Like many towns in the county, Sparta remains deeply segregated, with
white families seeded throughout local political and business
leadership, and Black families making up a majority of residents
living below the poverty line.
Railroaded: Residents of predominantly Black Georgia community fight
back against train proposal that threatens homes
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Esther Schrader Read the full piece here
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Friend,
It was 1926 and Jim Crow reigned in the American South when James
Blaine Smith managed something rare for a Black man in the middle of
Georgia: He acquired 600 acres of land. The descendant of enslaved
people, Smith was a poor farmer living in a shack just outside a city
called Sparta. But he had big dreams for the tract he had been leasing
for years, driving a mule to plow its fertile rows and grow cotton.
Eventually, 97 years ago, Smith amassed enough to trade his harvest
for the land.
The company the hard-working farmer founded on the property in Hancock
County - Smith Produce - became a success, first selling
cotton, then peas, butterbeans and corn. Over the years, white men
would try to take his land, but Smith held on, becoming the proud
patriarch of a prosperous family.
As the family grew, the land was divided among its members. Some lived
on their acreage. Some moved away, joined the Army, came back. Still,
for almost a century, those 600 acres of rich furrows, pine trees and
still ponds have remained Smith family plots, and Smiths have lived on
them quietly, staying close to their deeply rooted community of mostly
Black families, their church called St. Galilee and the graveyard
where their loved ones are buried.
So when Mark Smith, the grandson of James Blaine Smith, answered his
door to a white man on a hot day last summer, the visit was
unexpected.
Though the visitor, Donald Garrett, lives with his wife, Sally, just
down the road on about 90 acres he inherited from his
great-grandfather, the two families had never known each other.
Garrett brought a gift. And he brought a question.
"He asks my husband, 'Did you see the
letter?'" said Janet Smith, Mark Smith's wife.
"He says, 'You need to read that, because a railroad guy
named Ben Tarbutton is getting ready to run a train through your
backyard.'"
Life for the Smith and Garrett families - and for the
predominantly Black community whose properties stand in the way of the
Sandersville Railroad Company's plan to construct a 4.5-mile
rail line - has not been quiet since.
Read More
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More news from the SPLC:
Charges dismissed against Alabama woman jailed for not paying $85
trash bill - Read more here.
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SPLC wins Anthem Award for story about mistreatment of Black men in
immigrant detention - Read more here.
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'Sacred Ground': Effort to preserve historic Black Florida
community wins key victory - Read more here.
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working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy,
strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of
all people.
Friend, will you make a gift to help the SPLC fight for
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