Thinking About Race in Your Community
Shirley Flowers
Western International University
ETH123 Cultural Diversity
Dr. Meg Garberina
Thinking About Race in Your Community
If you travel approximately 40 miles east from Atlanta along Interstate 20, you will come upon the historic town of Covington, Georgia. It offers the best of the South's historic site attractions which includes the old antebellum homes and the popular shooting locations from the hit TV series "In the Heat of the Night" and "Dukes of Hazard" which was filmed in various locations throughout the city of Covington. With the beautiful scenery and historic sites located in Covington, Georgia, how did the community get to be so diversified?
Here's a bit of history to show how Covington, Georgia, has become a community filled with several different nationalities. The original land owners / inhabitants of Covington-Newton County, Georgia, were once part of the Creek Indian Nation. The Creek Indians lived on and worked the land until Georgia Governor Thorp negotiated a treaty in 1813 with them whereby they relinquished their ownership to the land (Smith and Patterson, 2000). The Creek Indians remained in the Covington-Newton County area for a decade before being banished to Oklahoma over the "Trail of Tears." In 1822, the city of Newtonsboro was renamed Covington after General Leonard Covington who was a hero in the War of 1812 (City of Covington History, 2005).
The early settlers in Covington were mainly white Americans. The new settlers were mostly farmers. The crops grown included barley, corn, cowpeas, grain sorghum, hay, oats, soybeans, sweet potatoes, watermelons and wheat (City of Covington History, 2005). Cotton soon becam ...