Down Home

Book excerpt: In 1969 after 20 years living in New York City, Engineer, Photographer & Educator William Henry Mackey, Jr. returned to the rural Georgia backwoods where he had been raised. During the 20 years since he had left, the South had undergone drastic changes, from the Civil Rights Era to the technological advances in farming techniques, yet at the same time it remained the same simple place where he had grown up. Mackey proceeded to photograph and interview friends, family and other residents of the area in an effort to document their history and recollections of an era that was fast fading under the onslaught of 'progress'. The result is a fascinating look into the legacy of rural Blacks in coastal Georgia and the political, technological and social changes they underwent during the century since the Emancipation Proclamation.