BROOKHAVEN, Ga. — A group of 12 women decided they would weave a better future for their families by working together to fundraise and build.
The women, all members of a sewing club, made that decision in the late 1940s.
The women worked together to raise money and bought land to build the first schoolhouse for Black children in Lynwood Park.
Channel 2’s Lori Wilson shared how the Twelve Ladies Sewing Club members were honored during Black History Month in Brookhaven for their efforts.
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“Lynwood Park was one of the first African American communities in DeKalb County,” Lynwood Park Historian Chip Jones said.
Jones isn’t the only unofficial historian of Lynwood Park, but his mother was a member of the Twelve Ladies Sewing Club, a group honored in February for how they knit together one of the oldest Black communities in the county, one fundraiser at a time.
“My mother’s name was Bertha Jones,” Jones told Channel 2 Action News. “She was a very giving person and she was very civic-minded. She was a member of the PTA, she was a member of the AME church.”
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Bertha Jones, along with her sister Idele Jones and 10 other women, made up the Twelve Ladies Sewing Club, but they didn’t just make quilts.
The ladies raised money, $1,500, to buy the land for what would be the first schoolhouse for Black children in their community.
In 1948, they deeded the four acres to the board of education, and a nine-room schoolhouse was built.
Idele Jones’ son Wallace Jones said giving was their spirit.
“She wanted the best for us and she worked very hard to do it,” Chip Jones said.
Michael King, the director of Parks and Recreation in Brookhaven, told Channel 2 Action News that the city honored the Twelve Ladies Sewing Club because of the role they played in creating community.
“Especially right now, it’s important to know our history and pay attention to that and understand where we’ve come from,” King said. “It brought the community together because they formed a PTA and everybody rallied around the school.”
King said it was a point of pride for the remaining children of the women who formed the sewing club who could celebrate their mothers’ legacy all these years later.
“The people that remain, we look back and we’re actually standing on the shoulders of those individuals,” King said. “All obstacles can be overcome with perseverance and persistence and determination. They were committed to what they were doing.”
Miss Minerva Bennett organized the Twelve Ladies Sewing Club, the women also raised money for street lights and to put telephone service in the community.
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