LETTER: Former Macon mayor criticizes judges for recusing themselves from Confederate statue case

Dear honorable Judges, I read with great interest and somewhat bewilderment, of your collective decision to recuse yourselves from the legal matter pertaining to the relocation of two confederate statues currently located in our downtown city center to a more suitable location. As you all are aware, a redevelopment plan approved by the governing authority of Macon-Bibb County calls for these statues to be relocated in conjunction with said redevelopment plan.

I write this letter with malice towards none, but with profound disappointment in each one of you. Each of you were elected by the people of Bibb County, and when the time came to sit in judgment of a very worthwhile project, you abdicated your responsibility to the very people who elected you. Instead, you put our collective community’s forward movement together in the hands of one who doesn’t know our community, nor could he care about the opinions of the majority of our population as they relate to these statues.

I was taught in my eighth-grade civics class that we are governed with the consent of the governed. In this case, you have failed the governed, who have spoken loud and clear as to what should happen to these statues and to where they should be relocated.

Your Honors, my family has lived in Macon for four generations. My last name, ‘Ellis’, was derived from my great-grandmother Judy Ellis, who was sold to Macon in 1850 from a Virginia tobacco plantation, to a one John Ellis as a ‘house girl’.

My great-grandmother gave birth to six children, one of which was my grandfather, and he and all of his siblings were sired by my great-grandfather, who was born in Macon and was ‘owned’ by another slave-owner. yet none of his children were legally permitted to carry his last name. Instead, by law, all his offspring had to carry the surname of John Ellis. Had these times been more humane, I would have had my great-grandfather’s surname. I guess you could ask yourself “What’s in a name?”.

I submit to you, that my surname has everything to do with the disrespectful and dehumanizing system of slavery which these statues represent. After all, the men who fought for the Confederacy were fighting to keep both mine and others’ ancestors enslaved. Thus, a statue memorializing their treasonous cause has no place in our city center, and I would have expected that at least one of you would have the courage to stand on the right side of history. However, all of you decided to sit in your beautiful black robes on the wrong side of history, in silence.

I am especially disappointed in the two African American members who sit on the Bibb County superior court and chose to do nothing to bring forth progress and unify our citizens. As Macon’s first and thus far only African American mayor, and a descendent of those enslaved in this very county, I can attest that we have made significant progress. However, your decision to recuse yourselves in such an important matter pertaining to race relations is evidence that we have much work to do.

In closing, to use a sports metaphor, each of you “missed the opportunity to make a layup” or perhaps even a slam-dunk for closing our racial divide, by abdicating your responsibilities as duly elected judges by the people of Bibb County.

Sincerely yours, for a better Macon

C. Jack Ellis, former mayor of Macon, GA.