Talk during On the Table was important, now who’s ready to take some needed action?

It was just a few days after the recent series of On the Table Macon discussion sessions that The Telegraph published its analysis of data demonstrating the correlation between where we live and life expectancy. We don’t always think of our community issues this way, but clearly our civic health often touches upon a lot more than we realize: indeed, it can apparently be a matter of life or death.

Included in The Telegraph’s analysis was the shocking news that some census tracts in Macon-Bibb County have the lowest life expectancy in the entire state. While that is grim news enough, it is fair to say that the relationship between lifespan and poverty is just one of multiple interconnected factors that bedevil our efforts to return Macon to its days of growth.

There were said to be 100-plus hosts for the recent On the Table sessions, and I wish that I could have attended more of the gatherings. I selected the group at Centenary Methodist Church because of its various community outreach programs, including work with the homeless and the addicted.

The diverse group at the table where I was placed at was comprised of two Mercer students, two educators, two community activists, a Publix employee, an artist and a woman who works with the homeless. These folks had lots of good things to say about Macon, and they also had some pointed suggestions.

One thing that struck me repeatedly was how often education played a role in the discussion. I was reminded of John Donne’s famous Meditation XVII, the one that reminds us that “no man is an island” and admonishes us to “send not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.” Some of the people who attended other sessions saw similar connections.

It was just a few days before that I had attended a panel discussion at the Mercer law school, where I was reminded of the effects of Macon’s crime rate. People in Georgia have the highest rate of citizens under “correctional control” in the entire country, and our 4.2 million people with a Georgia criminal record, as a result, face a lifetime of poverty, unemployment and despair.

If education seems to hold the solution to many of these problems, I wonder why we don’t do more to strengthen our resources. All four of my children attended public schools (the youngest is a 2019 graduate of Central High School) and many of their classmates went on to some of the finest universities in the country. Sadly, their story is not being told, and the fragmented media landscape does little to help. Indeed, many schools don’t even have a PTA to help build social cohesion.

And social cohesion is exactly what is needed. As the publicity materials for On the Table pointed out, we must seek out the “common ground” on the issues that confront our community. Several years ago, the business leaders in our city, realizing the importance of these issues to the future of the city, created the promising organization called Macon 2000 to build “community ownership” in these areas of civic life.

Now, 19 years later, equally passionate people are again seated at the table together, once again seeking to unite our community. On the Table reminds us in so many ways – culturally, aesthetically, educationally, historically – that this is a wonderful place, but its glory will not be fully realized until we come together and resolve our divisions.

That is the great hope that On the Table Macon extends to us. Do we have the vision to reach out and take it?

Larry Fennelly is a local educator.