Needmore Community

THE NEEDMORE COMMUNITY – I readily admit that I NEED MORE information on Needmore, but I’ll get the conversation started with what I have. This is essentially what I put together for the Heritage of Rockdale County, GA, book 20 years ago:

Between Green Street and I-20, en route to the VFW, is an old black settlement known as Needmore. How it got that name is a matter of some debate. But according to the late George W. Levett (1927-2004), who was quite familiar with the intricacies of Rockdale history, the first few black families who settled there in the early 1900s “needed more” people to join them. Of course, over time they probably also needed more attention from those who employed them and from local government in terms of sewers, paved streets, lights and so forth.

The community, located down the hill and across the railroad tracks from an older black settlement on Decatur Street (now North Main Street), was originally confined to what’s now Randall Street. But after World War II, when a new road was cut through the area for VFW Post 5290, more families moved to Needmore, fanning out from Randall Street, which was previously called Base Ball Alley and then Hudson Street.

The late Billy Williams believed that his family of Rakestraws and Loyds was among the first to live in Needmore. He was born there on June 10, 1929, in the home of his widowed grandmother, Lula Rakestraw. His mother Ann Rakestraw had been born there in 1912. Lula and her late husband Charlie had moved to Needmore from College Street sometime after the spring of 1900. By 1910 the residents of what was then Base Ball Alley included Rakestraw, Latimore, Edwards and Griffin families. The alley had become Hudson Street by 1920 and, in addition to the Rakestraws, the inhabitants included the Edwards, Griffin, Harris and Bailey families.

Billy Williams, who died in 2010, could recall when the houses were typically four-room wooden structures without indoor plumbing and when the streets were unpaved, turning to mud in a rain storm.

For a time Essie Hamm Robertson (1893-1976), a longtime civic leader and teacher, owned quite a bit of land in Needmore. According to Mr. Williams, her property ran from what’s now Needmore Street to what’s now I-20. When I did research years ago, I noted that the residents at that time included the Bates, Fears, Gilstrap, Hamm, Lett and Webb families.

What’s the story of Needmore now?

Submitted by E. R. Shipp, July 7, 2017 to the Black Heritage of Rockdale County Facebook page