American Explorer🥕🐴's video: Abandoned Nineteenth Century Home with Former Owner Buried in the Backyard

Here we have a last minute explore as I happened to see an article indicating demolition was in this old 1800's house's near future. People that had been there recently stated the house was beyond saving and had been so for the last several years. This is an old plantation house that dates back to sometime in the 1800's. The exact date of construction can't be determined. County records often use a random date when the age of a property is unknown. The most common ones I've seen are 1860 and 1890. An I-house is located next door and is shown as having been built in 1860. The author of one article on the place believes it to be older than that and I believe he is correct. I believe the I-home was the original house for the plantation and the larger house built later. I have seen this in other locations where the original ownership was verifiable. This is speculation though since accurate records are not available which is common on these old houses. The only verifiable and accurate history I've seen on this place only goes back to the 1920's and 1930's which was obtained through the account given by a former resident who was born in the house that is still living. The county in which this home is located thrived during the early 1800's due to the large demand for cotton at the time. Much of the labor was provided by slaves and at the time the majority of the population consisted of slaves. After the war, cotton made a resurgence during the late 1800's until the arrival of the boll weevil in the 1920's and cotton was abandoned once more. A political organizer who will be referred to as "Sam" purchased the home in the late 1960's. Prior to his purchase, he had joined the Air Force. He organized the first civil rights protest in the city where he was stationed in response to the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in which four young girls were killed and twenty-two others injured. He was later appointed as military advisor to the then president of the local chapter of the NAACP. After serving in the Air Force for ten years, he joined Dr. Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Selma, Alabama at the time marches were being organized protesting the voting restrictions placed on black voters. He also became friends with Stokeley Carmichael, a civil rights political activist and organizer. He was involved in many protests and demonstrations across the south, and later became the executive director for the Georgia Council on Human Relations. When he purchased this home, he became involved in the local political process. Even after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, segregation persisted in the area. Sam believed the only way to change that was for the black community to be more involved in local politics which included needing a black majority on the county commission. In the early 1970's, Sam helped elect a majority of black people to the county commission and it was also the first time in the county's history the school board was comprised of a black majority. Sam founded an organization that brought in funding from private sources as well as the Federal government. He found the Federal Housing Administration granted loans to a very low number of black residents. Changes were made and black residents began securing home loans. Low income housing and a catfish farm were built by the organization along with a cement block factory and the only movie theater in town. The organization also gained control of the local hospital. Tensions between escalated resulting in the county seat purchasing fully automatic weapons after threats being made against the local police. Sam responded by purchasing three times as many as well as encouraging black residents to buy rifles and shotguns. The governor mediated an agreement in which both sides agreed to give up their automatic weapons. Scandal came to Sam's organization through questionable land deals and funding being used for other than the intended purposes as well as mismanagement, poor planning, and overspending. The organization went broke with Sam ending up with a negative net worth. All of the businesses it owned were closed. The once thriving town became a virtual ghost town. Sam's real name was not used to protect this home from vandalism as much as possible. It would be very easy to find had his real name been used. This is . All explores are 100% real and unscripted . I do not give out the locations of my explorations or details that might reveal the location unless it’s a well known site. This is to try to preserve the sites from vandalism as much as possible. If you recognize the location in any of my videos, please do not give it away in the comments. Thank you! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/americanexplorer1 Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmericanExplor1