At one point, it’s been documented that there were a handful of similar terra cotta markers like this one in the African American section at Memory Hill Cemetery. It is believed this marker was made at the McMillan Brick Company, a leading brickmaker in Milledgeville. It is believed the designs were made from stamps in the pottery shop at the brick factory.
The designs on this marker feature a sunflower, acanthus, and diaper (the crisscross pattern).
Down a sandy road, there is the Sheffield UMC Cemetery which has several vernacular headstones made with tile. Outside of marbles, this is one of the most used materials I see in homemade headstones and ledgers. There was a church next to the cemetery, but it burned many years ago.
The Brick Church was built in 1827 on land donated by Reverend Payton Wade. Enslaved labor from the Lebanon Forest Plantation built this church building, and it’s a testament to their skills that this is simultaneously the oldest church and oldest brick church in Screven County.
According to 1859 member rolls, there were 419 Black members and 150 white members. Considering the Wade family enslaved over 400 people, it is likely that most of the Black members were enslaved by the Wade family. There was a slave gallery at one point, indicated by the covered windows at the top. The gallery has since been removed.
The church and cemetery are still in use today. The Wade plantation still exists as a pecan farm, but it is no longer owned by the Wades.
Originally named the First Colored Baptist Church, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was founded in 1873. The first church building was at the intersection of 12th Street North and 4th Avenue. The congregation moved to its current location in 1880.
This is the second building at this location. The City of Birmingham condemned the first building, so the church leaders turned to Alabama’s only Black architect, Wallace Rayfield, to design the current building. T.C. Windham, a Black contractor from Birmingham, managed the church’s building. The church was completed in 1911 with Romanesque and Byzantine elements.
Based on its location in Birmingham, the church became a centerpiece of the Civil Rights Movement. The church hosted lecturers and became a gathering place for meetings and rallies. Unfortunately, the church became a target of white supremacists on Sunday, September 15, 1963, when a bomb went off at 10:22 AM. The bomb killed 4 girls and injured more than 20 others. Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Carol Denise McNair lost their lives that day. It took years to bring the perpetrators to justice. Three out of the four were convicted.
Built in 1868, the First African Baptist Church in Darien is a replica of an earlier-built 1834 church on the same site. It was burned during the 1863 burning by Federal troops during the Civil War.
