Susie King Taylor Museum, Freedom Park added to National Park Service network

The National Park Service says it has added the Susie King Taylor Museum in downtown Hinesville and the Susie King Taylor Freedom Park at Jones Creek in Midway to its Reconstruction Era National Historic Network of over 100 sites. 

The addition puts Liberty County’s Taylor-related sites in the same league as Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia and the Center for Civil Rights History and Research at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C., which also were added to the national network Tuesday.

But the park’s renaming and association with an African American historical figure, as well as boat ramp renovations that didn’t make the launch more accessible to larger boats and trailers, have led some area residents to complain. Since the rededication, a sign bearing the park’s new name and Taylor’s image has been stolen and park officials have reported minor vandalism.

National recognition

“We are pleased to add these three new sites to the Reconstruction Era National Historic Network,” said Superintendent Laura Waller, who was present for the park’s April 13 ribbon-cutting ceremony.  “Each one helps us continue the important work of sharing how the nation grappled with integrating newly freed African Americans into the social, economic and labor systems after the end of the Civil War.” 

Congress created the network in 2019, which the Reconstruction Era National Historic Park “collectively manages… but the National Park Service does not manage all individual sites,” according to an NPS press release. The network “shares stories of freedom, education and self-determination during the Reconstruction Era (1861-1900)— the crucial transition period from slavery to freedom following the Civil War—with the public.”

Public historian Hermina Glass-Hill, whose scholarship recovered Taylor’s slender memoir, is largely responsible for the museum, historic markers, and the restoration and renaming of the site where Susie Baker King Taylor’s family fled Gress Plantation in 1862. In 2018, Taylor was inducted into the Georgia Women of Achievement Hall of Fame:

“The story is powerful and transformative in and of itself,” Glass-Hill said. “Here you have this 13-year-old enslaved girl who overcomes the greatest odds to her humanity, and that is finding the wherewithal and the courage and the bravery to actually escape…. Here she is, with other family members, who takes advantage of that moment, that opportunity that she had during the war.”

Taylor, then Baker, went on to join the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops as a laundress, a nurse, and a teacher. After the war, she ran a school for African Americans in Savannah. She is buried in Roslindale, Mass.

“You still have to tell the story because, at its core, it is a story about not just a little Black girl being freed, but it’s a story about human freedom,” Glass-Hill said. “And I think that’s something that resonates with everyone…. It’s a universal story that should resonate with everybody, you know?”

Boat ramp, racial innuendo 

But the park renamed for a girl who escaped enslavement at that very spot also has prompted months of complaints and occasional racial innuendo by some nearby residents who don’t like the name change and claim the park will attract criminals.

Some have made it clear that they don’t like the park’s new name, which does include “Jones Creek.” But Glass-Hill asks why those residents didn’t make their feelings known at the Board of Commissioners instead of on Facebook.

“Somebody could have said, ‘Well, we want to keep it Jones Creek.’ You know what? You should show up. That’s what democracy is about – including your voice in this whole process.”

And some boat owners in the nearby Isle of Wight community have complained that renovations should have included dredging out the creek. Some boat owners say the new parking spaces across from the pier keep larger boat trailers from turning around. Others say that they have no problems launching their boats or maneuvering their trailers.

County engineer T. R. Long had told the Board of Commissioners several months ago that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would have to approve any dredging permit and that it would cost too much. 

While the park is in County Commission District 1 and Isle of Wight is in District 3, it is a county park open to all members of the public.

At the September 18, 2025 Board of Commissioners meeting, District 1 Commissioner Marion Stevens said he’d gotten several calls about parking at the boat ramp. Long explained the ramp improvements included a rollover curb so that owners of smaller trailered boats could turn around and then park their trailers. “The big boats can’t come in and turn around,” Long acknowledged. 

Park plans call for an amphitheater to the right of the boat ramp and a memorial to Susie King Taylor on the left side. The county has plans for a small kayak launch and fishing dock on the river, but no large boat tie-ups, Long added.

“We were very careful to go back and plan for the boat owners so they would still have access,” Chairman Donald Lovette said. “Not a lot, but a few people from Isle of Wight use that.”

“Yeah, there’s only a few hours during the day that you can get in and out,” Long added, due to the shallow depth at the ramp, which is well off the main river channel.

The Sunbury Boat Ramp, which is better suited to larger boats and trailers due to deeper water at the Medway River, larger turnaround, and more parking spaces, is about 13 minutes’ drive from Isle of Wight.

Glass-Hill said she’s heard other comments that are racially-tinged, expressing resentment that the park’s name had changed, complaining about alleged criminal activity in the park, and registering complaints about everything from Juneteenth fireworks to a geocaching event.

While Glass-Hill runs the Susie King Taylor Museum in downtown Hinesville and the Susie King Taylor Women’s Institute and Ecology Center, she points out she has no jurisdiction over the park – Liberty County Parks and Recreation does.

Nevertheless, she said, one nearby resident called her to complain about plans for a Juneteenth fireworks show. 

Then, Glass-Hill said, the woman shifted gears, saying, “‘Well, you know, we’re also very concerned that before, we could pull our boat, and now we don’t have any turnaround.’ I said, ‘Ma’am. I do not take complaints for Liberty County Recreation Division. You call the parks, the recreation department for that. I don’t take that….Have a good day.’”

She added, “My thing is this racial overtone and this exclusion… I understand that it is a park, a Liberty County park that is in a neighborhood, so to speak. But it’s accessible to everybody.”

Vandalism reports

The park has seen several incidents of minor vandalism since the ribbon-cutting. Sometime between May 2 and May 3, according to an incident report filed with the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office by Parks and Recreation Superintendent Paul Martin, the brand-new $2,000 sign in front of the park apparently had been stolen – posts and all.

“While on scene, I observed two holes where the sign had previously been installed,” wrote Deputy Joshua Tilley. “I also observed what appeared to be tractor tire tracks, along with separate vehicle tire tracks, near the location where the sign had been. Photographs were taken on scene and have been attached to this report.”

Tilley added that he searched the immediate area but did not find the five-foot-by-eight-foot sign, which had been set into the ground on two posts in concrete.

Since then, two smaller temporary signs bearing Taylor’s image have been installed, one on each side of the park’s entrance. 

Then on July 2, the Recreation Department posted a video to Facebook that showed a brand-new toilet, sink, and restroom floor smeared with mud and mulch.

“Vandalism inside the bathrooms at Susie King Taylor Freedom Park!” Parks and Recreation’s Facebook page read.  “We offer this as explanation [as] to why some of our facility bathrooms are occasionally locked!”

According to Glass-Hill, “The county is still interested in who did that vandalism.” Security cameras have since been installed at the park. On Thursday, County Administrator Joseph Mosley wrote that no suspect had been caught yet. 

“What I want to get across is that it’s not an exclusive club just for folks who live on Isle of Wight,” Glass-Hill said. “It is a public park that’s paid for by TSPLOST funds and everybody who pays that penny sales tax.”

The Isle of Wight clubhouse, which is for members only, won the county auction for the park’s old playground equipment.

The park’s significance as a historical site, Glass-Hill said, makes it more than just a place to launch a boat or hold a picnic.

This second National Park Service designation, Glass-Hill said, “ties [Taylor’s] story into a greater American story in which people were striving for those ideals in the Constitution for the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is a part of this greater American story. And it happened here in Liberty County.”