Chapter 12: Growing Up
The stories of Greg’s classmates and how their attitudes changed after high school come from my interviews with them.
Chapter 13: Almost Heaven
My account of Greg’s life after college is based on conversations with him, his brothers, Charles Browne, Carol Browne, and Greg’s wife, Anne Gardner.
Chapter 14: Guilt and Grace
The story of the class members’ decision to reconcile with Greg is based on interviews with David Morgan, Deanie Dudley Fricks, Joseph Logan, Celia Harvey Gonzalez, and Gladys Crabb. Deanie later told me about the Holocaust memoir by her friend Samuel Althaus that was fresh in her mind when she sat down to write Greg. I read the book and could understand why it moved her.
Chapter 15: Back to Americus
I did not witness the class reunion in June 2006; I didn’t even learn about it until a month or so after it had happened. Fortunately, I was able to view many of the weekend’s events through the eyes of Faith Fuller, Millard and Linda’s filmmaker daughter, who videotaped the lunch at Mrs. Crabb’s house, the opening reception, and the reunion itself on the following evening. Faith generously shared a copy of her video with me; it was the next best thing to being there. (She included some of the footage in an epilogue for the tenth anniversary reissue of her 2003 documentary about Koinonia, Briars in the Cotton Patch.) My re-creation of the reunion was informed by interviews with the participants and by Greg’s wife, Anne, who provided insightful narration from an outsider’s perspective.
Epilogue
I accompanied Greg in August 2013 as he stepped back inside his high school for the first time in forty-eight years. I was with him during commemorations of the Sumter County Movement that year and in 2007, when we went to dinner with three of the students who had desegregated Americus High. We later visited the fourth one, Robertiena Freeman Fletcher, at her home in Perry, Georgia.
Greg and I also traveled to Americus for two Koinonia observances in 2012: the Clarence Jordan Symposium at Georgia Southwestern State University and a Koinonia family reunion later that autumn at the farm. We visited the Wittkamper House where his family used to live, climbed Picnic Hill where Clarence Jordan and Millard Fuller are buried, and walked the grounds where Greg and the other children were shot at while they were playing volleyball. As we were driving back to the farm one night after dark, a pair of headlights appeared in the rearview mirror and started drawing closer. “You might want to step on it,” Greg said. “That could be the sheriff following us.” I glanced toward the passenger seat and saw that he was smiling. There was a time when such things would not have been a joking matter.
Selected Bibliography
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————. Remembering Americus, Georgia: Essays in Southern Life. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006.
Barnette, Henlee H. Clarence Jordan: Turning Dreams into Deeds. Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 1992.
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Branch, Taylor. At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–68. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.
————. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–63. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988.
————. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963–65. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998.
Brinkley, Douglas. The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter’s Journey Beyond the White House. New York: Penguin, 1998.
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Carson, Clayborne, ed. With the staff of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project. The Student Voice, 1960–1965: Periodical of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Westport, CT: Meckler, 1990.
Carson, Clayborne, Susan Carson, Adrienne Clay, Virginia Shadron, and Kerry Taylor, eds. The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Vol. 4, A Symbol of the Movement, January 1957–December 1958. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
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Carter, Jimmy. An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.
————. Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age. New York: Times Books, 1992.
Coble, Ann Louise. Cotton Patch for a Kingdom: Clarence Jordan’s Demonstration Plot at Koinonia Farm. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 2001.
Dittmer, John. Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900–1920. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977.
Egerton, John. Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.
Frady, Marshall. Southerners: A Journalist’s Odyssey. New York: New American Library, 1980.
Fuller, Chet. I Hear Them Calling My Name: A Journey Through the New South. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981.
Gaillard, Frye. If I Were a Carpenter: Twenty Years of Habitat for Humanity. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1996.
Garrow, David J. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. New York: William Morrow and Co., 1986.
Godbold, E. Stanley Jr. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter: The Georgia Years, 1924–1974. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Goudsouzian, Aram. Down to the Crossroads: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Meredith March Against Fear. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.
Grant, Daniel T. When the Melon Is Ripe: The Autobiography of a Georgia Negro High School Principal and Minister. New York: Exposition Press, 1955.
Hedgepeth, William, and Dennis Stock. The Alternative: Communal Life in New America. New York: Macmillan, 1970.
Inscoe, John C., ed. Georgia in Black and White: Explorations in the Race Relations of a Southern State, 1865–1950. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994.
Jordan, Clarence L. Clarence Jordan: Essential Writings. Edited by Joyce Hollyday. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2003.
————. The Substance of Faith: And Other Cotton Patch Sermons. Edited by Dallas Lee. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2005.
Jordan, Hamilton. No Such Thing as a Bad Day. Atlanta, GA: Longstreet Press, 2000.
K’Meyer, Tracy Elaine. The Story of Koinonia Farm: Interracialism and Christian Community in the Postwar South. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997.
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Lyman-Barner, Kirk, and Cori Lyman-Barner, eds. Fruits of the Cotton Patch: The Clarence Jordan Symposium 2012. Vol. 2. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2014.
————. Roots in the Cotton Patch: The Clarence Jordan Symposium 2012. Vol. 1. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2014.
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Dissertations and Unpublished Manuscripts
Browne, Conrad. Unfinished memoir, loaned to author.
Browne, Lora. Diary and journal, loaned to author.
Chancey, Andrew S. “Race, Religion, and Reform: Koinonia’s Challenge to Southern Society, 1942–1992.” PhD diss., University of Florida, Gainesville, 1998.
