Transition

Transition. . , Once the legal foundations of racial segregation crumbled and Augusta officials adopted an active urban renewal campaign, the historic neighborhood surrounding Springfield church gave way to new development and construction. While church members entertained suggestions to move the congregation to growing newer parts of the city, they elected to remain in the old Springfield community at the corner of Twelfth and Reynolds Streets. They had remained committed to preserving and promoting the church's remarkable history. In 1982, the St. John Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Eight years later, the brick edifice was added to the Register., In 2002, hundreds gathered across the street from the historic sanctuary to dedicate the Springfield Village Park. Richard Hunt's soaring sculpture the Tower of Aspirations, awakens the past by rendering a sense of the lives and events that shaped Springfield Village from colonial times to the present., (captions) , Sketch of the 1897 Springfield Baptist Church Sanctuary , Credit: Ray Baird as published in Cashin Book Old Springfield Date: 1993, Nineteenth Century vine of African American housing, Augusta Richmond County area. The early Springfield landscape probably resembled this kind of loosely organized village or hamlet containing a few buildings surrounded by much vacant land. (New South Association study of Springfield) , Courtesy of the Augusta Museum of History Date: late 1800s