Harlem Renaissance Project

10/15/2026

A little Albany history for your timeline.

In 1952, the State of Georgia needed a film to teach midwives how to safely deliver a baby. The filmmaker interviewed more than twenty women before he found the one he wanted. He picked Mary Frances Hill Coley of Albany.

Everybody called her Miss Mary.

She was born in Baker County in 1900, left school after the third grade, and came to Albany in 1930. Over the next thirty years she delivered more than 3,000 babies across Dougherty, Lee, Mitchell, and Worth counties. Black families and white families, in the middle of the segregated South. She stayed for days after a birth to cook, wash, and file the paperwork so the child would exist on record. If a family couldn't pay, she took what they could afford.

The film they made with her, All My Babies, was used to train midwives across the South and then around the world. In 2002 the Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry. In 2007, 150 of the people she delivered came back to Albany for a reunion.

This is the kind of legacy we're building on. Long before there was a Legacy Wellness Center, there were people in this community who showed up for their neighbors when nobody else would. Miss Mary was one of them. The work happening in Harlem today is a continuation of theirs, not a replacement for it.

Learn more at harlemrenaissanceproject.com

Film: All My Babies (1952), dir. George C. Stoney, Georgia Department of Public Health. Library of Congress, Motion Pictures, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division.

10/07/2026

Stay ready. Stay healthy. 🤧

09/22/2026

Welcome to everyone who's new here. We just wanted to re-introduce ourselves.

The Harlem Renaissance Project is a multi-phase revitalization of Albany's historic Harlem District. Not one building. A neighborhood.

Phase One is the Legacy Wellness Center. 14,100 square feet bringing health and wellness together in one place - Samaritan Clinic, dental, behavioral health, research, and community space. Those doors are open.

Phase Two is underway: 44 apartments, a food hall, a restaurant and event space, offices. Phase Three brings live/work townhomes along West Oglethorpe.

Harlem had all of this once. Doctors, dentists, pharmacists, business owners, churches. Generations of people who built something here. We are not trying to recreate that. We are writing the next chapter of it.

Give this a few minutes and you'll hear where it's headed. Streets with people on them. Cars outside a restaurant on a Sunday. Children, parents, grandparents. A community that knows exactly where it came from. Stay with us. There is a lot more coming.

Reclaim. Restore. Reinvigorate.

harlemrenaissanceproject.com

09/22/2026

This is where the vision becomes real, people walking through the doors and receiving consistent care right here in the neighborhood. Proud of you, Legacy. 💛

A primary care home is more than a place you visit when you're sick. It's a trusted place for routine checkups, preventive care, ongoing health concerns, follow-up visits, and help understanding what comes next.

Inside Legacy Wellness Center, the Samaritan Clinic is working to provide that kind of consistent, relationship-centered care for our community-helping patients care for their health before a concern becomes a crisis.

Samaritan Clinic is currently seeing patients. To schedule an appointment, call (229) 888-7420. Walk-ins are also welcome.

Located at 314 Oglethorpe Ave, Albany, GA 31707
www.legacywellnesscenter.com

09/17/2026

Dr. William G. Anderson came to Albany around 1957, choosing the place where he saw the greatest need. He opened a medical practice and cared for families many others would not serve. He also helped open Harlem Cut-Rate Drugs, so Black patients could fill their prescriptions without facing discrimination.

He was one of the Harlem Healers.

In 1961 he became president of the Albany Movement. Because he ran his own practice, no one could take his income away for speaking out. He invited Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rev. Ralph David Abernathy to Albany and was jailed alongside them. He went on to become the first African American president of the American Osteopathic Association.

Dr. Anderson passed away on August 16, 2026, at the age of 98.

The Legacy Wellness Center stands on the ground he and the other Harlem Healers served. Care close to home is not a new idea in Harlem. We are continuing it. Rest well, Dr. Anderson.

08/13/2026

A full-circle moment for Harlem. 💛 For 18 years, the Samaritan Clinic has cared for our community with one simple mission: making sure our neighbors have somewhere to turn when they need care. Now, that mission has a new home right here in the Historic Harlem District. We’re proud to welcome Samaritan Clinic to the Legacy Wellness Center, and even prouder of the history, service, and heart they bring with them. This is what it looks like when a legacy of care comes home.

Appointments are required. Call 229-436-5731 to schedule.

Eighteen years ago, their story started in a small brick building.

In 2008, the Samaritan Clinic opened its doors in a building provided by Phoebe Putney. It was born out of Mt. Zion’s health ministry and a simple, urgent conviction: no one in Albany should go without care because they can't afford it.

At the time, roughly 1 in 5 of our neighbors in Dougherty County had no insurance at all. So volunteer doctors and nurses showed up. They treated diabetes, hypertension, and asthma. They caught things early. They found surgeons for patients who had nowhere else to turn. And year after year, the Samaritan Clinic quietly became the safety net for Albany, the go-to place for the uninsured and underinsured.

It was neighbors taking care of neighbors.

For over 18 years, the clinic carried that torch, the same torch lit by Harlem's healers generations before, when this district's own doctors, dentists, nurses, and midwives cared for a community that couldn't get care anywhere else. In 2025 alone, the Samaritan Clinic served 918 patients.

And now, the torch comes home.

The Samaritan Clinic is officially open at the Legacy Wellness Center, Phase 1 of the Harlem Renaissance Project, in the heart of the Historic Harlem District. Same mission. Same heart. A new home built for it: primary care, preventive screenings, vision, dental, medication assistance, and care coordination, all under one roof, alongside behavioral health and a genomics research lab with the Morehouse School of Medicine.

From a borrowed building to a permanent home. From a safety net to a cornerstone. Eighteen years of showing up, and the Samaritan Clinic is just getting started.

Appointments are required. Call 229-436-5731 to schedule your visit, and share this post with anyone in Albany who needs care.

Reclaim. Restore. Reinvigorate.

08/12/2026

A little Harlem history for your timeline.

Did you know the Albany Civil Rights Institute, Old Mt. Zion Baptist Church, and Shiloh Baptist Church are all located right here in Albany’s historic Harlem District?

These places hold an incredible piece of Albany’s story and help preserve the history of the Albany Movement and the people whose courage helped shape the Civil Rights Movement far beyond our city.

If you’ve never visited, add this one to your list. There’s a lot of history to discover right here in Harlem.

08/11/2026

We know we’re a little biased, but we love seeing Samaritan Clinic in the spotlight. Thank you, Downtown Albany, for helping spread the word!

And to our community: Samaritan Clinic is officially open at the Legacy Wellness Center and ready to serve. Appointments are required, so please call 229-436-5731 to schedule your visit.

We’re excited to welcome you through the doors and connect you with care right here in the neighborhood.

07/31/2026

From vision to reality. What was once an empty building is now the Legacy Wellness Center, the completed first phase of the Harlem Renaissance Project. This transformation represents more than a renovated building. It's the first visible step in a much larger vision for Harlem, and it's only the beginning.

Thank you to everyone who believed in the vision and helped make Phase 1 a reality.

07/28/2026

Momentum is building across the neighborhood.

The continued revitalization of the Ritz Cultural Center is another exciting step for this historic corridor. Projects like this help preserve Albany’s rich history while creating new opportunities for arts, culture, and community for generations to come.

We’re excited to see our neighbors moving forward and look forward to the continued transformation happening throughout the Harlem District and Downtown Albany.