The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, or CCBA, is gearing up to celebrate its recognition by the Georgia Historical Society as the oldest Chinese organization in the state.
The CCBA was formally established in 1882 in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The Augusta branch was incorporated in 1927, amid the growth of Augusta’s Chinese population as the 19th century gave way to the 20th.
“The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of Augusta and the Chinese community here are kind of synonymous,” said CCBA president Gary Tom. “Augusta had the largest Chinese population in the state of Georgia until the 1960s.”
Dr. Raymond Rufo, the association’s historian, traces the Chinese population in Augusta to 1873 when an Indianapolis construction company brought in some 200 Chinese laborers to work on widening and deepening the Augusta canal.
“The Chinese people made a good impression with the Augusta folks,” said Rufo. “After the canal was finished…some of the Chinese persons stayed in the Augusta area.”
As they began to settle in the area, many Chinese families started opening grocery stores, having noticed that there were none in the African American communities.
“Which meant that their living quarters were among the Black population,” said Rufo, who notes the connection to his own history. Rufo’s father moved to Augusta and opened a grocery store after running a laundromat in New York.
The CCBA had an unofficial presence in Augusta since 1915, when the first families of the organization began to settle in the area. Following advice from local leaders, 59 Chinese men signed the petition to charter the association in 1927.
“It’s a meeting place to support the members,” said Rufo, who estimates the membership is approximately 80% Chinese. “We realize that if we only supported our own people, that’s sort of self-limiting. If you’re going to grow, you’re going to have to have an outreach.”
In March of last year, the CCBA of Augusta received a $6,500 grant from the Porter Fleming Foundation toward acquiring a historical marker and hosting a dedication ceremony. In August of last year, the Georgia Historical Society approved the association for a historical marker.
Si-Long Chen, the organization’s youngest board member, began the process to acquire the marker as her project in a graduate grant writing course. A class assignment prompted students to write a grant proposal for a nonprofit.
“I was thinking that the grant was the perfect for the marker, because it [would be] such a historical event, and it would be educational at the same time,” said Chen, who was also part of a committee formed within the CCBA to spearhead its project to get the historical marker. “Not a lot of people realized that we had a Chinese community here in Augusta; people kept thinking Chinatown in New York or San Francisco.”
Chen collected support letters from the Augusta Museum of History, Historic Augusta, the Lucy Craft Laney Museum of Black history, the Augusta University Office of Diversity Inclusion and other organizations the CCBA has worked with to demonstrate its historical significance and community efforts.
The CCBA of Augusta will host the dedication ceremony for the marker on Friday, May 19 at 11 a.m. at its headquarters at 548 Walker St. Among the speakers at the event will be Rufo, who was the first Chinese graduate of Emory University School of Dentistry in 1957, and Carla Wong McMillian, the first Chinese-American justice for the Georgia Supreme Court.
For more information, visit www.ccbaaugusta.com.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
