up and coming spirit of a community, was closed
due to lack of funds. The final train rolled across
its tracks on the final day of 1926. Many were hoping
they could just forget about the recent years altogether.
The Herald Journal office, 1928 ~ |
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A popular car-raffle event in downtown
Greensboro ~ |
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Small farm residents ~ |
Stabilization .
Things seemed bleak. Yet an enterprising spirit stemmed
the tide of dismay during the mid to late 1920s; if
for only a short time. The “business progressive”
philosophy surely took root in Greene. Diversification
and boosterism, its touchstones, were hit upon. Fields
of peanuts were planted. Though they were not a great
success, it showed a willingness to innovate. The
dairy industry had come along slowly. By the late
1920s, sour cream and 1,300 gallons of sweet milk
were leaving Greene County dairy farms on a daily
basis. In 1925, the dairy farmers formed an association
to guard against the unfair pricing of their product.
Peaches and strawberries were tried as a commercial
crop. Far and away the most odd export was “old-field
rabbits.” With the old plantation farms standing
largely empty in the once plantation rich section
of Penfield, so multiplied, in droves, its rabbit
population. Some 20,000 rabbits per year were shipped
from Penfield during the mid-1920s. But nature stepped
in as a leveler, tularemia decimating the excess rabbit
population soon after.
The decade was full of commercial experimentation
throughout the county. The times demanded it. Some
simply looked upon the natural resources around them.
One thing most could see were the pine forests where
once there had been neatly planted fields of cotton.
Since the turn of the century, many old fields had
been abandoned. Erosion gnawed at them. Many were
quickly overrun by nature. All were susceptible to
forest fires; a constant problem that would eventually
spawn the county’s Timber Fire Protective Association
in the 1930s. Yet the fired fields often bloomed rich
with saplings the following year. And over time, pine
forests overtook large tracts of what had been farmland.
By the 1920s, they were everywhere. Timber would become
that decade’s chief source of income in Greene.
Saw and planing mills went into operation across the
county. As Raper wrote, “you could ride across
the county on the Georgia Railroad and count 25 new
piles of sawdust.”
With the enactment of national prohibition came a
more underground county-wide industry: the illegal
manufacture and selling of “moonshine.”
An article in the Atlanta Constitution reported,
“World’s largest still captured in old Greene
. . . they were making enough joy-juice to float a
battleship.” Two individuals gained prominence
in the fight against “moonshining;” Mary
Harris Armour, nicknamed the “Georgia Cyclone,”
who was an ardent prohibitionist known across the
country, and law enforcement officer, L. L. Wyatt,
who would go on to hold the most renowned county sheriff
tenure in Greene’s history. To that point, Greene
had always been, officially, a “dry” county.
The county saw one more notable presence emerge and
dominate its field as a result of Prohibition. Having
first been advertised in the Herald Journal in 1886,
Coca-Cola became the undisputed soft drink of choice.
Things indeed looked to have settled down by the late
1920s. Public initiative had brought into being Greene
County’s Board of Trade, a Booster’s Club,
a Chamber of Commerce (with Greene County historian
T. B. Rice as its first president), an Exchange Club,
and an American Legion post. In the early 1930s, county
resident L. E. Harris of Union Point was awarded the
highest cotton yield in the state, A. S. Moseley,
a Greensboro dairy farmer being awarded the title
of “Master Farmer,” one of only ten in Georgia.
Some dared to say things were looking up. The county
had been as near to complete economic disaster as
it would ever want to be. But these small rays of
optimism would soon dim. For the 1920s would prove
to be a preamble.
The Great Depression comes to
Greene .
Greene County was not the same place in 1930 that
it had been in 1920. Migration had thinned its population
to near 13,000 and cotton farming was at best a suspect
way to earn a living. Some of Greene’s “greatest
exports,” wrote Raper, were its people. Family
names recognized as the very history of the county
– Boswell, McGibony, McWhorter, Kilpatrick –
had watched promising sons and daughters move away.
Landownership had eroded out from under the yeoman
white and black farmers, fixing many of them in the
lower order of tenant. No one knew what the Stock
Market Crash of 1929 would bring. It was an uncertain
time, made that more uncertain by impending economic
fallout and a rising figure, soon to be governor,
in Eugene Talmedge. Still, Greene called upon a natural
optimism and pushed into the unknown. Greene’s
own Mercer Reynolds earned regional admiration by
developing a process of solidifying cotton seed oil
for shipment, a development that made him wealthy
in a time when most were sliding towards the other
end of the scale. He became a county celebrity, buying
land and living near Cracker’s Neck along the
Oconee in a lodge he named “Linger Longer.”
His development had a direct impact on the then simmering
cotton seed oil and textile mills in Greensboro and
at Union Point.
