Sixty years ago, when racial segregation was the law, Red Clay Road was the black section of Cohutta in Whitfield County, Georgia.
“This was a thriving, relatively middle-class community,” said city attorney Todd Johnson. “Here lived teachers, lawyers.”
And at the center of the community was Andrews Chapel, home to an 1870s African Methodist Episcopal Church congregation, and a one-room schoolhouse that educated black children from first through sixth grade.
“This church was one of the main gathering places for the black families in this area,” said Aaron Prater, whose family has been associated with the church for four generations.
Prater began attending church in the early 1970s after his father, who had been in the military, moved his family back to Cohutta. He said that at this point the church changed its affiliation with the United Methodist Church.
“We used to sing there,” says Prater. “Choirs came down from Chattanooga. We ate dinner for the pastor every month.”
He said the church was then served by a pastor who also served churches in Calhoun and Fairmount. The congregation and the congregation at Pleasant Valley Baptist Church, another black church across the street, met every first and third Sunday of the month, alternating which church they met at.
“I’ve worked on this church for almost 40 years trying to keep this church going,” Prater said. “When we retired in 1973, there were no indoor installations. With the help of Varnell United Methodist Church we installed the bathroom and rewired the church. That was an enormous blessing. My father underpinned the Church.”
Over the years, as the legal separation ended, many of the residents of Red Clay Road moved elsewhere and the congregation dwindled.
“In the end we had maybe five or six members,” said Prater. “I had moved to Marietta at the time and drove up on Sundays.”
He said parishioners made the decision to close the church after the minister who had served it left.
The church was closed for about 30 years before the city bought the building and schoolhouse a few years ago.
Now city officials are working to preserve the buildings and the history they represent.
Moving from Tennessee
Nearly 100 years ago, the Andrews Chapel congregation moved the Church nearly four miles from Red Clay, Tennessee to Cohutta using nothing but labor and livestock.
“It’s really amazing to think about what they did and the technology they used to do it,” said Ron Shinnick, Mayor of Cohutta.
Prater said the congregation does not own the land on which the church sits in Red Clay.
“Someone donated the land in Cohutta, so they moved it there,” he said.
Dalton Daily Citizen/Cohutta Mayor Ron Shinnick said historic Andrews Chapel is generally in good condition.
Six years ago, the Methodist Church, which owned the building, donated it to the city. When city officials received the title, they found that it included half ownership of the school building used by the black students before integration. The school building was used as a parish hall by Andrews Chapel Congregation and Pleasant Valley Baptist Church.
“The kids didn’t understand why they went to a different school,” Shinnick said. “I spoke to people who were kids at the time, black and white, and they said they played baseball together and hung out together when they weren’t in school.”
The city acquired the other half of the school building, and now officials hope to develop the two buildings into a cultural center called the Cohutta African American Civic District, which will preserve the city’s black history and also bring art to the area.
“My aunt Mattie Prater taught at the school for many years,” Prater said. “She taught all the black kids in Cohutta.”
The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation named the Cohutta African American Civic District, which includes Pleasant Valley Baptist Church, as one of its 2021 Places in Peril.
“Andrews Chapel, with a congregation established in the 1870s, was built in 1902 and moved to its present location (from Red Clay, Tennessee) in 1923,” according to the Georgia Trust. “The Old Colored School was built in 1930 after a long history of community education and remained open until 1953 when it was merged with another school. The school building also served as a parish hall for the parishes.”
plans for the future
The church building still has the bell that came with the move.
Officials say they intend to use the church building as a meeting place and area for art exhibitions and the old school as a place to hold classes and small gatherings.
“Maybe we can do weddings and things like that here,” Shinnick said of the church building.
“The building is actually in pretty good shape, especially considering how old it is,” Shinnick said. “The only thing that’s really worse is at the back. Eventually they added a bathroom and the roof is leaking.”
Shinnick said the district’s inclusion on the Georgia Trust’s list of endangered sites was actually a good thing, as it drew attention to the site and helped the city secure some grants to preserve the buildings.
“This funding helped conduct condition assessments of the buildings, conduct a community assessment to investigate whether the setting could support the renovation of the historic buildings into a venue and community space, and contact a marketing firm for an in-depth analysis to determine the financial viability of the project,” the Georgia Trust said in a press release. “This study was returned with positive results and encourages next steps to ensure the future preservation of the borough.”
Prater said he’s pleased the city is taking action to preserve the church and schoolhouse and their history.
“It’s something that’s very much valued in the black community,” he said. “There aren’t many families up there anymore. But we look forward to it.”
