Sanders, student of Dr. Henry Lefever, an educator and sociologist. 69 In other words, Buttermilk Bottom was a place for rural newcomers become acquainted with city life, gain employment, find a home and a church, and for children to develop friendships to ‘play’. 70 James Malone’s family This was part of the Great Migration story. The Great Migration was experienced by both Blacks and Whites who left the agricultural South for greater opportunities and a higher quality of life in industrialized cities, including southern cities like Atlanta. For Black people, their migration was also to escape the harsh racism of the Jim Crow South which led to racialized violence and death, diminished civil rights, and limited life opportunities. Opportunities for mobility, land ownership, or supporting their families were extremely limited or nonexistent for Black sharecroppers. The sharecropping system “with its prohibitive restrictions on physical and economic mobility, use of violence and intimidation, and its emphasis on maximum production, denied Black Southerners the ability to gain wealth, to exercise the freedom granted them by Emancipation and to gain the education they were deprived of during enslavement”. 71 Moving into urban areas proved more of a “symbolic freedom” for Black people writes historian, Wesley Allen Riddle. 72 It allowed them to escape the racial violence common in rural areas, but economic opportunities were often scarce and exploitative. Despite these challenges, moving to urban areas enabled Black families to form kinship bonds and to build their own communities. Huff offers the antidote that Buttermilk Bottom was ground zero for the Great Migration where people headed to “Chicago, Cleveland, Baltimore, Detroit, Los Angles, and New York”. 73 The migration of Black Georgians began during the early 1910s largely due to finding work in the World War I employment boom and the decimation of the boll weevil to the cotton crop. 74 Huddie, "Lead Belly," Ledbetter, a blues artist, retells the invasion of the boll weevil and the rapidity of the infestation. “The first time I saw Boll Weevil, He was sitting on a cotton square. The next time I saw Boll Weevil, He had his whole family there.” 75 Huff, said, “[e]ach family came one at a time, needing to relocate because their lands could no longer be tilled- locusts and varmints had taken over.” 76 Her family of 16 arrived in a one-horse buggy! Her great grandmother, Georgia Malone Morgan Fauster Jewel, and her siblings came with their parents, George Malone and Alice Farmer Malone. Georgia Malone became a caretaker, boarding and feeding family members arriving to Buttermilk Bottom seeking a new life. The influx of these rural newcomers contributed to the vibrant and
69 Joan Sanders, “Urban Anthropology”, May 1979. 70 Joan Sanders, “Urban Anthropology”, May 1979.
71 Jared Tetreau, American Experience, “Sharecropping: Slavery Rerouted”, August 16 2023. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/harvest-sharecropping-slavery-rerouted/ 72 Jared Tetreau, American Experience, “Sharecropping: Slavery Rerouted”, August 16 2023. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/harvest-sharecropping-slavery-rerouted/ 73 Huff, “Descendants”. 74 Stanley, “Implications.” 75 Stephanie Hall, "The Life and Times of Boll Weevil," Folk Life Blog, Library of Congress, last updated December 11, 2013. https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2013/12/the-life-and-times-of-boll-weevil/.
76 Cassandra Huff DD, PhD, JD, “We Would Be Descendants of Buttermilk Bottom, Atlanta, Georgia: As Told by U.S. Army Retired CSM William H. Huff”, Author House: Bloomington, IN, 2019.
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