Descendants to gather at Matilda’s Garden Juneteenth dedication

TOPICS:
The Bench by the Road

Posted By: Larry Felton Johnson June 6, 2025

Friends of the Concord Covered Bridge Historic District distributed the following announcement:

The Friends of the Concord Covered Bridge Historic District (FCCBHD) warmly invites the public to this year’s Matilda’s Garden Juneteenth Dedication, scheduled at the Silver Comet Trail-Concord Road Entrance at 10 a.m. on Saturday, June 14, 2025.

At the heart of Matilda’s Garden lies the Toni Morrison Bench, created in collaboration with the FCCBHD, Cobb County Parks and the award-winning Smyrna Jonquil Garden Club. Inspired by Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Toni Morrison, the bench echoes her famous words: “There is no place you or I can go, to think about…to summon the presence of or recollect the absences of slaves… There’s no small bench by the road.”

Matilda Ruff’s legacy continues through generations, including her great-granddaughter Tanyah Cotton, who will be the keynote speaker for the dedication of the garden. Ms. Cotton is a distinguished historian and docent at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Congresswoman Lucy McBath will offer special remarks on the occasion.

This symbolic bench and garden not only honor Morrison’s call for remembrance but also recognize Matilda Ruff’s family — Calvin, Zieda, and Rhoda — and the 3,819 enslaved individuals recorded in Cobb County’s 1860 slave schedule, as referenced in The First 100 Years by Sara Blackwell Gober Temple.

Matilda’s former home stood just across Concord Road from this serene and reflective garden. Since the bench’s installation in 2024, the site has become a source of pride and a place of quiet reflection for residents and visitors of the Silver Comet Trail.

“It is heartwarming to see visitors embrace the meditative space at the Bench in Matilda’s Garden,” says Pat Burns, event organizer.

The event highlights Matilda’s Garden and the Bench by the Road Project as part of the ongoing efforts by the Friends of the Concord Covered Bridge Historic District to preserve and elevate African American history within Cobb County’s first historic district — home to its iconic covered bridge, historic mills and residences.