As Savannah’s homeless population continues to grow with more than 1,000 residents who are unsheltered, the Salvation Army has proposed a transitional use shelter in west Savannah to aid nearly 200 of those residents. The site of the proposed shelter has caused controversy due to its proximity to the location of The Weeping Time, which is believed to be the largest sale of enslaved people in U.S. history.
The site’s painful past along with a surrounding community that is already fighting 90% poverty rates in some areas and an urgent need to address homelessness has sparked debate and impassioned pleas among city officials, advocates of the unsheltered and local historians.
For several days in early March 1859, rains fell violently on the Ten Broeck race track in what is now west Savannah. During that time more than 400 enslaved people were sold to pay off the debts of plantation owner Pierce Mease Butler.
The rains only stopped after the last slave was sold. The auction would thereafter be known as The Weeping Time.
“As the last family stepped down from the block, the rain ceased, for the first time in four days, the clouds broke away, and the soft sunlight fell on the scene. The unhappy slaves had [sic] many of them been already removed, and others were now departing with their new masters,” New York Tribune journalist Mortimer Q. Thomson wrote of the auction, which took place on March 2 and March 3, 1859.
Without divulging how he would vote, Savannah Mayor Van Johnson presented what he described as the facts regarding the land the Salvation Army wants to purchase in West Savannah for its proposed transitional shelter. I wanted to take the opportunity to present the facts as they are, as I know them, and the council will vote the way that they will vote on Thursday, and then we will move on, Johnson said. The time that we vote will be the time that we show our opinion on this. And so I ll let my vote do my talking.
Johnson said that there has been much misinformation, diversion, and in some cases, downright lies about the situation. He laid out the facts as he knows them.
The due diligence took less than the requested 30 days and the item is once again on the council’s agenda.
In his report, which is available online on the city s website at savannahga.gov, Brown includes a notation from the city s civil code which states, It is improper and illegal for a member of a municipal council to vote upon any question brought before the council in which he is personally interested.
According to the most recent filing for 2020 with the Georgia Secretary of State, Lanier is still listed as the registered agent for the Ivory Bay Community Development Corp.