Pin Point, Georgia

Coordinates : 31°57′11″N 81°05′33″W  /  31.95306°N 81.09250°W  / 31.95306; -81.09250
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Pin Point, Georgia
Pin Point, Georgia is located in Georgia
Pin Point, Georgia
Map showing the location of Pin Point, Georgia
Coordinates: 31°57′11″N 81°05′33″W  /  31.95306°N 81.09250°W  / 31.95306; -81.09250
Country United States
State Georgia
County Chatham
Elevation
[1]
13 ft (4 m)
GNIS feature ID 332668 [1]

Pin Point is an unincorporated community in Chatham County , Georgia , United States; it is located 11 miles (18 km) southeast of Savannah and is part of the Savannah Metropolitan Statistical Area . [2] Pin Point is 1 mi (1.6 km) wide and 1.6 mi (2.6 km) long, and lies 13 feet above sea level. The town is best known for its longstanding Gullah -speaking community, and being the birth place of U.S. Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas . [3]

A rural settlement founded by freed people after the abolishment of slavery post- Civil War , [4] it was settled in the 1890s by people from nearby Ossabaw , Green, and Skidaway Islands. [5] In 1897, they founded Sweetfield of Eden Baptist Church. [6] In 1926, as part of a school-building initiative for African American children in the South?who at the time only had access to underfunded, segregated schools?a Rosenwald school was built in the Pin Point community. [6] [7]

The town lies on the edge of Shipyard Creek, a branch of the Moon River. The surrounding land has large oak trees and coastal marshes, as well as crab and oyster habitats. [6] The main employer in the community was crab and oyster canning from the 1920s through the 1980s. [5]

Pin Point remains a small, predominantly African American community that has a well-established Gullah community. The Gullah people have been able to preserve many cultural connections to their origins in West Africa , where many of their ancestors were captured and then enslaved in the United States .

Gullah , the only English-based, Afro-Indigenous creole language in the United States, is spoken in Pin Point. [3] It is unknown how many native speakers there are in the town, but along the Southeastern seaboard there are about 5,000 semi-speakers and 300 native speakers. [3] Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a native speaker of Gullah (then called Geechee). [8] He has attributed his silence on the Supreme Court to his self-consciousness speaking in an all-white school as a teenager, where classmates made fun of him for not speaking “ standard English .” Pin Point Heritage Museum, once the Varn and Sons Oyster and Crab Canning Factory, is devoted to the Gullah/Geechee culture and community. [5]

References [ edit ]

  1. ^ a b U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Pin Point, Georgia
  2. ^ "Pin Point, Georgia" . Hometown Locator . Retrieved September 13, 2022 .
  3. ^ a b c Wolfram, Walt (2021). "Gullah language" . Endangered Language Project .
  4. ^ Mayer, Jane; Abramson, Jill (November 6, 1995). Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas . Plume. p. 33. ISBN   978-0-452-27499-0 . Retrieved October 30, 2011 .
  5. ^ a b c "Pin Point Community" . Georgia Historical Society. June 16, 2014 . Retrieved March 27, 2022 .
  6. ^ a b c Freeman, Michael (May 5, 2018). "The Story of Pin Point, Georgia" . Retrieved September 14, 2022 .
  7. ^ "Fisk University Rosenwald Fund Card File Database" . Retrieved September 14, 2022 .
  8. ^ "In Thomas's Own Words" . Educational Cyper Playground . New York Times. December 14, 2000 . Retrieved March 27, 2022 .

External links [ edit ]

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