Neighbors on the Canal

Neighbors on the Canal. . , Successive populations of rural, Irish, Chinese, and African-American residents lived adjacent to the second and third levels of the canal, developing a local culture and supporting institutions., Many workers on the Georgia Railroad, the Augusta Canal, and the emerging mills resided in this neighborhood. Drawn by Augusta's emerging industries in the middle of the 19th Century, large populations of Irish residents settled "Dublin," in the vicinity of the second and third levels of the canal., Later the emergence of an African-American infirmary, and developing African American religious groups, reflected the increase in free blacks and slaves in the area., Chinese arrived as laborers for the 1875 canal enlargement, and many of them contributed to the commercial activity of the neighborhood by opening new stores, eating establishments, and laundries., By the turn of the century, this neighborhood became almost a city within a city as the center of African-American culture in East Central Georgia. The neighborhood was the site of many important African American institutions, including the Penny Savings Bank (1910), the Pilgrim Health and Life Insurance Company (1898), and the Burrus Sanatorium (1865). Prominent African-American artists who have come from the neighborhood include opera singer Jessye Norman, rock and roll pioneer James Brown, and writer Frank Yerby., Churches of many denominations are prominent features in the neighborhood landscape, including the Trinity C.M.E Church, started by slaves who attended the (white) Saint John's Methodist Church on Green Street. Lucius H. HOlsey, the fourth pastor of Trinity C.M.E., led the movement to secure a separate denomination for Negroes, which was authorized by a church General Conference in New Orleans in 1870. Other Churches founded in the neighborhood included the Harmony Baptist Church (c. 1870) on Hopkins Street and Bethel A.M.E. (c. 1888) on the corner of 9th and D'Antignac streets., In recent times, the neighborhood has become known as "Laney-Walker," named after educator Lucy Craft Laney and theologian Charles Thomas Walker, two early prominent residents.