How generations of families and a historic building are preserving black history in Macon

Murdine Height, 92, and her granddaughter, 27-year old Kyla Gwyn, reminisced recently about their memories of the now vacant Bobby Jones Performing Arts Center in Macon’s Pleasant Hill community.

Height remembered the center when it was a church in the 1930s and then in the mid 90s as the place where she dropped off Gwyn for ballet lessons.

“I thought it was amazing for me to come and bring her, see her practice at the same place that I came up at church at,” she said.

Height said her family visited the church often. When she was 6, she sang a solo during the Christmas program.

“I never shall forget, my sister told me when I was a little girl about five or six years old, she remember me standing on the stage singing some song,” Height said. “She said I sang so well she thought I was going to come off the stage.”

Height and Gwyn were among those gathered at the center Saturday for Street Talk: The Bobby Jones Block Party.

Gwyn said when she was at the center, she remembered a teacher coming from Athens, Georgia to teach her and other young black girls ballet.

“I enjoyed just dancing there and getting my stamp for doing a good job,” said Gwyn.

Preserving black history is one of the goals of the 2018 Emerging Cities Champion Tonja Khabir. She was awarded a grant from the Knight Foundation to explore potential uses for the center, which is listed on Historic Macon Foundation’s Fading Five list.

“What we’re trying to do is bring it back to life. We want to make sure that when it is brought back to life that the community has given voice to that,” Khabir said.

She said based on the preliminary surveying of the community, she took the top five answers and presented them to students from the Savannah College of Art and Design.

The students came up with five designs for residents and community members to vote on. All of the designs reflect a multi-use facility that could be used for the arts and other activities.

As Khabir took people on tours of the building, Gwyn played the violin in the background. Gwyn said performing arts shaped her life so she was happy to be there to give back to the community.

“If I can contribute, you never know some little kid walking by might want to play the violin because they see me there,” she said.

Gwyn said the center is needed to give kids an escape. She hopes whatever is built, stays in the community this time. She recalled finding out that the center was closed when she was a child.

“I remember one Saturday, we were all lined up outside and no one was there, “ she said. “We opened the door, knocked and no one was there. It turned out the funding, I guess, had ended.”

She said it was sad to pass by the vacant building because you never know what could have happened had it stayed in operation.

“That’s a vision that will never happen, which is okay, because I found my love of the violin. But what could have been for me and for the other girls had the place still been open,” Gwyn said.

For Height, she also wants to see it being used again for the sake of the community.

“I think it’s grand (to reopen the center) and build whatever they possibly can to upgrade the community,”she said.

Khabir said now that voting on the designs has ended, all of the designs will be put into a proposal and submitted to county officials.

Meanwhile, she said continued advocacy and fund raising from those willing to help is needed to get the center open.

“There are many community members and a few organizations that are interested in moving forward to that conclusion. We are looking forward to seeing what the possibilities of that will be,” Khabir said.