A Keystone Dam and Georgia’s New Ocean - Southern Water, Southern Power - page 72

dustry south, according to Thurmond, because of cheap energy and the region's “freedom
from [labor] strikes.” But Thurmond also supported the Clarks Hill project because it
would provide public recreation space for “the working people, the farmers, textile work-
ers, barbers, [and] mechanics,” the very “people on the street who” did not have the money
to join golf or hunt clubs or buy “fine horses.” Speaking before an Augusta audience famil-
iar with South Carolina's horse country in Aiken County, Thurmond explained that Clarks
Hill would include a “16,000 acre park … for the recreation and enjoyment of the working
man.” At Clarks Hill, Thurmond's archetypal “common man” could enjoy free access to
public space to “hunt and fish” and thus presumably avoid a legacy of conflict over tres-
passing on private land. 47 Moody, Thurmond, and others recognized class divisions among
recreation enthusiasts and leisure-seekers. But class alone was not the only topic in the dis-
cussions about recreational facilities in the Savannah River valley.
Though Moody and Thurmond tipped their hats to the newly proposed waterscape's loc-
al and nonlocal users, they did not limit recreational benefits to white nature seekers and
water lovers. While campaigning for governor in October 1946 and defending the Clarks
Hill project, Thurmond declared the water and energy scheme's recreational aspects as
“one of the most important benefits of the project.” He added, “If the Federal Government
develops the project,” as opposed to the Georgia Power Company, the NPS recommen-
ded “beautiful parks, for whites and blacks, separate parks.” 48 Thurmond should not be
identified as a defender of democratic outdoor recreation. In wooing his white constitu-
ents, what he ultimately promised to white leisure-seekers was that they would never have
to share recreation space with African Americans. 49 Two years later, Corps planners fol-
lowed the NPS report's advice and announced plans for at least two separate swimming,
picnicking, and camping facilities on Clarks Hill's shoreline. In Georgia, the Corps recom-
mended the “Keg Creek Negro [ sic ] Area,” located about thirty miles north of Augusta and
about two miles east of Leah, Georgia (now a day-use area). And in South Carolina, the
Corps recommended the “Hickory Knob Negro [ sic ] Area,” located about two miles south
of Bordeaux, South Carolina, and currently the site of the state's most popular state park,
Hickory Knob. 50
Race, not unlike class, continued to enter recreational planning conversations in conjunc-
tion with Sun Belt water and energy developments. Georgia's state park system was a rel-
ative latecomer to democratic recreation and operating state parks for African Americans.
The state opened its first African American park, George Washington Carver State Park,
in 1950 on land leased from the Corps after operations commenced at the multiple-pur-
pose Lake Allatoona project. Georgia also maintained at least three other parks for African
Americans by 1955. 51 South Carolina's system, on the other hand, followed closely be-
hind North Carolina's and excluded African American visitors between 1934 and 1938. 52
Thereafter, some parks had “Negro [ sic ] Areas,” such as Lake Greenwood State Park, a