Americus set to build largest community park to honor blind musician Rev. Pearly Brown

AMERICUS, Ga. (WALB) - Americus is building its largest community park and will name it in honor of a Georgia music legend.

The park will honor Georgia Music Hall of Famer Reverend Pearly Brown. This park will feature the largest amphitheater in the region paying tribute to this music legend.

“Americus embraces music because it’s part of our roots, whether we are African American or white we can come together through music. We call it roots music, and blues and gospel, jazz, country music, blue grass. All of these tend to unite people,” Americus Mayor Lee Kinnamon said.

Brown was a blind self-taught artist who showcased his unique talents playing the sly guitar. His work inspired city officials and One Sumter to have his name linked to Americus.

“This is going to be a multi-use park. So, it’s going to be a park that’s open during the day for anyone to enjoy. But we felt like we heard this consistent theme that music needed to be a part of it. Americus doesn’t have a big venue for music, and especially post COVID everyone is looking for outdoor facilities to use,” Bill Harris, One Sumter Board Member, said.

The Kinnamon has one message for Brown if he was here today.

“He would be grateful to see Sumter County uniting behind this project. He certainly understood the power of music to unite people across races, generations, genders and so forth and bringing people together and so forth,” Kinnamon said.

“The overall project will cost three to five million depending on how much of it we are able to complete. That’s just going to depend directly on how much we are able to fundraise. We’ve got a good start, an unexpected, good start. We got a 1.26-million-dollar grant that Senator Jon Ossoff’s office was able to help us get,” Harris said.

City officials and One Sumter are asking the community to help push this project forward, and one way you can do that is by purchasing a brick to help fundraise.

Harris hopes the project will touch the lives of the community being from a small town.

“He always said he wanted to support himself and this was a way he could do it by playing on the streets and collecting money. He supported himself throughout his life by doing this. So, I think that’s an incredible example of no matter what your gifts are figure out a way to use them in this world,” Harris said.

City leaders hope that the family, and others, will be inspired by his work despite his disability.

“Inspiration or should be an inspiration to others who struggle with disabilities and those who have disabilities can overcome these just as Pearly Brown did,” Kinnamon said.

The project will be fully completed sometime in 2025 but city leaders and One Sumter hope to have parts of the project functioning within a year or two.

If you would like to purchase a brick directly, you can click here, or you can send a check to One Sumter.

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