Jack Forrester
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Jack Forrester was a former black school located in Alto, a segregated portion of the prison-based Georgia Industrial Institute.
History
A portion of Georgia's black juvenile inmate population was located at Battey State in Rome. In 1951, it and other young black inmates in Georgia were moved to the former Camp Toccoa in Stephens County.[1] The prison population seems to have been moved to Gracewood in Richmond County before 1953.[2]
In 1953, the former tuberculosis sanitarium in Alto was converted into a prison for youths.[3] The move was made by Governor Herman Talmadge to free up space at Gracewood for the education of mentally handicapped children.[2] Habersham County residents protested the move, with Representative T. Sidney Blackburn calling it "a social problem that we can't accurately predict at this time.".[2] It was reported that Talmadge received a suggestion from Habersham to move (return) the prison to Camp Toccoa.[2] Despite the protests, the prison stayed.
Football
Forrester's teams played regular Georgia Interscholastic Association opponents and traveled as far as South Carolina for games.[4]
In the mid-1960s, the team was a state power in Class A. The 1964 Forrester squad won the GIA Class A state championship, defeating Hutto, 26-7 in the final. The final was played at South Habersham High.[5] Forrester's final football team was in 1966, though it was listed as a member of the GIA's District VI, Class A for 1968-70. Georgia Industrial Institute would finish its days in Alto as an integrated juvenile prison.
The name history of the prison schools is unclear. It at one time went by Georgia Juvenile Training Institute and the date of the switch to Jack Forrester is unknown, or if it was ever official. The name comes from Jack M. Forrester, Georgia's state prison director in the 1950s-60s.
Among the inmates of the prison at Battey State and Camp Toccoa was soul singer James Brown.
References
- ↑ Toccoa Record, October 11, 1951
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Northeast Georgian, April 2, 1953
- ↑ The March 26, 1953 Northeast Georgian only mentioned black youth were moving, with the white youth remaining at Gracewood.
- ↑ "35 Young Inmates Refuse to Escape," Florence (S.C.) Morning News, October 10, 1961
- ↑ Northeast Georgian, December 1964