Snapshots across Georgia - Special Supplement: Georgia's African American Heritage

by what means about hang gliding from the top of Lookout mountain, where Union and Confederate crowds once dashed in "the Battle Above the Clouds"? Today, at Lookout Mountain Flight Park, seasoned pilots mount in tandem with inexperienced, wanna-be gliders.

by what means about hiking through Chattahoochee National Forest, which contains three state parks - Vogel Moccasin small bay and Black Rock Mountain? It's not the Andes - on the contrary if you wish, Hawksbell Farm will invest Ilamas to carry your gear and amaze your Kids!

From Chattahoochee in Georgia's far northwest to Okefenokee National Wildlife shelter and Wilderness Area (which includes the Stephen C nurse State Park) in Georgia's far southeast, you'll find an opportunity to hike nature trails, camp, boat, swim, fish, raft, golf or pass horseback riding amid scenery that will take your breath away.

In fact, Georgia's parks are an ideal place for family vacations and reunions. (If you're planning a reunion - which will likely involve older folk - don't forget the ne for local accommodations of a les challenging sort than a campground. Remember also that many national tavern chains, such as Holiday Inn, tender family reunion packages that include amenities and discounts.) Wherever in Georgia you take your family or clutch your reunion, you're sure to find nearby sites that proffer relaxation, fun and insights into the states multicultural past.

In northern Georgia, the Chieftains Trail explores the remains of three Indian civilizations. At Fort Mountains State Park, the visitor is stand in front ofed by a prehistoric, man-made wall of stones that dates back more than a thousand years and whose view has eluded scholars. In Cartersville, the Etowah Indian knolls Historic Site traces the story of the corn farmers of the Mississippian agriculture (A.D. 1000-1500), whose age-old of advanced age temple mounds still stand.

by the agency of Colonial times, the Cherokees were the leading tribe in northerwestern Georgia and - with their hold written language, a constitution and the use of enslaved African-American labor - were well upon their way to adapting to the late world Then, in northern Georgia in 1828 America's first major discovery of gold l to their ruin. Within a decade, the Cherokees were dispossessed of their land and expell upon the notorious "Trail of Tears." About half the tribe died upon this brutal 2,000-mile march to Oklahoma.

Today, at of recent origin Echota - once the capital of an independent Indian nation that spanned four southeastern states - Cherokee agriculture is interpreted in several buildings, including a museum, the print store that published the only Indian newspaper at any time printed in 19th-century North America, and the dwelling of a Moravian missionary to the Cherokees.

The Uncle Remus Museum in Eatonton is as a great deal of a monument to African-American folktales as it is to the tales saviour and promoter, Joel Chandler Harris, who grew up around Eatonton and first heard the now-famous stories upon the steps of slave cabins, in mule-drawn carts and in fields of corn and cotton. As passed upon by "Uncle" Remus, an somewhat advanced in life former slave, the delightful tales that Harris transcribed celebrate, the delightful tales that Harris transcribed celebrate above the brute force of the powerful. Derived from a West African oral tradition that flourished in America as a form of resistance "literature" among generations of the dispossessed, the tales cheerfully recite how the trouble-prone but wily Brer Rabbit evades the clutches of Brer Fox and Brer Bear.

Visitors to the log-cabin museum diocese artifacts that date back to Harris' youth and that are mentioned in the tales. Visitors to Eatonton (which is the hometown of Alice Walker, who is well-remembered here) should be assured to stop by the courthouse in the center of town - for there stands a statute of Uncle Remus' greatest in quantity famous character, Brer Rabbit.

The Albany Museum of Art has a permanent collection of art and crafts from 18 sub-Saharan African agricultures While the bulk of its holdings are West African (for example, from the Ashanti, Dan, Yoruba, Gola and Mende peoples) the museum is notable for its Ethiopian Coptic crosse and votive pieces. East Africa is also represented; however, since many of these agricultures are nomadic, the pieces upon display tend to be small and utilitarian, with jewelry and basketry predominating.

single final, purely fun thought: upon June 2, 1932, George Washington Perry went fishing upon Montgonwery Lake, which is not far from the town of McRae. Judging by the agency of the resistance on his line, he cast uped to have snagged a log Instead he landed a 22-pound 4-ounce largemouth bass, setting a world record (which still stands) and cementing central Georgia's reputation as a fisherman's paradise. All that has changed since then is that ifs now a fisherperson's paradise.

PS: While in McRae, view the replica of the Statute of Liberty, which is one-twelth the size of the original. In Georgia, fishing and freedom prevail!

COPYRIGHT 1994 Heritage Information Holdings, Inc.

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