Ananias Nicholas Fluker (1870-1949)

Portrait from the Waycross Journal Herald, August 12, 1949.

  A pioneer black business leader in Clinch and Ware County, Georgia, Ananias Nicholas Fluker was the organizer of the first black settlement in Homerville and, following his removal to the city of Waycross, owned and operated a service station. A past president of the Negro Business League in Waycross, Fluker had a brief flirtation with politics with his service as a delegate to the Republican National Convention of 1912 from Georgia. 

  Born in Georgia in September of 1870 or 1871 (dates vary), Ananias Nicholas "A.N." Fluker was the son of Francis and Ellen Fluker. Young Ananias "spent his boyhood days" in Brooks County and later removed to Argyle, Clinch County, Georgia, where he entered into the copper and barrel making trade. He married sometime in the 1900s to Sarah Jewel Taylor  (1873-1946), and the couple became the parents of three sons, Lee France (1909-1967), Taylor R. (1913-1934), and Nicholas (birthdate unknown).

  After settling in Argyle Fluker was active in the local Baptist church and following his father's death established himself in real estate. Fluker also developed an interest in lumber sales in his region, and his work in these fields later led him to organize an early black settlement in the neighboring town of Homerville. In 1912 he was elected as an alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention in Chicago, where President William Howard Taft was renominated as the party standard-bearer.

 One of thirteen black delegates from Georgia to represent their districts at that convention, Fluker and the Georgia delegation were involved in a train collision on June 17, 1912, involving their passenger train and several empty train coaches located in the yards of Chicago's Union Station. News reports detailing the collision give varying accounts as to Fluker's injuries, with the Chicago Day Book reporting "serious bruises and cuts", while the Brunswick News (shown below) notes spinal and internal injuries. Following the accident, Fluker was removed to St. Luke's Hospital in Chicago, where he recuperated.

From the Brunswick News, June 18, 1912.

    After the convention proceedings concluded, Fluker continued residence in Argyle and in 1916 served as vice-chairman of the 11th district's Republican convention held in Brunswick. In the early 1920s, Fluker and his family removed to Waycross in Ware County, Georgia, and following a trip through Florida, decided to further his business interests by establishing a service station in Waycross. Fluker's Service Station opened in 1927, not only for the "necessity of negro travelers" but also for the "benefit of his boys attending a high school."

   A.N. Fluker achieved further distinction in Waycross with his time as president of the city's Negro Business League, and in that capacity was instrumental "in the construction of additional buildings at both the Northside and Center High School." Long active in the Friendship Baptist Church in Waycross, Fluker would chair that church's board of deacons until his death in 1949. After many years of prominence in both Clinch and Ware County, Ananias Nicholas Fluker died at a Ware County hospital on August 9, 1949, aged 78. He had been preceded in death by his wife Sarah and son Taylor and was interred at the Hazzard Hill Cemetery in Waycross.

From the Waycross Journal Herald, August 12, 1949.