by Jimmy Smothers
March 27, 2010
HINESVILLE, Ga. Drive 11 miles east from Hinesville on Highway 84
and a large, two-story, red brick building seems to just leap up out
of the lowlands of Georgia. This huge building, surrounded by several
small buildings, a picnic area and a little church on the corner,
seems so out of place in this rural setting that it immediately grabs
your attention.
Framing the walkway leading to the main building are two brick
columns that hold a delicate wrought iron archway inscribed with the
words "Dorchester Academy." There are several historical markers and
a National Historic Landmark sign, and a large old bell, which once
hung in a belfry, now sits on the ground amid a pile of brick.
The allure was such that my car probably would have stopped even if I
had not applied the brakes and pulled into the parking lot. Church
had dismissed and only two cars remained, each driven by elderly
black women. They were wondering, I am sure, what I was doing there.
I approached the first woman, told her why I had stopped and she gave
me a brief history of the academy, which was founded in 1871 as a
school for freed slaves. She said that years later Martin Luther King
Jr. had stayed there while planning the civil rights march on Birmingham.
"We had community meetings here and I once got to dance with Dr.
King," she said, grinning.
My ears perked up and my interest peaked.
The woman in the other car stepped out and introduced herself as
Deborah Robinson, curator and director of the museum, which was
closed at the time. An appointment for a private tour was made for
the following Saturday.
The American Missionary Association actually established Dorchester
Academy, supplied its first teachers and named it after Puritans who
came from Dorchester, England. They soon migrated to the Georgia
lowlands between the Ogeechee and Altamaha rivers.
Whites and blacks attended the same church, slaves in the galleries
and their owners in the pews below. But only white children attended
school until after the Civil War.
At first there was a one-room schoolhouse with students being freed
slaves ranging in age from 8 to 80. As enrollment grew, so did the
school until there were more than a half-dozen buildings, including
two-story dormitories for male and female students.
The school was both a boarding and day school with some of the
children living in the dorms; others had to walk to school from up to
10 miles away.
The bell was in the church tower and rang six times each school day.
The 6 a.m. bell awakened the resident students and started walking
time for the area children, 7 a.m. was for breakfast, 8 o'clock
signaled the start of classes, 9 a.m. meant that latecomers would not
be admitted, noon meant lunch and the last bell signaled dismissal at 3 p.m.
Since classes did not start until the bell stopped ringing, if the
ringer spied a straggler trudging down the dirt roads, he kept
ringing the bell until he arrived.
During Reconstruction members of the community asked the AMA for a
teacher a young, Southern-born black man who was possibly a
preacher. They sent Eliza Ann Ward, an abolitionist from
Massachusetts. When she left, Floyd Snelson, a former slave who
studied at Atlanta University, was hired. He had been a preacher and
teacher at an AMA school in Andersonville, Ga. After a stint, Snelson
went to Africa and Elizabeth Moore came from Fisk University to be
the teacher. She established the grade system: Primary, Intermediate,
Grammar and the Normal Department. Dorchester was the only school at
the time in Georgia that included a 12th grade. The other schools
only went through the 11th grade.
"Dorchester was called 'The Little University' at the time," Robinson said.
The museum holds some memorabilia of that time period: a basketball
uniform; photos of both girls' and boys' teams; a report card;
graduation program; and several other items.
Robinson said the academy was privately owned and the children who
lived in the dorms had to pay their way.
"They didn't have the money, so some worked at the academy, others
would bring food from home for the lunchroom," she said.
In 1940, Liberty County built a public school for blacks, and
Dorchester Academy was closed. It became the Dorchester Center Inc.,
and for the next 20 years the buildings were used for credit unions,
a farmers union, various political councils and the Dorchester
Improvement Association.
In the 1960s, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the
local Board for Homeland Ministries jointly conducted the Citizenship
Education Project at Dorchester. Andrew Young, a key King lieutenant
who later became U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and mayor of
Atlanta, headed the project in its formative years. "It was Andrew
who introduced the (Birmingham march) to Dr. King when Dr. King first
came to Dorchester," said Robinson, a college classmate of Young.
"Andrew stayed at Dorchester all the time. He put in hours and hours
of labor, organizing and getting things running the way they should."
Robinson said when Young was running his project, buses were coming
in every week from states throughout the South. "The people would
attend classes all week, learning how to educate and organize the
black population to register and vote," she said.
"A lot of the blacks at that time still couldn't read and write. So
these leaders were trained, then sent back home to instruct their
neighbors about their legal rights and responsibilities. Next week
there would be more buses loaded with people from other cities and
towns from throughout the South."
King, Ralph Abernathy and Joseph Lowery spent time at the academy
preparing for the Birmingham civil rights march. King wrote portions
of his "I Have a Dream" speech at the academy, practicing it before
his colleagues, Robinson said.
Just to the right after entering the main entrance of the old boys'
dormitory, there is a sign on a door emblazoned with King's name. The
first room has twin beds, with pristine white coverlets, neatly made,
with his photo and name on the pillows. On the other side of the room
is a table with an open Bible. There is an adjoining bath with white
towels hanging out ready to be used. An adjoining room has two more
twin beds and a bath. People look in the rooms with awe, and if they
enter at all, they do so in reverence, whispering and stepping softly.
All of King's activities here were not dedicated to the seriousness
of the Civil Rights Movement. "He loved to play kick ball and would
at times head for the gym to shoot a few baskets," Robinson said.
All the original wooden frame buildings are gone. The surviving red
brick, Greek revival structure built in 1934 was the boys' dormitory.
Today it is deteriorating. The National Register of Historical Places
has it placed on the endangered list. The community does not have the
financial resources to revamp the building, although some repair and
stabilization work has been completed from donations and a $50,000 grant.
Estimates to completely restore the building are as high as $1.5
million. Yet the vision of the Dorchester Improvement Association is
to obtain the funds, restore the old building and create a
world-class museum and community facility.
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