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GRIFFIN - There was a legacy marker unveiling at the Griffin-Spalding African American History Museum on Saturday, July 19, 2025. Many members of the community attended to celebrate the opening of the museum.

History

Griffin’s Heritage Park was listed on Georgia Trust’s Places in Peril in 2020. The park included a Rosenwald School that was built in 1929 using funds from Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald of Sears, Roebuck, and Company. A gymnasium and community garden were also on the grounds at Heritage Park. The park shows the effort to improve and provide quality education to African Americans in the south and was long used as a place for community gatherings to celebrate the history of this site.

A SPLOST included this project prior to being placed on Georgia Trust’s Places in Peril in 2020, but according to Georgia Trust’s Places in Peril, the funding was “inadequate for a full restoration of the site” though community support was still strong for this restoration project.

The press release stated that the park was in peril due to neglect, vandalism, and lack of maintenance. Before photos can be viewed at www.georgiatrust.org/places-in-peril/heritage-park

www.ourlegacymuseum.com/about/ tells the rest of the story.

The Fairmont community was created in 1927 as the first neighborhood in Griffin where African American men and women could purchase land to build a home with the Griffin Spalding Board of Education purchasing ten acres of land two years later where the Rosenwald Fund built the school on the land.

Two additional buildings were built in 1949 and the expansion of the Fairmont High School brought new buildings in 1958 before the Griffin Spalding School System became integrated. The school buildings fell into disrepair after integration.

Discussion for revitalization of the Fairmont schools began almost 20 years ago with a SPLOST being passed in 2016 to provide funding for Fairmont Vocational Heritage Park which included a special events facility, a cultural arts center, and the Our Legacy: The Griffin-Spalding History Museum which is housed within the 1929 Rosenwald School building.

The Our Legacy Museum has preserved and is displaying memorabilia from 1925 through 1975 in the museum.

Closing

The Our Legacy Museum is located at 547 North 3rd Street in Griffin.

Special thanks to Diana Clark for these photos!