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Freedom ain't free
Special series: The long road to civil rights in Liberty County , part 9
Glass-Hill
Hermina Glass-Hill

Editor’s note: This is the ninth part of a series examining what life was like for African-Americans in Liberty County before and during the civil rights movement.


Every red-blooded American must know that freedom ain’t free.

Whether during the Civil War in which northern brothers fought against southern brothers over slavery and more than 600,000 men lost their lives or whether in major foreign wars where the combined total casualties is nearly the same it is always befitting to take a few moments to remember the sacrifices by which we live our daily lives so freely. 

Adjacent to the Midway Colonial Museum lays an African American cemetery that dates back to 1868. There are more than 500 marked and unmarked graves including a dozen or so men of honor who served the United States valiantly as enlisted men in the Army and Navy in all of the major conflicts since the Civil War. I know this because I love cemeteries and I am a preservation volunteer at Midway First Presbyterian Church Cemetery. 

Last Monday morning what caught my eye while driving past that underground dormitory was the gentle fluttering of Old Glory just as the sun peeked over the tree line. The hard rains made the entire God’s acre (German for churchyard) shimmer like a goldmine. With a scene like that I could not resist stopping to take it all in.

 FREEDOM from 1


daily lives so freely. 

Adjacent to the Midway Colonial Museum lays an African American cemetery that dates back to 1868. There are more than 500 marked and unmarked graves including a dozen or so men of honor who served the United States valiantly as enlisted men in the Army and Navy in all of the major conflicts since the Civil War. I know this because I love cemeteries and I am a preservation volunteer at Midway First Presbyterian Church Cemetery. 

Last Monday morning what caught my eye while driving past that underground dormitory was the gentle fluttering of Old Glory just as the sun peeked over the tree line. The hard rains made the entire God’s acre (German for churchyard) shimmer like a goldmine. With a scene like that I could not resist stopping to take it all in.

Given that there are decedents at this burial ground who were born enslaved on various plantations throughout Liberty and surrounding counties, this burial place may very well contain the remains of black soldiers who escaped slavery and fought for the Union Army in the Bureau of Colored Troops beginning in mid-1863. 

But that’s another story for another day.

Quiet and somber, it was as if the erect headstones decorated with American flags were beckoning me to “come and read.” And I did. 

I sauntered upon the graves of the Bacon and McGeth brothers. Curious about who they are I jotted down the information on their headstones to research when I returned home. Please pardon me for switching between past and present tense, but it’s like the great American writer William Faulkner said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

Julius Bacon enlisted in the U.S. Army Oct. 27, 1917 as a Pennsylvania private (Co. A, 506 Engineers) and on the same day Remus Bacon was also inducted as a private (Co. E. 368 Infantry). 

Around 1917, 22 year-old Julius and his 20-year old brother Remus, the oldest two of four sons born to farmers Adam and Emma Holmes Bacon left McIntosh (now Midway), and found their way to Philadelphia, Penn. No doubt they were a part of the push and pull factors of the Great Migration —  the movement of more than 6 million African Americans out of rural southern towns to northern cities between 1910 and 1970. Their primary destinations were big cities like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit.   

Pushed by the proliferation of Jim Crow laws, disenfranchisement, racial violence, and the boll weevil, and pulled by economic opportunities generated by President Wilson’s decision to enter World War I and the high demand for workers as well as the Black Press (Chicago Defender and Pittsburgh Courier newspapers), Julius and Remus most likely saw Philadelphia as a gateway to the American dream: better schools, jobs, housing conditions, and the right to vote.

According to local genealogist Rose S. Mullice, “On July 17, 1918, 25 African American men from Liberty County were called up all at once for the local draft board for World War I. And black men did not shy away from what was required of them as American citizens. They themselves experienced racial discrimination on the homefront as well as enlisted men. But they served. And what is interesting is that no matter where African American people migrated during that era, nearly all of them made preparations to have their bodies returned to Liberty County to be buried. People who moved away from home wanted their bodies to be returned home for burial because they believed their spirits would wander and they would not be at peace if he or she were not buried at their home place.” 

Nine months after enlisting Remus was killed in action overseas. Emma received her son’s body. 

His is not a military headstone; however he is buried in a family plot in the cemetery along with his father Adam, and brother Plymouth. Julius died in 1945. 

Following my visit with the Bacon brothers, I noticed flags flying at brothers Solomon and Willie Glen McGeth headstones. 

They were drafted into the U.S. Army at Fort Benning in 1942. Forty-two year old Private Solomon McGeth (Georgia, PVT 907 AB SCTY BN World War II) enlisted on Nov.  24, 1942 and his younger brother Willie (Georgia PVT US Army World War II) on Dec. 27, 1942 at the age of 32. 

I know that life these days has us all busy to the point where it seems as if we cannot spare mere seconds to barely breathe. I would suggest an occasional pause to remind ourselves about what makes America a great place to live. Freedom! 

Thank you to those men and women in the American armed forces who sacrifice their lives every day for you and I. That’s the cost of freedom.

Grant-Hill is a historian and executive director of the Susie King Taylor Institute and Ecology Center in Midway.  

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