The late 1920s had been a turbulent time for the textile
industry in the South. The demands to improve working
conditions and living standards for that most lean
set, the millworkers, began to actively push against
the old order of millowners. W. J. Cash wrote extensively
of this period stating in his Mind of the South,
“the men in control of the mills clung stoutly
to the notion that merely by operating them on any
terms they entitled themselves to the complete gratefulness
of workman and public, and (should) . . . be regarded
as leading patriots of the South.” The hated
“stretch-out,” expanding the hours in a
shift without a pay increase, had been a final straw
in states such as North and South Carolina where the
textile mill villages boiled over in open revolt;
in many cases spurred on by the agitation of outside
labor activists. There were scenes of bloody strike
breaking. Fortunately, nothing so drastic ever reached
the mills at Greensboro and Union Point. It did however
cast a long shadow. The push for shift limits, restrictions
on child and women’s labor, a minimum wage scale,
and the modernization of public services for villages
– virtually none of which had any modern convenience
– became a rallying cry. It would visit the county,
Georgia, and the rest of the South in the form of
the General Textile Strike of 1934. Disgruntled workers
in both of Greene’s plants walked out in September
of that year, along with tens of thousands of like
workers in virtually every state that had a cotton
mill. It was the largest, most coordinated strike
the country had ever seen. But despite the numbers,
it collapsed within a month. Modest gains were made.
But more importantly, the grievances of workers were
heard by the new administration. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s
National Recovery Act, equally loved and hated across
the South, would bring definitive benefits to the
textile industry in establishing, in the words of
George Tindall, “a new vision of labor standards.”
The years prior to FDR’s New Deal, of which the
NRA was the first large-scale initiative, were trying
days for the farmers of Greene. Arthur Raper’s
study, Preface to Peasantry, was conducted
during this time. It is a wrenching, accurate portrayal
of how the depression hit Greene and the rural South.
“In the 1930s, Greene County was a wrecked land,
soil depleted and beaten by a century of poor, unmanaged
planting . . .” he wrote, continuing, “In
the winters, roads were full of poor tenants with
all their belongings heaped onto a cart moving on
to find another tenancy.” He lamented on the
condition of rural schools; especially black schools.
They were poor at best, due to segregation’s
ban on black children attending the consolidated white
schools. They were also held victim to a complete
lack of public funds and student transportation, Raper
having stated, “more public money (was spent
per year) to transport 500 white children than to
educate 5000 blacks.” The lower order of white
tenants endured a similar scenario. In 1930, illiteracy
among the county’s blacks still stood at 22%,
teachers for black schools often receiving no more
than $20 per month; the salary paid through donations.
Schools weren’t the only problem. In 1934, the
average annual income for white farmers in Greene
was about $300; half that for black farmers. A day
rate for wage hands rarely exceeded 60¢ per day.
Raper summed up the depraved condition of the county’s
farming community writing, “the mass of the rural,
agricultural populace were dependent; on food, livestock,
implements, everything.” It was tough going,
landowners and merchants feeling the squeeze of their
creditors, the tenants feeling the squeeze of land
proprietors. It was a time of stasis. Most simply
didn’t know what to do. About this time, “Uncle
Jimmy” was asked if he could see any indication
of improvement amongst his audience. He responded,
"Oh
yes, Greene County is coming back. There isn’t
anything else for it to do."
A 1934 fishing trip ~ |
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Greene County youths, c. mid 1930s ~ |
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The 1934 general textile strike: Mary-Leila
Mill in Greensboro ~ |
The New Deal .
What the boll weevil had created in the way of poverty
throughout the tenant class of Greene, the depression
had solidified. Hoping for a turnaround was not enough.
Something needed to be done. The Hoover administration
initiated a loan program that was highly tapped in
Greene. In 1932, 200 loans were made averaging $130
each, money without which, Raper claimed, that year’s
crops could not have been planted. But the following
year brought a new presence to the White House and
a revolutionary outlook on how to alleviate immediate
economic peril.
The “New Deal” first showed itself in Greene
in the form of the National Recovery Act’s Civilian
Works Administration. Though few of its first applicants
were selected for CWA work programs, those who were
enjoyed the highest wage-rates in the county at the
time. This caused immediate friction between landowners
and the NRA, for the federal programs became highly
sought after and as a result were viewed as undermining
local employers. Raper wrote in Preface to Peasantry,
“the insecurity of the planters and the divided
loyalty of the tenants – who for the first time
owed an obligation to an outside agency – foreshadowed
a great deal of adjustment.” FDR’s New Deal
was a welcome God-send or a communist “red”
scheme depending on who you talked to. “Some
will say that it is ruining labor, others that it
is all wrong, or that it is doing some good, or that
it is indispensable,” noted Raper. The NRA was
in general well received: “Windows big and little
throughout (Greene) displayed the Blue Eagle (NRA
logo) and its ‘We Do Our Part’.” Roosevelt
himself was enormously popular with the general populace.
