Americus, Georgia

Americus is the county seat of Sumter County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 16,230. It is the principal city of the Americus Micropolitan Statistical Area, a micropolitan area that covers Schley and Sumter counties and had a combined population of 36,966 at the 2000 census.

Habitat for Humanity was founded in Americus and its international headquarters is there, as well as The Fuller Center for Housing's international headquarters, Georgia Southwestern State University, the Windsor Hotel, The Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers, and many other organizations. The city is notable for its rich history, including a large business and residential historic district, being one of the 29 places where Martin Luther King was jailed, the infamous Leesburg Stockade incident, and its close proximity to Jimmy Carter National Historical Park, Andersonville National Historic Site, and Koinonia Farm.

History

Early years

For its first two decades, Americus was a small courthouse town. The Starksville Road, now Lee Street, was an important highway before the city was founded, and is now the location of many of the older buildings and homes listed in the Americus Historic District. The arrival of the railroad in 1854 and, three decades later, local attorney Samuel H. Hawkins' construction of the only privately financed railroad in state history made Americus the eighth largest city in Georgia into the 20th century. It was known as the "Metropolis of Southwest Georgia", a reflection of its status as a cotton distribution center.

In 1890, Georgia's first chartered electric street car system went into operation in Americus. One of its restored cars is on permanent display at the Lake Blackshear Regional Library, a gift from the Robert T. Crabb family who acquired the street car in the 1940s.

The town was already graced with an abundance of antebellum and Victorian architecture when local capitalists opened the Windsor Hotel in 1892. A five-story Queen Anne edifice, it was designed by a Swedish architect, Gottfried L. Norrman, in Atlanta. Vice-president Thomas R. Marshall gave a speech from the balcony in 1917, and soon to be New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke in the dining room in 1928.

On January 1, 1976, the city center was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Americus Historic District; and the district boundaries were extended in 1979.

Into the 20th century

For the local minority community, Rev. Dr. Major W. Reddick established the Americus Institute (1897–1932). Booker T. Washington was a guest speaker there in May 1908. Rev. Alfred S. Staley was responsible for locating the state Masonic Orphanage in Americus, which served its function from 1898 to 1940. Both men engineered the unification of the General Missionary Baptist Convention of Georgia in 1915, the former as president and the latter as recording secretary. The public school named in honor of A.S. Staley was designated a National School of Excellence in 1990.

Two other colleges were also established in Americus, the Third District Agricultural and Mechanical School in 1906 (now Georgia Southwestern State University), and the South Georgia Trade and Vocational School in 1948 (now South Georgia Technical College). South Georgia Technical College is located on the original site of Souther Field.

In World War I, an Army Air Service training facility, Souther Field (now Jimmy Carter Regional Airport), was commissioned northeast of the city limits. Charles A. Lindbergh, the "Lone Eagle", bought his first airplane and made his first solo flight there during a two-week stay in May 1923. Recommissioned for World War II, Souther Field was used for RAF pilot training (1941–1942) as well as US pilot training before ending the war as a German prisoner-of-war camp. The town was incorporated in 1832, and the name Americus was picked out of a hat.

Shoeless Joe Jackson served as the field manager for the local baseball team after his banishment from professional baseball. A plaque at Thomas Bell Stadium commemorates his contribution to the local baseball program.

Race relations and the civil rights movement

In 1913, a young black man named Will Redding was lynched by a white mob. Redding refused the Chief of Police's order to stop loitering, was arrested, a struggle ensued, and ultimately Redding grabbed the Chief's gun and shot him. He was then chased down, shot, and put in jail. An angry mob went into the jail and tore down the door to Redding's cell, dragged him out onto Forsyth street, and beat him to death with crow bars and hammers.

Koinonia Farm, an interracial Christian community, was organized near Americus in 1942 by Clarence Jordan. Its interracial nature occasioned much opposition from local residents. A terrorist campaign of violence, intimidation, vandalism, and harassment by the Ku Klux Klan and others went on for the next 25 years, as well a boycott of Koinonia's products, such that by the late 1960s the once-thriving community was practically depopulated and essentially defunct. In the late 1960s Millard and Linda Fuller, with Clarence Jordan, revived Koinonia Farm and it thrived again. Miller and Fuller founded Habitat for Humanity International at Koinonia in 1976 before moving it into Americus the following year. In 2005, they founded The Fuller Center for Housing, also in Americus. Koinonia Farm remains in operation and is currently located southwest of Americus on Highway 49.

The civil rights era in Americus was a time of great turmoil. An uptown store which had refused to honor the Koinonia boycott was bombed in 1957. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCCC) organized the peaceful protests and a voter registration drive, the Americus Movement. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spent a weekend in the courthouse jail in 1961, after an arrest in Albany.

In 1963 occurred the Leesburg Stockade incident. A group of African-American girls aged 12 to 15 were arrested in Americus after trying to buy movie tickets at a theatre's whites-only window, as a form of civil protest. At least fourteen girls were taken to a filthy "hellhole", an isolated prison in Leesburg, Georgia where they were held incommunicado for at least 45 days, in appalling conditions, without right of correspondence or legal representation, and with their families not knowing where they had been or disappeared to. Some weeks later, the girls were surreptitiously photographed by Danny Lyon who had learned the girls' location. The publishing of Lyon's photograph in the black press eventually brought the situation to national attention, and the girls were released some weeks later without ever having been charged with any crime.

