Augusta, Georgia, is home to another community of Chinese Americans who have been there since the 1870s. The story is that around 200 Cantonese-speaking
contract laborers were hired to expand the Augusta Canal during Reconstruction, and while most of them left Georgia after the canal was completed, ten remained.
These ten men convinced relatives to join them, where most opened grocery stores in Georgia and established a community remarkably similar to the Chinese American community in the Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana Delta. In 1927, the Augusta Chinese established the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of Georgia, which still exists today. A historic marker was installed for it last year, which was the first historic marker for an Asian American landmark in the state of Georgia.
The CCBA-GA website gives more information about their community:
"Local Chinese organization to be honored with historical marker." WRDW-TV, 2023. Accessed from WRDW (
https://www.wrdw.com/2023/05/09/local-chinese-organization-be-honored-with-historical-marker/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR3qmcthac460X89Wpfbp_diW11HVDTvYfuThbTGpsRQCXmr3mhGNy6DPp8_aem_dlnmWkmV7HC_N7ctkN1P5w)