Down a rural country road towards Portal, Georgia, sits the Willow Hill Heritage and Renassiance Center, a historic equalization school which now serves as a community resource and museum.
Willow Hill recently hosted their 2024 Annual Celebration, which marked the 150-year legacy of the Willow Hill School and Community.
The center held a range of activities including a symposium on African American soldiers from Bulloch County, a Gospel Festival, a community archival event, and guided museum tours.
Those committed to the Willow Hill Center are helping to carry on the school's legacy through acknowledging its rich history. Take a virtual walk through the museum to learn more about this fascinating history and those who are documenting it.
Willow Hill History
The original Willow Hill school for African American children was founded in 1874, nine years after the end of the Civil War, by a group of former slaves. The school was housed in an old turpentine shanty, on the land of Daniel Riggs. Georgiana Riggs, the first teacher of Willow Hill, was only 15 years old at its inception.
Willow Hill was one of five African-American schools in Bulloch County which included Bennett Grove, Scarboro Grove, Rehovia, Gays Grove, Free Chapel, and Johnson Grove.
The school changed locations several times over the years.
Around 1914, the Rosenwald Foundation donated funds to construct the third Willow Hill School building. This building lasted until 1941, when a new building was constructed. According to the Willow Hill exhibit, noted scholars Professor Hezekuah Kemp, Professor MB Smith, and Professor Ulysses S. Grant Rhyne taught and served as principals at Willow Hill during this era.
In 1954, the current building was erected, as part of a statewide strategy to resist federally mandated integration. These schools addressed geographic and racial disparities in education with new, modern facilities.
The school closed in 1969 as part of the county's desegregation plan, and the students and faculty were sent elsewhere. It reopened as an integrated intermediate school in 1971 with new faculty.
The school was in existence for 125 years total—the longest for any school in Bulloch County.
In 2005, The Bulloch County School Board of Education put the school up for auction. A group of descendants of the founders of the Willow Hill School purchased the school in a effort to preserve the history and create a museum.
In May of 2006, The Willow Hill Heritage and Renaissance Center was incorporated in Georgia as a nonprofit corporation. The descendants who facilitated the purchase of the school serve as the founding 12 members of the Board of Directors. (Learn more about the founders of Willow Hill here.)
Dr. Alvin Jackson, a native of the Willow Hill Community, attended the school as a child. His grandparents taught him the history of Willow Hill School, which was founded by his ancestors in Bulloch County.
In 1987, at the age of 13, Nkenge Jackson, daughter of Dr. Alvin Jackson and Dr. Gayle Jackson, began research on the Willow Hill School as part of a History Day project. Using resources and records at the Bulloch County Historical Society, she was able to trace her family back to Dan Riggs, one of the three illiterate ex-slaves who founded Willow Hill School in 1874.
On June 16, 1988, Nkenge became the first student in Franklin County, Ohio to win a national prize in the National History Day Contest held annually in Washington, D.C., for her project, "A Dream Not To Be Forgotten: The History of A Black School, Willow Hill, 1874 to the Present."
Jackson says, "That was my start, and I have never looked back. From 1988 to today we have been working to preserve not only the story of the Willow Hill School but the larger story of African Americans in Bulloch County."
Dr. Alvin Jackson and his family moved to Savannah after the Willow Hill Heritage Center was formed. A database of over 8,000 names, countless recordings of old community members, and thousands of documents have been collected by Dr. Jackson.
Inside the archival room of the museum on the day of the recent celebration, Dr. Nkenge Jackson explained, "We realize there are segments of our American History that are not in the history books. One of the ways we collect them are through community events."
One of their current projects is the African American Funeral Programs Project. Their team is responsible for collecting, organizing, scanning, uploading, and digitizing these programs so that people can go online to search for their families.
Jackson encourages people to bring their stories to the school for archival purposes.
The current museum exhibits include: The Primitive Baptist Church exhibit, Statesboro High and Industrial School and William James High exhibit, DigNubia Exhibit, 1988 National History Day project "A Dream Not to Be Forgotten: The History of the Black Willow Hill School," Bennet Grove School Exhibit, The Tragedy at Ebenezer Creek, and more.
Today the museum holds events, educational camps, and more for the community, working hard to help preserve its rich history and place in our community.
Follow Willow Hill on Facebook and Instagram or visit the Willow Hill Heritage Center website to learn more about the museum, schedule museum tours, history, upcoming events and more.
The Willow Hill Heritage & Renaissance Center is located at 4235 Willow Hill Road, Portal, Georgia.