Golden Circle Life Insurance Company

The fraternal order behind the company, the Sons and Daughters of the Golden Circle, was organized on July 5, 1950, at Brownsville's First Baptist Church, with Charles Allen Rawls, his relatives and local ministers among its first members. They built thirty-three units across Haywood County before a Memphis pastor began more in Shelby County. In 1951 the group set out to build a hospital for Black patients who could not get adequate care at the county's white hospital. Becoming a stock life insurer in 1958 took $300,000 in treasury bonds, arranged between a Brownsville and a Nashville bank.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tina Turner Museum at Flagg Grove School — 3.7 mi
  The one-room Black school Tina Turner attended in Nutbush, moved to Brownsville in 2012 and opened as a museum in 2014 beside Sleepy John Estes's house.
• Alex Haley House Museum — 19 mi
  The 1919 bungalow in Henning where Alex Haley heard the family stories behind Roots, now a state historic site and museum with his grave in the front yard.

More markers nearby

• Rawls Funeral Home — steps away
• Elbert Williams — steps away
• The Brownsville Raids — steps away
• Fighting for Freedom (Haywood County African American Soldiers) — steps away