By Millard Ives
Staff Writer
 

AMERICUS - Throughout the decades, Sumter County has held on to its small town charm while moving forward with progress.
One 95-year-old man remembers his growing up in Sumter County quite vividly, from a black not being able to stand on certain streets, dropping out of school to help his sharecropping parents and not having the right to vote - to seeing the first black elected as president.

"We have come a long ways, but we still have a lot to accomplish before we are equal, said Willie Wilson Sr., sitting in a room of his home in Americus.
Wilson was born the fourth youngest of six children, and grew up in a sharecropping family. He went to school until his father made him drop out in the 5th grade - to work the farm.
"I wanted to stay in school, but back then that's what a lot of black families did," Wilson said.

As a black, Wilson also was dragged through the toxic racism the Black race endured on a everyday basis - and where they had to know their place. That meant in Americus, there were certain streets blacks couldn't even stand on.

."You didn't stand on the street," said Wilson. "If you had to go to the store, you bought what you needed and went straight home.
"If not, the police would make you leave."

One heinous crime in Sumter County by rabid Whites during Wilson's youth; he was fortunate not to see but was told by his parents. A black man was lynched, tied to a car and dragged and burned.

Wilson said it wasn't clear why the Black man was hanged but that was their form of justice back in those days in Americus.
Wilson eventually got married and had 12 children. Despite high blood pressure and diabetes, he's in fairly good health and spirits.
"I can still get around, I can still walk," he said with a laugh.

Wilson said while he never thought he would live long enough to see a black elected president, racism is still a problem here and in the United States. He considers our youth not staying in school to be the big issue facing blacks today.
"This is something our children are bringing on themselves," Wilson said.