L.J. Harrison Living Here Feature

        Toccoa’s L.J. Harrison has severed this community in many ways since first moving here in 1977, including working as an educator and being the first black city commissioner and Mayor of Toccoa.

     Harrison started clubs at Stephens County High School to encourage better race relations. Before coming to Toccoa, he participated in the Civil rights movement in Atlanta. He served on several boards in Toccoa and taught for 40 years.

     In 1975, Toccoa was an all-white Commission with three chairs, and an amendment was added to the charter to add another two chairs. Harrison said he had decided that if the amendment happened, he would run for one of those seats. He ran and won with 75 percent of the vote for his first three-year term, according to Harrison. “I was accepted on the commission with no problems; it was a good commission,” Harrison said.

    While at the high school, Harrison taught Social Studies and formed the Black History Club, but due to the name, it was not very popular with the white students, according to Harrison, so another club was formed, the Outreach Club. In his last year at Stephens County High School in 1997, the two clubs merged to become the Unity Club. “The club is still operating today. It was slow progress to get recognized and change things, but things got better over the last 20 years,” Harrison said.

    Harrison also taught at Truett McConnell College in their off-campus program for 25 years. He taught American History for that program and traveled all over teaching two nights a week. Harrison is now retired and still living out in the county. “Toccoa has always been progressive and good at planning for the future. When I got on the commission, our budget was $2 million, and now it's $35 million and still balanced. I’m proud of the progressiveness and the looking towards the future.”