In rural Wilkes County, Cherry Grove Baptist Church looks like a simple brick country church with a small cemetery, but its story runs much deeper. Founded in 1875 by members of Springfield Baptist in nearby Washington, Cherry Grove began as a brush arbor before being replaced by a log building and later the frame sanctuary that still stands beneath its brick veneer.

Behind the cemetery sits a rare piece of Georgia history—a one-room schoolhouse, built around 1910 to educate African American children in the local community of Cohentown. Cherry Grove School operated until 1956, part of a broader movement after emancipation when Black families, long denied education, organized schools through their churches. Counties sometimes supplied teachers or worn textbooks, but communities built, furnished, and sustained the schools themselves.

Cohentown itself was established in 1881 when Peter Arnett, a formerly enslaved man, purchased 62 acres of land. The community flourished with its own cemetery, which was later lost to time until rediscovered through archaeological study. Researchers have since identified more than 60 burials there, most unmarked—reflecting the poverty of sharecropping families who often could not afford carved headstones.

By the early 21st century, Cherry Grove’s schoolhouse was deteriorating. In 2015, local leaders organized Friends of Cherry Grove Schoolhouse, a nonprofit dedicated to its preservation. Their efforts secured listing on the Georgia and National Registers of Historic Places and recognition on the Georgia Trust’s “Places in Peril” in 2021.

Today, Cherry Grove Baptist, its cemetery, and its schoolhouse remain powerful symbols of resilience, community, and the pursuit of education in the face of hardship.