Bibb commission passes resolution to name city auditorium after first Black mayor

Bibb County Commissioners voted to change the name of the Macon City Auditorium after Macon’s first Black mayor.

Macon will rename the facility, located at the corner of First and Cherry streets, C. Jack Ellis City Auditorium, if Mayor Robert Reichert does not veto the resolution. The resolution passed 5-4, with commissioners Valerie Wynn, Mallory Jones, Scotty Shepherd and Joe Allen voting against the resolution. Commissioners Bert Bivins, Elaine Lucas, Al Tillman, Larry Schlesinger and Virgil Watkins voted to approve the resolution.

“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,” Ellis recently told the Telegraph.

Jones said he liked former mayoral candidate Stanley Stewart’s idea of named the auditorium Legends Hall to honor all of the musical legends from Macon instead of after Ellis.

“He’s a divisive political character... He did a decent job on housing, but there was a lot of mistrust for the way he did a lot of things,” Jones said.

Commissioner Elaine Lucas defended the resolution by noting some of Ellis’ accomplishments as mayor.

“It just becomes so obvious to this majority Black city that the folks who rise to the highest level of leadership in this community, if they are Black, then they can’t be respected,” she said. “We’ve had people to sit up here and talk about Macon’s first and only Black mayor did nothing. That is absolutely untrue.”

The resolution itself listed several accomplishments of the former mayor including providing approximately $1 million in disadvantaged business loans, improving public and affordable housing, purchasing and revitalizing Terminal Station and establishing the College Hill Corridor.

The mayor has 10 days to sign the resolution or veto the resolution. Reichert can also decide not to sign the resolution, in which case it would pass immediately.

This story was originally published November 18, 2020 at 3:25 PM.