O’Connor, Charles S. “A Rural Georgia Tragedy: Koinonia Farm in the 1950s.” MA thesis, University of Georgia, Athens, 2003.
Snider, Joel Philip. “The Cotton Patch Gospel: The Proclamation of Clarence Jordan.” PhD diss., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY, 1984.
Swisshelm, Dorothy. “Six Years Behind the Magnolia Curtain.” Unpublished memoir, Dorothy Swisshelm Papers, Hodges Library, University of Tennessee, 1965.
Manuscript Collections, Oral Histories, and Other Media
Civil Rights Digital Library. Walter J. Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia, Athens.
Civil Rights Movement Veterans. Website of oral histories, documents, and other materials assembled by Veterans of the Southern Freedom Movement, crmvet .org.
Frady, Marshall, Papers. Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta, GA.
Fuller, Faith. Briars in the Cotton Patch: The Story of Koinonia Farm. Script by Michael Booth and Faith Fuller. Cotton Patch Productions, 2003. Documentary film, 58 min.
Jamison, Gayla. Enough to Share: A Portrait of Koinonia Farm. Ideas and Images, Atlanta, GA, 1983. Documentary film, 16 mm, 28 min.
Jordan, Clarence L. “Clarence Jordan Tells the Koinonia Story.” Cotton Patch Productions, uploaded to YouTube, 2011. Audiotape of a speech Jordan gave in Cincinnati, November 10, 1956, 46 min.
Jordan, Clarence L., Papers. Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia, Athens.
Koinonia Archives. Koinonia Partners, Americus, GA.
New Georgia Encyclopedia. Online reference by the Georgia Humanities Council in partnership with the University of Georgia Press, www.georgiaencyclopedia .org.
Newsweek Atlanta Bureau records. Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta, GA.
Pauley, Frances, Papers. Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta, GA.
Sibley, John A., Papers. Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta, GA.
Sitton, Claude, Papers. Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta, GA.
Sumter County Oral History Project. Thomas Cheokas Collection, James Earl Carter Library, Georgia Southwestern State University, Americus.
Swisshelm, Dorothy, Papers. Hodges Library, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
William Wittkamper, et. al. v. James Harvey, et. al. and the School Board of Americus, Georgia. US District Court for the Americus Division of the Middle District of Georgia, National Archives at Atlanta, Morrow.
Wittkamper, Margaret. Oral history, in possession of Greg Wittkamper.
Index
Abernathy, Ralph David, 77
Aelony, Zev, 84–85, 88
African tour, 158–159
Albany Movement, 76–77, 95
Alcohol use, 75, 128, 163
All in the Family (television program), 171
Allen, Ralph, 84
Althaus, Samuel, 202–203
American Civil Liberties Union, 60–61
Americus Four, 85–87, 95
Americus High School
ACLU lawsuit, 60–62
commencement, 132–133
desegregation, 4–5, 95–98, 101–104
destruction by fire, 90–91
Dobbs Wiggins’s departure, 110
football, 68–69
Greg revisiting, 219–220
refusal to enroll Koinonia children, 59–61
students’ antipathy to Koinonia community, 67–69
See also Reunion
Americus-Sumter County Movement Remembered Committee, 220
Angry, Rufus and Sue, 48
Arson, 91
Auburn University, 150–151, 169–170, 172, 179
Barnum, Mabel, 142
Barnum’s Funeral Home, 4, 84, 102, 142, 220, 227
Bass, Tommy, 64, 220
Beard, Ellen Marshall, 221–222
Bell, David
Georgia Council on Human Relations award, 109–110
integration of Americus High School, 4, 97–98
leaving Americus High School, 130–131
reconnecting with Greg, 223–225
Bell, Mary Kate, 139–140, 148
Birdsey, Herbert, 49
Black community
Collins McGee, 74�
�76
Koinonia membership, 29–30, 48
response to violence against Koinonia, 47
See also Civil rights movement
Black Power movement, 155–156
Black students
desegregation of Americus High School, 4–5, 101–104
desegregation of Sumter County High School, 163
exclusion from commencement, 93–94, 129–130, 132–133
exclusion from reunions, 229
Greg reconnecting with, 223–225
Koinonia’s support of, 17
leaving Americus High School, 130–131
reconciliation, 225
See also Bell, David; Freeman, Robertiena; Wiggins, Dobbs; Wise, Jewel
Blacklisting of Koinonia, 39–41
Bolden, Willie, 148
Bootle, William, 60–61
Bowen, Shelby Jean Bradley, 205
Boycotts, 39–41, 49, 59–61, 77–78
Brokaw, Tom, 147–148
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 35–44
Browne, Carol, 65
expatriate community, 191
life at Koinonia, 26
posttraumatic stress, 194–195, 210
Browne, Charlie
father’s beating and arrest, 55
expatriate community, 191
marijuana and wine, 188–189
posttraumatic stress, 191–192
student violence against, 33–34
West Virginia community, 187
Browne, Conrad “Con”
assault on and arrest of, 54–56
attitudes towards race, 30
boycott of Koinonia, 40
demilitarizing Koinonia, 31–33
establishing Koinonia, 15, 25
exclusion from Americus church, 25
leaving Koinonia, 73
violence against Koinonia, 43
Browne, John, 32–34, 43, 191
Browne, Lora, 63(fig.)
attitudes towards race, 29–30
boycott of Koinonia, 40
civil rights movement, 78, 80–81
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