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Perhaps in the 1940s, Black residents gather at H.H. Park’s Grocery on the corner of South Jefferson and Marion Street in Eatonton, current site of the Maggie Lane womenswear shop. This may have been on a weekend when local people traditionally dressed up for a trip into town. CONTRIBUTED -
Eatonton native Mary Alice Farley Horne, now in her 80s, married and raised her family here, working 12-hour days as a maid for white families while her children were tended to by her extended family. IAN TOCHER/Staff -
Butler-Baker alumna Georgia Benjamin-Smith of the Uncle Remus Museum and a staunch promoter of Eatonton and Putnam County, shared some of her childhood recollections with the GWM audience. IAN TOCHER/Staff -
Richard Garrett made a slide-show presentation on Black history in Putnam County at each event before turning the floor over to residents with first-hand memories. IAN TOCHER/Staff -
Melton Smith, 71, was in the Putnam County High School Class of 1971, the first class following federally mandated integration. Now the Butler-Baker Alumni Project, Inc. president, Smith attended an HBCU in Atlanta, where he married, raised a family, and continues to live in Decatur. IAN TOCHER/Staff -
Shady Dale native Lavoniah Sanders married and moved to Eatonton, where he worked as a licensed electrician before retiring from Georgia Power. IAN TOCHER/Staff -
Mary Alice Smith graduated from West Georgia College but returned to serve as director of the first county daycare center at what is now The Plaza Arts Center in Eatonton. She also worked for voting rights alongside the late Councilman Ulysses Rice. IAN TOCHER/Staff -
Now in her 80s, Rev. Harriet Thompkins Camp returned to Eatonton and is now a pastor at First Community Church in Eatonton after previously living in New Jersey and working as a cosmetologist. IAN TOCHER/Staff -
Martha Thompkins Parham, now in her mid 80s, is a married mother of six who remained all her life in Eatonton, where she worked at both Putnam General Hospital and for the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department. IAN TOCHER/Staff -
Marrie Belle Farley, 92, married and moved to Buffalo, where she lived more than 40 years before returning to Putnam County. IAN TOCHER/Staff
Two meetings were held in Eatonton last week, the first on Monday at the downtown Georgia Writers Museum and then on Saturday at historic Butler-Baker School on Alice Walker Drive, to remember and discuss Black life in Eatonton and Putnam County by those who lived it, primarily through the 1950s to 1970s.
The project stemmed from the origination of a Putnam County NAACP chapter that also organized the recent Martin Luther King Day march and afternoon church service in Eatonton.
Opening the presentation at both events was a slide show put together by Richard Garrett, co-owner with his wife, Karen, of Eatonton’s Dot-2-Dot Inn.
Garrett explained he relied primarily on reports found online but originally printed over the past few decades in The Eatonton Messenger. However, he stressed he also felt it was critically important to include first-hand recollections by some of the people who had lived the history.
“I think there hasn’t been a regular history of doing a Black history event for some time, but everyone felt like, well, we should be doing it,” Garrett said. “And then we said, well, why not use the local knowledge, the local people? We’ve got these assets right here; they’ve got all these stories; the younger people don’t know much about them. Let’s make the most of it.”
Between the two events, approximately 100 people attended, ranging in age from young teens to older than 90. While many stories remained familiar, others included personal details and experiences of Black life rarely reported in history books or filmed documentaries.
It prompted some in the audience to comment on the irony of so-called “equality” now stifling the telling of Black experience, including Eatonton Mayor John Reid, who attended both sessions.
“It’s great that stories are being told, particularly at a time now when they’re not allowing it in school as much with all what’s going on with the banned books and everything,” Reid said. “So, it’s great that somebody’s out telling the stories because it’s history and the history that we need to know.
Because if you don’t learn the history, then you do repeat it.
“I always try to go out and support the community and what’s going on,” Reid continued. “In particular during Black History Month, with me being the first and only Black mayor in Eatonton. I’m very interested in the Black history of this community, so I’m going to go out and support whatever’s going on when I can.”
Many panelists recalled events and moments from still-familiar locations like Putnam General Hospital, Putnam County Courthouse, and the Eatonton-Putnam County Library, while others told tales of long-gone locations and businesses from before Lake Sinclair was created in 1953 by Georgia Power.
Regardless of the timeframe, to a person, everyone seemed to learn more about Eatonton-Putnam history and specifically about the Black experience irrevocably attached to it.