The First One Hundred Years of Upson County Negro History

About the Book

Upson County, Georgia, has produced great Negro leaders whom God has given gifts to make a difference in the first one hundred years of history. As I researched the history of Upson County, Georgia, my soul got excited about what God did through willing vessels. My goal in this book is to encourage future generations to become available vessels to be used by God as difference makers in a changing world and to show how Negroes in Upson County thrived in the early 1800s and 1900s by investing their time, talents, and money to make the county great. Unfortunately, there are very scarce recordings of history of early Negro settlers in Upson County, and few vital statistics are available. However, as the result of painstaking effort and research as this work progressed, it is believed that this volume is as accurate as humanly possible.

About the Author

James Cornelius McGill was born July 6, 1953 in Thomaston, Georgia, the second of four children born to Carolyn McGill Homes and J. C. Worthy. He attended Drake Elementary School for 10 years and then graduated from Robert E. Lee High School in 1971. He served four years in the U. S. Navy. He received various college credit hours in history from Gordon Jr. College in Barnesville Georgia. He received a Bachelor of Science Degree with a minor in Religion from Mercer University in Macon Georgia. James has been married to Linda Ann Napier McGill for the past 42 years and blessed with one daughter, Kornisha McGill Brown, a son-in-law Dr. Darius Brown, Sr. and two lovely grandchildren, Jordan and Darius Brown, Jr. James was called and licensed by God to preach His word in October 1974 and was ordained in June 1981. In 2004 James retired as an active pastor due to health issues.