In the same year of 1963, the local Sumter Movement to end racial segregation was organized and led by Rev. Joseph R. Campbell. Four of its activists were arrested under Georgia's 1871 Anti-Treason Act. A federal court ruled the law unconstitutional, establishing that peaceful protests could not be punishable by execution. Color barriers were first removed in 1965 when J.W. Jones and Henry L. Williams joined the Americus police force. Lewis M. Lowe was elected as the first black city councilman ten years later. With their election in 1995, Eloise R. Paschal and Eddie Rhea Walker broke the gender barrier on the city's governing body. In 1968, the last segregated black school in Americus was closed, A. S. Staley High School.

In 1971, the city was featured in a Marshall Frady article, "One Another Town", in ''Life'' magazine. The portrayal of the city's school integration was relatively benign, especially considering the community's history of troubled race relations.

2007 tornado

Americus was hit by an EF3 tornado around 9:15 pm on March 1, 2007. The tornado was up to , and carved a path of destruction through the city and surrounding residential areas. It destroyed parts of Sumter Regional Hospital, forcing the evacuations of all of the patients there. There were two fatalities at a Hudson Street residence near the hospital; all SRH patients were evacuated safely. The hospital, however, faced major reconstruction issues and was eventually torn down. A new hospital, Phoebe Sumter, opened at a new location on the corner of US 19 and Highway 280 in December 2011.

Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue said, "It was worse I had feared. The hospital was hit, but the devastation within the area of Sumter County and Americus was more than I imagined. The businesses around the hospital are totally destroyed. Power is still not restored in many places. It's just a blessing frankly that we didn't have more fatalities than we did." Over 500 homes were affected, with around 100 completely destroyed. Several businesses throughout the town were seriously damaged or destroyed as well.

President George W. Bush visited the area on March 3, calling what he saw "tough devastation."

Geography

Americus is located at (32.075221, -84.226602).

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (1.87%) is water.

Climate

Demographics

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 16,230 people, 6,162 households, and 3,557 families residing in the city.

Economy

Largest employers

According to the city's 2009 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the largest employers in the area were:

Education

Primary and secondary schools

The Sumter County School District holds grades pre-school to twelfth, which consist of one primary school and one elementary school, two middle schools, and two high schools.Georgia Board of Education
Retrieved June 26, 2010. The district has 353 full-time teachers and over 5,774 students.

Elementary schools:
*Sumter County Primary School
*Sumter County Elementary School
*Sumter County Intermediate School

Secondary schools:
*Sumter County Middle School
*Sumter County High School

K-12 charter school:
*Furlow Charter School

K-12 private school:
* Southland Academy

Higher education

* Georgia Southwestern State University
* South Georgia Technical College

All schools and colleges are accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).

Public libraries

The community has the Lake Blackshear Regional Library, a part of the Lake Blackshear Regional Library System. It was temporarily relocated to a shirt factory warehouse also located in Americus after the tornado in 2007, but, once the reconstruction of the library finished around 2012, it was moved back to its original place.

Notable places

* Americus Historic District; NRHP–listed With
* Campbell Chapel A.M.E. Church, Americus; NRHP–listed With
* Habitat for Humanity Global Village and Discovery Center, Americus
* Oak Grove Cemetery, Americus; NRHP contributing property

Baseball

There have been eight minor league teams that have represented the city of Americus during 20 seasons spanning 1906–2002. Since classification of the minors began, seven of them have been labeled as class D loops and one played in an independent league. Several ballplayers for Americus teams subsequently played in the major leagues.

Notable people

* Griffin Bell (1918–2009) judge, 72nd Attorney General of the United States, served under President Carter
* Mike Cheokas (born 1953), politician
* Brent Cobb (born 1986) songwriter-singer
* Howell Cobb (1815–1868) politician; Confederate political figure
* Philip Cook (1817–1894) politician; general in the Confederate States Army
*Dr. George F. Cooper (1825–1882), physician, Baptist minister, and founder of the public school system in Americus With
* Charles Frederick Crisp (1845–1896), English-born American politician, U.S. Congressman
* Charles Robert Crisp (1870–1937), U.S. Congressman
* Cassandra Pickett Durham (1824–1885) physician; the first woman to earn a medical degree in the U.S. state of Georgia
* Lonne Elder III (1927–1996) dramatist
* Millard Fuller (1935–2009) lawyer and humanitarian
* Chan Gailey (born 1952) football coach
* Jimmy Garrison
* Victor Green
* Dr. Shirley Green-Reese
* Kent Hill
* George Hooks
* Alonzo Jackson
* Eddie Jackson
* Emma Rylander Lane (1856–1904), inventor of the Lane Cake
* Otis Leverette
* Angel Martino
* Joanna Moore (1934–1997), film and television actress
* Ruby Muhammad
* James Nabrit Jr.
* Leonard Pope
* Dan Reeves
* Mo Sanford (born 1966) baseball player; pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds, Colorado Rockies, and Minnesota Twins

Gallery

File:Americus Public Safety Building.jpg, The Russell Thomas Jr. Public Safety Building houses the Americus police and fire departments.

References

External links

City website

Community website

Americus
(in the ''New Georgia Encyclopedia'')

''The Americus Newsletter''

Americus Sumter Chamber of Commerce

South Georgia Historic Newspapers Archive
Digital Library of Georgia

Americus Movement
Civil Rights Digital Library
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1832 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
Cities in Georgia (U.S. state)
County seats in Georgia (U.S. state)
Americus, Georgia micropolitan area
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Georgia (U.S. state)
Cities in Sumter County, Georgia
National Register of Historic Places in Sumter County, Georgia