The are scattered around the property telling about the history of Dorchester Academy:
Civil Liberties at Dorchester Cooperative Center 1940-present
In an effort to involve Liberty County African Americans in politics, the Dorchester Cooperative Center (DCC) began to help register and organize African American voters. The DCC taught local African Americans the United States and Georgia constitutions, followed the activities of state and national representatives, charted how legislators voted on issues, interviewed candidates for office, and discussed issues and community goals. They also instructed citizens on how to mark ballots and general behavior at the polls. In 1953, the DCC formed a branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1961, they gained national attention when the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), in cooperation with the American Missionary Association (AMA), established "Leadership Training Programs and Citizenship Schools" at Dorchester Academy to train grass roots leaders from throughout the South. These leaders would go back to their communities to organize and train others. Some of the influential SCLC leaders who frequented the DCC were SCLC Educational Director Dorothy Cotton, supervisor of teacher training Septima Clark, and Citizenship Program Administrator Andrew Young. Notable civil rights leaders who attended DCC programs included Ralph Abernathy, Wyatt Walker, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. King's biographer David L. Lewis contends that King planned his 1963 Birmingham campaign while staying at Dorchester Academy in Elizabeth B. Moore Hall. Although DCC membership has steadily declined, the organization now known as the Dorchester Improvement Association (DIA), still exists and continues to educate and support African Americans in Liberty County.
The Power of Cooperation
The people at the Dorchester Cooperative Center understood that in order to make even the smallest difference everyone had to do their part. When the Farmers Co-op at the center wanted to buy a tractor, twenty families pooled their resources and purchased their own coorperatively owned tractor. The debt on the tractor was completely repaid within the next three years.
Liberty County Citizen's Council 1946-1953
The Errosion of the Franchise
With the passage of the 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution in 1868 and 1869, African Americans were granted full citizenship and the right to vote. In less than a decade, nearly 100,000 black men had registered to vote in Georgia. Success, however, was short-lived.
In 1877 Georgia passed a new state constitution which restricted the franchise by adding a residency requirement and altering the state's poll tax law to make it cumulative. To be eligible to vote after 1877, men had had to be a U.S. citizen, at least 21 years of age, and a resident of the state for at least 1 year and of the county for at least 6 months prior to registering. In addition, males between the ages of 21 and 60 had to show proof of having paid their poll tax every year since their 21st birthday (or since 1877 when the law took effect) before they could register.
Black access to the vote continued to erode. Beginning in the mid-1890s, the Democratic Party of Georgia prohibited African American men from voting in state primaries. And when legally sanctioned tactics failed to deter black voters, intimidation and violence often did. The death toll sounded in 1908 when a state constitutional amendment made it possible for county registrars to arbitrarily apply vaguely-defined literacy and citizenship requirements. For all practical purposed black men had been effectively disfranchised.
Liberty County's Citizen Council
In 1945, Georgia's 1877 state constitution was overturned, eliminating the poll tax. Liberty County's Citizen Council immediately went to work registering voters. In April of 1946, Georgia's white-only primary was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in King v. Chapman.
The Liberty County Citizen's Council was formed in 1946.
The Council, held a series of town meetings to discuss strategies for solving legal problems. These were true town meetings; everyone had a voice and as a result they often lasted from early evening to long after midnight. One participant recalled that, "Every detail of the meeting [was] known by whites within 12 hours of the meeting."
The immecdiate goal of the Citizen's Council was to get black citizens registered to vote. In early 1946 the Citizen's Council distributed a flyer entitled, "The $64 Question," that depicted a man down on one knee, asking a woman, "Have you registered to vote?"
The $64 Question
Why register?
Every Good citizen puts his or her name on the registration list in order to be able to vote for elected officials who make and enforce the laws by which we are governed.
The more citizens who register and vote, the better our government is. By voting we get better roads, schools, hospitals, playgrounds, parks, libraries, and safety of life and property.
Where register
You register at the tax receivers office in Hinesville. You don't have to pay a poll tax or other taxes to register.
How register?
Begin by courteously telling the tax receiver that you wish to vote. Keep calm and an even temper. Give no one an excuse for not registering you. You will have to give your name, address, where you were born, your age, how long you have lived in Georgia and Liberty County. You must be able to read and write. You must sign your name on the registration book.
S.C.L.C. and the voter education program 1962-1970
Citizenship Schools
Dorchester Cooperative Center played a key role in the struggle for civil rights and the vote.
In 1954, Septima Clarke, a school teacher from Charleston, SC and Esau Jenkins, a farmer and school bus driver from Johns Island, SC, were on the forefront of grassroots efforts to make voter registration a reality. With the support from the Highlander Folk School, they devised a plan to help rural adults to pass literacy and citizenship tests.
The first Citizenship School, known as the Progressive Club, waqs established on Johns Island, SC. But in 1961 control of the Citizenship School Program was transferred from Highlander Folk School to the American Missionary Association who acted on the behalf of the Southern Christian Leadership Council. The Citizenship School moved its headquarters to the Dorchester Community Center.
The Citizenship Education Program operated at Dorchester from 1961 to 1970. During that period, 897 Citizenship Schools were established, SCLC leadership planned their Birmingham demonstrations.
Leadership
Septima Clark supervised instruction at Dorchester; Andrew Young administered the program; and Dorothy Cotton served as a "cultural emissary" and used music and folklore to generate interest in the program. During their tenure at Dorchester, Clarke, Young and Cotton drove all over the South recruiting prospective students. Students were bused to Dorchester for a week-long training program that began on Monday morning and ended after a Saturday night banquet. The program was designed to get participants home in time for church so that they could then share what they learned at Dorchester with others, and hopefully, establish citizenship classes in their own communities.
Working Together at the Dorchester Cooperative Center 1930s-1940s
The Industrial Arts Department at Dorchester Academy taught students practical skills they could use in everyday life. The boys took classes in farming, woodworking, iron-working, and architecture. The girls were instructed in cooking, sewing, dressmaking, and related industries. Most importantly, the students were taught teamwork and the basics of cooperative buying. The Dorchester Cooperative Center's efforts to encourage cooperative buying succeeded because the former students of Dorchester Academy understood and encouraged the community action.
Established in 1937, the Dorchester Cooperative Center opened several cooperative groups including a cooperative store, consumer's cooperative, chicken cooperative, and producer's cooperative. In March 1939, the Dorchester Federal Credit Union (DFCU) opened. All who lived within nine miles of Dorchester Academy were eligible to join. The DFCU's goals were to "stimulate systematic saving," help those unable to secure needed funds, and to bring the community together in a way that encouraged group action. The credit union's success "made it easier for Negroes to get credit from the local bank." Thanks to the DFCU, two farming cooperative groups within the DCC were able to organize and secure loans to purchse farming tractors.
In the late 1940's members of the Dorchester Cooperative Center wanted to provide local healthcare for themselves and other residents. Thanks to their efforts the remodeled boys' dormitory became the home of a clinic run by the Liberty County Hospital Authority for Colored People.