In this engaging new visual history showcasing Macon's African Americans, vintage photographs illuminate the contributions and achievements of black citizens who have lived and worked in the heart of Georgia for more than one hundred and fifty years. Local landmarks, such as the Douglass Theater and the Harriet Tubman Museum, and unique African-American communities, such as Summerfield and Pleasant Hill, are testament to the indelible mark left on Macon by its enterprising black residents.
In 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, Macon was a business community dedicated to supplying the needs of its citizens, of the cotton planters who grew the short-staple upland cotton, the principal foundation of wealth for the antebellum South. This book offers an encyclopedic history of Macon, Georgia, during the Civil War.
In this engaging new visual history showcasing Macon's African Americans, vintage photographs illuminate the contributions and achievements of black citizens who have lived and worked in the heart of Georgia for more than one hundred and fifty years. Local landmarks, such as the Douglass Theater and the Harriet Tubman Museum, and unique African-American communities, such as Summerfield and Pleasant Hill, are testament to the indelible mark left on Macon by its enterprising black residents.
A longitudinal study of race relations in a major southern city, Macon Black and White examines the ways white and black Maconites interacted over the course of the entire twentieth century. Beginning in the 1890s, in what has been called the nadir of race relations in America, Andrew M. Manis traces the arduous journey toward racial equality in the heart of Central Georgia. The book describes how, despite incremental progress toward that goal, segregationist pressures sought to silence voices for change on both sides of the color line. Providing a snapshot of black-white relations for every decade of the twentieth century, this compellingly written story highlights the ways indigenous development in Macon combined with other statewide, regional, and national factors to shape the struggle for and against racial equality. Manis shows how both African-Americans and a cadre of white moderates, separately and at times together, gradually increased pressure for change in a conservative Georgia city. Showcasing how disfranchisement, lynching, interracial efforts toward the humanization of segregation, the world wars, and the Civil Rights Movement affected the pace of change, Manis describes the eventual rise of a black political class and the election of Macon's first African-American mayor. The book uses demographic realities as well as the perspectives of black and white Maconites to paint a portrait of contemporary black-white relations in the city. Manis concludes with suggestions on how the city might continue the struggle for racial justice and overcome the unutterable separation that still plagues Macon in the early years of a new century. Macon Black and White is a powerful storythat no one interested in racial change over time can afford to miss.
"Macon, Georgia's history has an exceptional soundtrack, and Something in the Water provides a lively narrative of the city's musical past from its founding in 1823 to 1980. For generations, talented musicians have been born in or passed through Macon's confines. Some lived and died in obscurity, while others achieved international stardom. From its pioneer origins to the modern era, the city has produced waves of talent with amazing consistency, representing a wide range of musical genres-country, classical, jazz, blues, big band, soul, and rock. As the book points out, the city's influence stretches far beyond the borders of Georgia, and its musical imprint on the United States and the world is significant. The story of music in Macon includes a vast, eclectic cast of characters, such as the city's first music "celebrity" Sidney Lanier, entertainment entrepreneur Charles Douglass, jazz age divas Lucille Hegamin and Lula Whidby, big band singers Betty Barclay and the Pickens Sisters, rock and roll founding father Little Richard Penniman, rhythm and blues icons James Brown and Otis Redding, local country star Eugene "Uncle Ned" Stripling, Capricorn Records founders Phil Walden and Frank Fenter, and the Allman Brothers Band, one of the most popular groups of the rock era. The book also offers a treatment of Macon's leading entertainment venues, both past and present, like Ralston Hall, the Grand Opera House, and the Douglass Theater, along with local institutions such as Wesleyan College and the Georgia Academy for the Blind, both of which trained generations of music students"--
The history of Camp Oglethorpe is largely overshadowed by that of nearby Camp Sumter in Andersonville, Georgia. It exists primarily as a footnote in the telling of Civil War prison narratives. A comprehensive reckoning reveals a saga that brings to light Camp Oglethorpe's decades-long role as a military training ground for Georgia's volunteer regiments and as a venue for national agricultural fairs which drew thousands of visitors to Macon. Its proud heritage, however, attracted the attention of leaders of the Confederate government. To the chagrin of Macon's citizens, the acreage at the foot of Seventh Street was surreptitiously repurposed for brief periods in 1862 and 1864. Although conditions at Camp Oglethorpe never approached the appalling state experienced by POWs at Andersonville, its proximity to and association with Camp Sumter cast a specter-haunted pall over the site. As Central Georgia recovered from the tangible vestiges of war. bitter memories minimized interest in restoring the property to any of its previous incarnations. The deafening sounds of the rail commerce that would eventually be situated there were inadequate to drown out the distressful noise of raw silence. The story of Camp Oglethorpe is predominantly remembered by its association with the atrocities of war as reflected in prisoner-of-war narratives. Indeed, the cries of those who demand to be heard haunt its memory. Smith and Hoy tell this story not only as an admonition to the consciences of humanity, but to illuminate history and paint a more complete recollection of the encampment at the foot of Seventh Street. Book jacket.
Rebecca and Ronald Akins and their three daughters appeared to be a typical suburban family in 1970 Macon, Georgia, but the attractive facade hid a family in crisis. The girls suffered physical and emotional abuse at the hands of their mother. Although he sometimes worked three jobs, Ronnie was never able to provide Becky the lifestyle she wanted. After their 1974 divorce, Becky took the children to South Florida where she pursued a life of gambling and partying. Fueled by popular books and films, she wanted to live in what she believed was the exciting world of organized crime and changed her name to Machetti. In only a few months, she found two men who joined her in her murderous fantasy which culminated in two deaths. The resulting legal proceedings went on for more than a decade. This is the story of Rebecca Machetti, a cold-blooded woman whose prosecutor described as pure evil and her three daughters who lived through years of abuse before finally finding peace and normal lives.
Published in 1952, this memoir portrays life inside a politically prominent southern family from Reconstruction to the New Deal. Dolly Blount Lamar describes her father's struggle to earn respect and political clout during the Reconstruction era. She details her own social life in Washington, D.C., providing intimate portraits of the wives of Presidents and members of Congress, lobbyists, radical Reconstructionists, and leaders from the Civil War who came together to make the new Union work. Lamar describes her years as president of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, her role in electing Sidney Lanier to the Hall of Fame at New York University, and the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial controversy of the 1920s. The memoir closes with her later years of life in her hometown of Macon, Georgia.
Some are stories of sacrifice and endurance that will tug at the heartstrings. Regular players in his columns include his wife Marvalene; an adopted son Joe; Wanda, a foster daughter; his only grandchild, Joshua David Boyd; and his friend, Muley, the country boy. Boyd also reminisces about "the used-to-be" with his mother who rode an eighteen wheeler around the country with her much younger husband when she was over eighty years old."--BOOK JACKET.
