In June of this year, the small community of Little Africa in northern Spartanburg County found itself in the middle of the local news cycle amid nationwide protests for racial justice when swastikas and racial slurs were discovered on the neighborhood s signs, guardrails, and bridges. Things gonna change. It don t come when you want it to come, but God gonna let it change, Cora Martin of Little Africa told the Spartanburg Herald-Journal in July, not long after the vandalism had been cleaned up by the community.
And things definitely have changed in the five months since then. The community hasn t seen any more vandalism, but there s still mixed morale, according to resident Sundra Proctor Smith.