Monticello’s Black Renaissance

By JAMES CAMPBELL

Shortly after the World War II had ended in 1942, African Americans soldiers returned home with a new lease and ideas on life, including the men who were born and raised in Monticello and Jasper County.

It was the beginning of a new life for the black people of Monticello and a revival of the black neighborhoods in the city. Black men and women began the revival by opening and owning their own businesses, as well as holding down well-paying jobs that were guaranteed for military veterans such as in Warner Robins Air Force Base.

Black cafés, neighborhood stores, barbershops, funeral homes and dance halls were popping up on every corner of the city. Quickly, Monticello became the “go-to spot” in Middle Georgia. People from as far away as Atlanta, Macon, Augusta as well as all the smaller neighboring cities such as Eatonton, Jackson, Gray, Madison, and Covington were flocking to Monticello on the weekends in search of a good time.

Monticello had no shortage of entertainment of the highest quality: Such stars as James Brown & The Famous Flames, Hank Ballard and The Midnighters, and Little Richard came to the city to help put Monticello and it’s black community on the map as one of the best small cities in the state.

By the 1950s Monticello had suddenly become the boom-city of middle Georgia. There were no shortage of jobs, and most families had money to spend that placed them in a “middle-class” category before there was such a thing.

On Saturday mornings to the afternoons, all the hard working men would gather on the town square, dressed in highly pressed overalls and starched white shirts. These men were considered as the “high-rollers” of Monticello before there was such a name known. They were the pillars of the communities.

Also during the early 1950’s, Monticello became known for its cotton and peaches that farmers grew, and there were often big paydays for the “share-croppers.” Pulpwood and the logging business took off like a wild fire that quickly became a big money-making operation for many black men who bought and owned their own trucks and equipment, and they were able to hired workers that paid decent wages.

By 1956 when Jasper County built a new school in the Washington Park community, or the “Color-folks Hill” as it was also known was a high-class colored folk neighborhood. The new school was now the show-place of middle Georgia for black students. And a vast majority of the black professionals lived in Washington Park, or the Hill. The only millionaire land-owner and funeral home operator as well as a millionaire doctor lived on the Hill. These two men had vacated thriving occupations in Atlanta to come to Monticello. The Hill was the only black neighborhood that the local K.K.K. night-riders did not ride through and burn their crosses.

Naturally, the success that black people were having in Monticello created a lot of animosity as far away as Atlanta. A vicious rumor was floating around on the black streets of Atlanta that said Monticello was known as “Bloody Jasper” due to the many black people who had been lynched in the county. This rumor was started primarily because some black neighborhoods in Monticello were looked upon as resembling that of Black Wallstreet of the Greenwood section in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Monticello was also widely known for having the most beautiful women in middle Georgia. Men from all the surrounding counties would converge on the city in black neighborhoods in search of finding a beautiful woman.

AUTHOR NOTE: Today, when I take a look back on the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s, I often dream and think about what the black communities used to look like in Monticello. And sometimes, I wish that I could hold on to what it was like back then. However, I am extremely grateful to have lived to witness such historic revival of our black community. With that thought on our minds, we will never say never. Because if it happened back then, we can make it happen now. If the black people of Monticello could pull off such a feat in a time of such racial prejudice and racism as it was in the mid-20th Century, it can happen once again.