George Tindall in Emergence of the New South,
documented the succinct feelings of a laborer who
said, “(FDR) is the only man we ever had in the
White House who would understand that my boss is a
sonofabitch.”
One of the early and most controversial federal initiatives
was set forth under the Agricultural Adjustment Act.
It would be known as the “plow-under” of
1933. With a massive surplus of cotton predicted for
that year, and cotton prices teetering on the poverty
line, a plan was drawn up directing farmers to “plow
under” portions of their fields in order to alleviate
the surplus. The hope was that this would create a
want for the commodity and drive up prices. It would
work, but was met by resistance; mainly due to how
unreasonable the act sounded. All that hard work simply
to plow under a crop just didn’t seem rational.
Raper related an exchange between two tenants who
couldn’t bring themselves to do it, eventually
reaching an agreement: “Let’s swap work
that day; you plow up mine, and I’ll plow up
yours,” they agreed. In the end almost 4,000
acres were plowed under in Greene, 10 million acres
throughout the South, raising the price per pound
4¢ to the still meager, but better, yield of
10¢ per pound. The federal government rented
unplanted land as a part of the adjustment, $45,000
coming to Greene. Along with the over 400 loans doled
out to county farmers, the New Deal, had been an economic
stabilizer. And FDR secured a special place in the
hearts and minds of many a farmer.
The Federal Emergency Relief Act, another NRA initiative,
brought relief dollars and loans into the county in
the amount of $26,000 through the mid-1930s. Again,
the relief rolls were viewed with suspicion amongst
many within the established business community. Nonetheless,
loans continued to arrive. The Civilian Conservation
Corps came to Greene, giving opportunities to, almost
exclusively, white teenagers. The CWA and CCC worked
on various public work efforts during this time. They
helped refurbish schools, build a basketball shell
with a dressing room, and renovate auditoriums. Sewing
and teaching classes were established, and “Ciceronian
Hall” on the old campus of Penfield’s Mercer
College was restored for public use. Programs under
the Resettlement Administration provided loans where
the FERA fell short. The RA would eventually become
the Farm Security Administration, the agency that
would have the most lasting effect in Greene. Arthur
Raper would become one of the county’s chief
advisors.
The federal funds that came to Greene County were
entrusted to local officials who then awarded the
loans. This method fell, unfortunately, upon old prejudices.
The fact that many in the white community not only
got along well with blacks, but could count many as
friends, in many cases extended family, should not
be lost. Raper recorded, proudly, the established
tradition of “turn-taking.” Whenever there
were lines – at the filling station, the bank,
the cotton gin – it was in order of who had arrived
first; not by order of color. Still, blacks were in
large locked out of the relief programs that visited
the county; victim to old, but prevailing racial stereotypes.
Those that did find work with the CWA were often not
allowed the prescribed minimum wage allotment. Of
the over $40,000 federal dollars spent on public works
by 1935, less than 1/20 was utilized to upgrade any
public facilities for blacks. One shining example
of self-reliance was seen in the black community of
East Over, located about halfway between Siloam and
White Plains. Here, an impressive effort was put together
to renovate and add on to the existing black school.
It was accomplished entirely devoid of public funding,
most funds coming from the meager donations made by
locals. By the late 1930s, East Over could boast of
the best, most well attended African-American school
in the county. Slowly, some leveling took place. An
FSA-WPA program was initiated in 1938 to help to revitalize
white and black vocational schools.
Whether the New Deal helped the economic landscape
or not seems less relevant when placed alongside what
it did for the county’s morale. In that regard,
it was quite successful in Greene. Still, voices of
dissent had grown bitter with time, accusing the New
Deal of “giving handouts,” performing “federal
end-arounds on state sovereignty,” and subverting
regional tradition. An ardent opponent of FDR’s
programs was three-term state governor, Eugene Talmedge
, whose attacks on that “communist” Roosevelt
were, literally, without end. The “race-baiting”
tirades that made Talmedge remain dangerous views
into a fearful world. Yet like many contemporaries,
his furious volleys were tolerated. For the governor
was only a part of the larger movement then set on
removing FDR. Following the Supreme Court’s landmark
decision that declared the NRA unconstitutional, the
president’s southern political opponents girded
their position and lined up for the attack. All this
despite the obvious benefits that the New Deal had
brought to the rural South. Only FDR’s towering
leadership during WWII would keep the southern bloc
from achieving their goal.
The Future .
