Jones

Hubbard was born in 1867 and eventually became one of the founding members of the Saint Elmo Baptist Church in 1895. In 1902 at the age of 35 he served as the head sawyer at the Eastman-Gardiner Company's "big mill"and was the founding pastor of the Second Baptist Church. In 1921, Hubbard became a missionary in Liberia, West Africa, where he founded the Hubbard Industrial Mission. In the mid-20s Hubbard returned to Laurel for speaking engagements where he spoke to a large white audience and was introduced by Judge Stone Deavours.

Sources:

Laurel Remembrances by Cleveland Payne published in 1996.

"Built in 1940 as part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal Recovery Program, [the project] was bounded on the east by South Fourth Avenue, on the west by Maple Street and on the south by Jefferson Street." It was within walking distance of downtown Laurel. It was inhabited by hard-working, working-class families who felt lucky to be selected to live in the new apartments. The development had a basketball court and a large picnic and activity field used for concerts, carnivals and ball games. On Sunday mornings, the families would walk along Jefferson and Maple Streets to church services at Saint Paul Methodist Church and Saint Elmo Baptist Church. In its time, it was considered a desirable and wonderful place to live.

Sources:

Laurel Remembrances by Cleveland Payne published in 1996, which was a compilation of columns written by Cleveland Payne for the Laurel Leader-Call from July 1994 to May 1995.

(Jones County) (1965) After passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Laurel Leader Call reported that while 99.9 percent of whites in Jones County were registered to vote, only 8.8 percent of blacks were registered. By August 20, 1965, the US Department of Justice had set up a registration office in the conference room of the Laurel Post Office run by a seven man team of voting examiners. In a ten day period, the registrars recorded more than 1,000 black voters.

Sources:

Laurel Remembrances by Cleveland Payne published in 1996.

There were four schools for the black children in Laurel known as the Laurel Colored Schools: Kingston/Nora Davis, Sandy Gavin, Southside Elementary and Oak Park High School. The children and teachers would walk to school along the two-mile long sidewalk of Maple Street.

Sandy Gavin was Laurel’s first black school to be built of brick and was a source of pride for the community. “It’s (sic) grounds covered an entire block between South Fifth and South Sixth Avenues and Madison and Monroe Streets.” In the early 1920s, upon learning that Laurel spent approximately one third of the amount to educate black children as it did white children, Laurel socialite and philanthropist Mrs. George S. Gardiner made a proposal to donate $10,000 for the building of a Negro school if the black community would raise $10,000 and the City of Laurel would contribute $10,000. The purpose of the proposal was to mobilize the black community and shame the city into acting more responsibly. By 1924 the community had raised the money and the school opened in 1925. The building is no longer used.