Macon mayor wanted NAACP, Daughters of Confederacy to discuss local plaque. Why they haven’t

Months after Macon Mayor Lester Miller said he wanted local NAACP leaders and the United Daughters of the Confederacy to meet about building a memorial for a Black Confederate, leaders of one of those groups say no progress has been made on meeting to discuss the issue.

Macon’s Sidney Lanier 25 chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy — a nonprofit — proposed the idea of building a memorial for a Black Confederate soldier in Macon-Bibb County, and offered to fund it. The county commission approved it, but Miller halted the plan. He said he wanted the Macon-Bibb County chapter of the NAACP and the United Daughters of the Confederacy to meet before moving forward.

The plaque would honor Charley Benger, a Black Confederate non-combat soldier who played the fife, or a small flute, for the Macon Volunteers 2nd Battalion in the 1800s, according to previous reporting by The Telegraph.

NAACP not interested in discussing memorial

The NAACP and United Daughters of the Confederacy still have not met, now two months later.

Miller initially asked Gwenette Westbrooks, president of the NAACP’s Macon chapter, to meet and discuss the matter, but never followed up beyond an initial text message, Westbrooks said.

Even if they did, the NAACP has little interest in talking about the issue and doesn’t plan to meet with the mayor or the nonprofit.

“We’re not going to meet with the Confederate group because we were not a part of the original conversation. We don’t know what that conversation was,” Westbrooks said.

Westbrooks also said she wasn’t informed about plans for the memorial ahead of time, and that Benger was a slave.

“We don’t condone any type of slavery,” Westbrooks said.

After some backlash from commissioners and the public in October, Westbrooks felt Miller only reached out to her to “calm the community down, and he never said anything else about it.”

Chris Floore, the county’s chief communications officer, says the county has no part in arranging the meeting and that both groups had previously agreed to discuss the matter.

“It is my understanding that everyone wants to sit down and talk, but again, that’s outside of us,” Floore said. “Macon-Bibb County is not going to facilitate that meeting.”

Miller said during a commission meeting on Oct. 15 that he wanted everyone to meet.

“I’ve requested members of the (United) Daughters of the Confederacy as well as local African American leaders and NAACP to facilitate a meeting to discuss the particular request in more depth, of which time we’ll hold off on any decisions ... until such time that we get a report,” he said.

Miller told commissioners he would announce what comes of that meeting “if and when it were to come back.”

Miller didn’t comment on the issue. The county referred The Telegraph to each organization for more information.

Daughters of the Confederacy still wants to meet

The United Daughters of the Confederacy told the county it still wants to meet with the NAACP, but called on the county to help organize it.

Renee Sullivan, past president of the local chapter, expressed similar concerns Friday about a lack of communication from the mayor after he paused the plaque’s approval.

Like Westbrooks, Sullivan also received notice via email from Miller in October, which said he would set up a meeting between the two groups.

Sullivan said she emailed Miller again, after she read The Telegraph’s story Tuesday. She asked if progress had been made in organizing the meeting, but Miller still had not responded to her by Friday afternoon.

“I saw in the article that Chris Floor said that the city had no part in scheduling the meeting, but that’s not what the email (from Miller) said,” Sullivan told The Telegraph.

Sullivan referenced Westbrooks’ quote, which disavowed slavery.

“(Westbrooks) said they don’t condone slavery, and neither do we,” Sullivan said. “We’re not a racist organization like we’ve been tagged.”

She also said those who dub the Confederate group as racist are amplifying “faulty stereotypes ... discrimination and prejudice.”

“All of this stuff is a moot point and that is not who we are,” Sullivan said. “We have African American members.”

Sullivan said she hopes the plaque can change “the national narrative” of how others view Black members of the Confederacy.

“If they really want diversity, equity and inclusion, then they need to practice what they preach,” Sullivan said.

This story was originally published December 17, 2024 at 1:12 PM.