By the late 1930s, the county could view an upswing
in its general attitude. There was still little in
the way of the prosperous days of old, but the economic
situation, and as a result the general standard of
living, like a fever breaking, seemed to be slowly
improving. The Greenland Theatre in Greensboro and
traveling carnivals that visited Greene were very
popular attractions. There were county-wide fairs
sponsored by the County Farm Agent. Agent C. L. Tapley
was integral in bringing the first field meeting of
the State Negro Farmers Conference to the farm of
Greene’s own, Miles Hackney. 4-H clubs for both
white and black children were very active. Hunting
and fishing, always a staple recreations, often helped
to pass the non-work days. “Visiting” neighbors,
a longstanding tradition, continued to ease the “the
loneliness of solitary lives” that many a farm
family led. Baseball was the most popular of organized
sports, checkers being just as popular in the various
downtowns of the county on Saturday afternoons. It
was said that the checkerboard was never segregated.
The ever-present bazaars and church sponsored “chicken-pie
suppers” were as consistent as the strong spiritual
life that emanated from the various Greene County
denominations. Fraternal orders, though thinned by
migration, were still prevalent: The Knights of Pythias,
Masons, Odd Fellows, and others. Rural news was a
regular in the Herald Journal, the communities of
Bethesda, Centennial, Bethany, Veazy, Carey, Wesley
Chapel, Harmony Grove, Grayland, Liberty, and Greshamville
often reporting. The “Big Store” in downtown
Greensboro was now as known for the McCommon’s
Funeral Home upstairs as it was for its store. The
first hard-surfaced road, the Madison – Greensboro
Highway (modern day 278), was completed in the early
1930s. It was by the late 1930s only one of many,
including three roads over three new bridges that
crossed the Oconee. Not since Sherman’s troops
had put them to the torch had there been three water
crossings over its muddy waters. Buses had become
more popular than trains and everywhere automobiles
and trucks had replaced horses and carts. A funny
story relates the problems a certain filling-station
owner in Siloam was having with oil thieves, and his
solution:
"(He
had been) bothered for several weeks by thieves
breaking his oil pump and stealing small quantities
of crankcase oil . . . He decided to mix discarded
oil with molasses and pour it into the drum. Some
mornings later a most unusual report went about
town: an old Ford had got hot and the cylinder had
locked; the mechanic found molasses in the crankcase."
All
over the county, many were feeling as if they’d
weathered a storm of some sort; had made it through
an awful, natural event as furious and unforgiving
as the tornado or errant hurricane.
In 1938, Greensboro and the Bethesda, Liberty, and
Bethany churches all celebrated their 150th anniversary.
Greene County enjoyed a newly remodeled and expanded
court house. Also, many of the older plantation homes
and antebellum store buildings were falling down,
had burnt, or were no more. A new, distinct, and different
era was emerging from the history of the previous
150 years. It would be founded on cooperation. That
year, Greene County became a focal point in Washington
D.C. The extensive work that the FSA had conducted
in the way of surveys and actual programs within the
county brought up a revolutionary idea that would
reshape the dead plantation-style system of agriculture.
It was called the Unified Farm Program and was sponsored
by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Greene would
be “a sort of test-tube demonstration.”
A combination of county, state, and federal agencies,
led by local commissions, laid out a definitive plan
for use of the county’s agricultural resources.
Old, tired fields were retired and planted with the
“miracle erosion-barrier” kudzu. Tenants
and sharecroppers were arrayed within a cohesive structure
of loan allotment. By 1939, FSA loans to families
existing on submarginal land and or operating year
to year within irrecoverable debt, more than tripled.
New dwellings were being built and the depraved condition
of black schools was re-examined. There was still
much to do, but it was not so much an overwhelming
feat anymore. One of the driving forces behind it
all, Arthur Raper, wrote in Tenants of the Almighty,
“an air of accomplishment could be seen in the
faces of the townsfolk.” As the USDA’s own
study on Greene described, “thousands of people
have literally been brought back to life.”
No future guarantees that all time will be devoid
of hardship. Yet by the coming of the 1940s, the general
populace of Greene County, thinned by migration, hardened
by years of want, strife, uncertainty, troubled by
matters of conscience, proud and determined nonetheless,
could rightly figure that nothing was beyond their
grasp; that there was nothing they couldn’t accomplish.
If they had outlasted the boll weevil and the Great
Depression, they could survive anything.
The future was theirs to have ~
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Working the cotton fields ~
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Please
see the next page for bibliography, acknowledements
and credits ~
Next Page
A History of Greene County, Georgia
- Table of Contents
Early Years:
Pre-History - 1800
Golden Days: 1800 - 1860
War, Reconstruction &
the Coming of a New South: 1860 - 1885
The New South & the
Turn of a Century: 1885 - 1915
War, Uncertainty &
a New Deal: 1915 - 1940
Research Sources, Credits
& Acknowledgements
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