‘A great honor.’ Macon City Auditorium could be named after city’s first Black mayor
A proposal in recent days by some Bibb County Commissioners to name the Macon City Auditorium after Jack Ellis, the city’s first Black mayor, is an honor that the former mayor himself said he could never have dreamed of.
Reached by phone while he was traveling in Africa on Wednesday, Ellis said, “Well, obviously I’ve heard about it. ... I am very humbled and very honored. And more humbled than honored, but they go together.”
A vote on the proposal was expected as early as next week.
Ellis, whose two terms as mayor stretched from 1999 to 2007, recalled his childhood here and how “I didn’t think I would have my name on anything but a tombstone.”
He went on to say, “I could not have imagined as a boy growing in Jim Crow Macon that my name — or anyone that I knew — that their name could be on anything as significant as a historic building like the City Auditorium.”
The proposed new name for the venerable venue at the corner of First and Cherry streets is C. Jack Ellis City Auditorium.
“It’s a great honor to even be considered,” Ellis said, adding that he appreciated those who raised the idea.
“Of course,” he went on, “I’d never advocate anything as such.”
Ellis has been an outspoken proponent of moving Confederate statues in downtown Macon to a local cemetery.
This story was originally published November 12, 2020 at 5:00 AM.