Materials in this collection were created or collected by James Carson Pritchard (1911-1964), and his son, James Warren Pritchard (1939-).

J. Carson Pritchard was a white Baptist clergyman and Director of the “College in the Country” adult education program at West Georgia College. Pritchard Hall, a men’s dormitory built on the West Georgia College campus in 1966, demolished around 2004, was named in his honor.

J. Warren Pritchard was a white Peace Corp volunteer, traveler, psychotherapist, general contractor for a family-owned construction company, and social activist.

J. Carson Pritchard was born on July 2, 1911, to J. Albert Pritchard (1884-1952) and Minnie Webb (1884-1960), of Carroll County, Georgia. He graduated from Carrollton High School in 1926 and in 1935 married Frances Marian Sheats (1911-1972), also a graduate of Carrollton High School. Pritchard obtained a Bachelor of Divinity degree at Andover Newton Theological School in 1938 and served as minister to a congregation in Rhode Island from 1936-1940. In 1940 he returned to the South in order to be closer to his parents and his brother, Harold Pritchard (1919-1951), a carpenter. From 1940-1946 he served as minister to Heflin Baptist Church. In 1946 he and his family moved to Carrollton, Georgia. Ruth "Boo" Billingsley (1915-2010), a maid employed by the Pritchard family when they lived in Heflin, Alabama, moved with the family to Carrollton. Pritchard then served as a Director for Carroll County Service Council from 1946-1952, and accepted a position at West Georgia College as Chaplain and Community Relations Director in 1948.

In 1952-1953, Pritchard was granted a year’s leave to serve as the Associate Director of the People Act Center in State College, Pennsylvania, and to serve on the staff of the American Community Project for New York University and the Fund for Adult Education. Pritchard first met the Director of The People Act (TPA), Elmore McKee, in 1950, when Pritchard was working for the Carroll County Service Council. Pritchard was director for "The People Act: A National Radio Series That Shows People Working Together to Solve Their Local Problems." Returning to the campus of West Georgia College in July 1953, Pritchard served as the Director of Adult Education, known as the College in the County, until his unexpected death in 1964.

Pritchard also served as minister to the congregation at Elim Baptist Church in Newnan, Georgia, starting in 1956. After his death, donations in his memory were contributed to the Kennedy Interfaith Chapel and to the establishment of a scholarship at West Georgia College.

According to a former student of J. Carson Pritchard, Jerry Pickens, Pritchard was key in working towards integration in Carroll County. His integration efforts involved incorporating segregated schools, including Carver High School in Carrollton, in a newly developed Social Sciences fair. In one instance, Pritchard convinced Hotel Carroll in 1962 to host three international vistors from Tanzania, who were visiting West Georgia and needed lodging, thereby integrating the hotel.

His parents-in-law, Warren Harry Sheats (1888-1952) and Irma Brock Sheats (1891-1980), were founders of the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Carrollton, Georgia, and this collection includes some information about this church.

J. Carson Pritchard and wife, who was called Marian, had three children: James Warren, William Stratton, and Marian “Penny.”

J. Warren Pritchard, born December 13, 1939, was a 1958 graduate of Carrollton High School. After college, in June 1962, he volunteered to serve in the Peace Corp in Turkey. Upon returning to the U.S., Pritchard accepted a position at the Southern Regional Council (SRC) in Atlanta and wrote for their magazine, New South, in issues spanning the years 1968-1969. He married Judith A. Stogner, from Waco, Georgia, in June 1972. Pritchard earned a master’s degree in Psychology from West Georgia College in August 1972, and a doctorate from the California School of Professional Psychology in Fresno, California in 1977. Pritchard had a psychotherapy practice in Atlanta for 25 years, retiring in November 2001, after which he joined the Stogner family construction business, Buffalo Creek Construction, which was run by his wife. Judith A. Stogner, born in 1942, was the daughter of Lucille Williams and Hoyt Stogner.