Our history · Lincoln State Park, Millen, Georgia
One of the parks Black Georgia built for itself.
Before it was a glamping retreat, this was Lincoln State Park, one of the segregation-era grounds near Millen where Black families could swim, fish, and camp when the state's other parks turned them away.
When the South built its celebrated state parks, that new world of accessible nature was, for Black Americans, largely off-limits. Georgia ran two park systems at once, one for white families, and a separate, deliberately under-funded set of parks for everyone else.
Lincoln State Park, near Millen in Jenkins County, was one of just five such parks in the whole state. It stood alongside George Washington Carver Park near Acworth, Yam Grande near Swainsboro, and a corner of Georgia Veterans near Cordele, the only ground where Black Georgians in this region were welcome to make a fire and stay the night.
The comforts here are modern now, but the spirit we keep is old: everyone is welcome, and the story of who made this place, and why they had to, is told plainly rather than tucked away.
A short timeline
1931–1940s
Two systems, one taxpayer
Georgia formed its State Parks Division in 1931. For decades that system ran on two tracks: the traditional parks catered to white Georgians, while Black families, who paid the same taxes, were barred and pointed instead toward a handful of segregated parks around the state.
1950
Carver breaks the trail
Georgia's first “State Park for Negroes,” George Washington Carver Park, opened on Lake Allatoona near Acworth, run by former Tuskegee Airman John Loyd Atkinson. It proved Black Georgians would come, and opened the door for the parks that followed.
1950s
Lincoln State Park, near Millen
In Jenkins County, Lincoln State Park became the place Black families in this part of Georgia could do the ordinary, precious things segregation denied them elsewhere: swim, fish, picnic, and pitch a tent. Like its sister parks, its buildings and equipment were, by design, never funded to the standard of the whites-only parks nearby.
1964 onward
The law changes
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended legal segregation of public facilities. Georgia's park system integrated after several hard-fought years, a change won in courtrooms and through community activism that named the parks' built-in inequality plainly.
After integration
What became of the land
As the state integrated, its segregated parks were closed, turned over to local recreation departments, or absorbed into other parks. Records for the smaller Black parks, Lincoln among them, grow thin here, part of why keeping this story is worth doing.
Today
Stewardship
We run these grounds as a working retreat and as a keeper of memory. A share of every heritage walk and event goes toward preserving the site and telling its history truthfully.
Note for the site owner: dates and details specific to Lincoln State Park still need local confirmation (Jenkins County Historical Society, Georgia Archives). Verify before publishing.
Add to the record
Did your family know Lincoln State Park? We'd be honored to hear from you.
We're gathering photographs, names, and memories to keep this history whole, the records for the smaller Black parks are thin, and your story helps fill them. Please reach out.
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