Nearly 100 descendants, historians and community leaders gathered Oct. 31 at the original Pleasant Grove AME Church site at Fort Stewart, remembering a congregation forced to relocate after the U.S. government acquired its land for Camp Stewart.
Pleasant Grove AME was organized June 29, 1869, and served African American families in the Taylors Creek settlement. In the early 1940s, the government acquired the church’s land to build Camp Stewart ahead of World War II. The installation is now Fort Stewart.
Liberty County Board of Commission Chairman Donald Lovette reported the gathering. Hinesville Mayor Karl Riles, a descendant of the church’s first pastor, spoke alongside Georgia State Rep. Al Williams, local historians and community leaders.
Rev. Henry Frasier Sr., 94, a former Taylors Creek resident, shared memories of his family’s displacement and return to ancestral land.
The ceremony concluded with a wreath laying and a tour of the historic cemetery. Children also operated the church’s surviving hand pump.
By News Now Georgia
Yolonda Harris
News Now Georgia
