Family History

Where it all started - The Legacy of Alton Waymon, Mattie Swain Waymon, and Mattie Davis Waymon

Alton, known as Pop-Pop, was the first of nine children born on July 8, 1896, to Mr. and Mrs. Robert Waymon in Ousley, GA. He went home to glory on March 16, 1981.

Alton married Mattie Swain, who was a housekeeper in Georgia. They had four children – Willie (Frank) Waymon, James Henry Waymon, Bobbie Lee Waymon Johnson, and Alma Waymon Roberts. He later married Mattie Davis, also known as "Momma," after his first wife passed away.

Momma was a housewife and Pop-Pop was a farm laborer who worked hard and owned his own home. In the 1940s, Pop-Pop took care of his father, who lived with them under one roof in the family home at 1507 Kingdom Street in Valdosta, GA.

The Census reported members in the family home as Alton Waymon, Mattie D. Waymon, Alton’s father, Bob Waymon, Alton and Mattie’s children, James Henry, Willie Frank, Bobbie, and her husband, Levi Johnson, Alma Waymon, and grandson Alton Johnson (Little Alton). Momma and Pop-Pop also helped raise their granddaughter, Mattie Ruth Waymon Woodson, until she reached the age of 15 and moved to New Brunswick, NJ.

Some family members moved to Jacksonville, FL, and started to build their families. Living in Georgia and Florida was not easy, but they had some good times and stories to tell about their life in the south. They were some very tough (and strong) people to go through and survive racism and oppression in the segregated south.

Our family did not have much back in the day, but they gave us love, taught us how to be hard-working, and believed in the words of the songwriters of the Negro spirituals such as We Shall Overcome. They believed that change would come and that it took a whole village to raise a child. Many of them had limited education, but they were visionaries full of wisdom who freely used their gifts and talents in the community. They taught us how to honor and respect our elders and that we must be strong and never give up.

Many of our ancestors were born into slavery in the 1800s. Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, which freed the slaves, but all slaves did not know they were free until June 19, 1865, also known today as “Juneteenth.” We survived many challenges during those difficult times. Some of those challenges included:

-- The Civil War – which started because of a disagreement between free and slave states over the power of the government to prohibit slavery in the territories that had not yet become states. The war started at Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay on April 12, 1861.

-- The Great Depression – which was a severe worldwide economic depression from 1929-1933.

-- The Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968) – which includes the 1963 March on Washington. Participants marched from the Washington

Monument to the Lincoln Memorial in protest of racism, segregation, disenfranchisement, and Jim Crow laws.

The Waymon Family Legacy continued as family members migrated north to new territory, and sought new opportunities in New Jersey to include jobs, learning, and building the Black community to keep the family together. This migration empowered our family to pursue our dreams for equality, freedom from injustice and segregation, and to achieve happiness.

The Waymon Family Legacy lives on…