What I took away from Macon’s Juneteenth celebrations | Opinion
Juneteenth is a day that is widely celebrated by African Americans, but in the organic universe in which we live, every one of us really ought to celebrate the abolition of slavery some 161 years ago.
One of the Juneteenth events this year featured Harold Michael Harvey, a Macon native who has chronicled much of the city’s local history, and former mayor C. Jack Ellis.
Harvey is the author of several books and numerous opinion pieces, so I was anxious to hear his thoughts at one of this year’s events, moved to the historic Douglass Theater, which was built by a Black entrepreneur in 1921. White political forces in the 1970s were just days from taking a wrecking ball to this showplace, now a widely used home for music, theater, films and civic events.
The invitation to this year’s forum proclaimed that the discussion would focus on the recent Supreme Court ruling gutting the 1965 Voting Rights Act and on the insights to be gained from Harvey’s book “Fantasy Five: An Unimaginable History — The Election of Macon’s First Black Councilmembers,” an epoch-making event 10 years after.
Harvey followed up the Juneteenth forum in Macon with a Substack article on this year’s events. He acknowledged that while the discussion between him and former Mayor Ellis opened the event, it soon moved to something “deeper.” Harvey applauded that Ellis, speaking about reparations, brought his grievances directly to Mercer University and the Peyton Anderson Foundation.
Far more Maconites need to read Harvey’s book, especially the preface. Too many of us are woefully ignorant of our racial history. I’ve seen Harvey’s “Fantasy Five” at Bear Books as well as at the public library. Harvey’s recounting of Macon’s racial history is compelling; it will empower citizens of every color.
Who knows about the plan to turn the historic Douglass Theatre into rubble? What effect does the founding of at least a dozen private schools in the 1960s have on our education system today? Why do so few vote? Has nearby Houston County faced similar problems?
In the final pages of his book, Harvey points out that the “anti-wokeness” campaign of this century is the result of the Black community failing to confront “white fragility” head on. As someone who spent most of his academic career addressing things that today’s conservatives would label DEI, I would contend that our nation needs still to be in pursuit of those laudable goals.
The U.S. Census released recently says that between 2020 and 2025, Georgia’s population grew by more than a half million people, with non-white residents responsible for this growth. During that same period, the state is said to have lost about 25,000 white, non-Hispanic residents.
Clearly, Georgia is changing. As Harvey’s book points out, low and moderate income housing is much in needed. Once a segregated neighborhood suffers from the plague of neglect, kids growing up there often do not do well in school.
Harvey quotes Dr. Thomas Duval as saying that today’s four Black council members have a moral obligation to revitalize communities in low and moderate income neighborhoods. Many current problems could be resolved by the interplay of education, quality housing and wholesome opportunities for recreation.
The fact that this year’s Juneteenth forum was held in the Douglass Theatre — once just hours away from destruction — is a vivid reminder that those vital three issues have come a very long way since the theater was built in 1921. This now popular facility was slated for destruction in the 1970s, but businessman Gus Kaufman (of the Bernd Company) was a leader in the drive to save the handsome facility. His efforts were followed by the creation of the Broadway Arts Alliance.
Let’s learn a lesson from Juneteenth 2026: Let all of us join hands and expand the example of those who have labored to bring our community to where it is today. And, yes, let all of us go to the polls and vote.
Larry Fennelly can be reached at larney_f@hotmail.com.