Galleries

During the early years of Harlem, segregation was the law. African American students were not allowed to attend school at the Academies (single building public schools for all grades). The Public school system did not make any arrangements for the learning of African American children. The Churches in the local area took it upon themselves to band together and provide an excellent education to our local black community. These schools were generally in one or two-room schoolhouses.

In 1956, the public school system built two new brick schools one for African American students and one for White students. The segregation continued through the mid to late 1960s. Integration of the school system happened over a period of years and depended on the students' age.  

Today, Harlem and Columbia County Schools are 100% integrated, and the process went more smoothly than in some areas of Georgia, thanks in large part to people such as Mary Sanders

A set of three bulletin boards from Tracy-Luckey Pecans one of the businesses exhibited in the Harlem History Museum. Tracy Luckey was a major part of the Harlem economy beginning in 1892 as Lucky Lady Pecans. In 1937, Mr. Francis  Williams Tracy took over the business from his parents, Arthur Tracy and Ruth Reveille Tracy, 1937, after a train accident that severely injured his father.  Mr. Tracy had a childhood friend who was considered a people person. Both men were “smart as a whip.”  They stayed friends their entire lives. In 1946 after WWII, Mr. Marion W. Luckey Sr. joined the business. The business was reincorporated as the Tracey Luckey Pecan Co. in 1950. 

It was sold intact to San Saba Pecans in 2010. San Saba retrofitted the plant, making repairs that the past few years' financial difficulties had made impossible. San Saba kept the plant, warehouse, and store going until the summer of 2018. During that summer, San Saba Pecans shut down the Tracy Luckey plant, warehouse, and storefront in stages discontinuing the Lucky Lady Pecans line of Pecans. These changes laid off most of the workers. Many of those workers had to seek jobs elsewhere.

The New Museum. 

The Harlem Museum and Welcome Center. Home of the Laurel and Hardy Museum of Harlem Georgia. Resides in the revitalized Columbia Theatre in Downtown Harlem at the corner of 221 and 78 (the only red light in town).  All new exhibits in the new building.  We rotate the exhibits approximately quarterly.

Georgia Railroad was a significant part of Harlem from the founding through when both passenger and freight trains started passing through instead of stopping in Harlem. Today the train still passes through town at least once to twice per day.