History of the
union
Jim crow Era
White Maconites were not pleased with the increasing visibility of Black people, which was a consistent feeling across the formerly Confederate states. This increased discomfort was heightened when Black people were gaining political power during the Reconstruction Era, which inevitably was short lived, which I will discuss below. Beginning in the 1890s, Georgia and other southern states passed a wide variety of Jim Crow laws that mandated racial segregation or separation in public facilities and effectively codified the region’s tradition of white supremacy. There are numerous policies that Jim Crow implemented across the country in order to achieve that goal, but Macon utilized a specific practice which still has affects today.
Redlining is a practice which began around the 1930s following the Great Depression in order to stabilize housing markets and home ownership. The Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) collaborated to create widespread neighborhood appraisals of investment risks in the form of color coded “residential security” maps with each neighborhood being graded and assigned a color to match the grade. According to Swope, communities of color - specifically Black communities - were not given a score above a “C” and mostly were rated a “D” and color coded as red and labeled as credit risks. These distinctions made it so that homebuyers of color were denied loans and new housing developments. Both real estate agents and bankers worked collaboratively to strengthen racial segregation by keeping Blacks in certain neighborhoods and denying them loans so that there was no possibility of moving or creating generational wealth.
According to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, in 1935 Macon, Ga was 65% red, with the neighborhood of Unionville being entirely red, making it the most redlined city in America. Redlining map descriptors described the Unionville tenants saying “Tenants are unusually destructive, causing considerable damage to occupied properties” and detrimental influences of the neighborhood as “No police or fire protection; no zoning or restrictions. Distance from schools, churches, center of city. Inadequate transportation. Vandalism bad. Difficulty of collections. No utilities except along Columbus Road and Pinono Avenue. Surface toilets with no scavenger service. Very poor construction and repair condition of majority of properties, along with heavy soil erosion.”
Although the Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited redlining, recent research points to the persistence of present-day disadvantages in formerly redlined neighborhoods, including higher poverty, vacancy rates, risk of loan denials, subprime lending, and mortgage default, and lower economic mobility, homeownership rates, and home values, lack of education, and crime.
The beginnings
With the urban appeal of Macon with the Ocmulgee River being a great source of transportation and trading along with the rural appeal of the good soil to grow cotton, settlers brought the people they enslaved along with them to cultivate both areas. Besides working on the cotton fields in Macon and surrounding counties, slaves were vital in the urban development of the area. Besides cotton being king in Macon, slaves were also responsible for developing roads and the railroad system which directly related to Macon’s industrial development.Black enslaved people built up this city brick by brick. They were forced to build the infrastructure of the entire city, an infrastructure that would benefit the Confederacy and hinder their freedom. During the Civil War, Macon was vital in supplying the Confederate army with supplies – specifically weapons because of the developed railroad systems put in place by slaves.In April of 1865, Macon surrendered at Tattnall Square Park to the troops of Union Army General Wilson. It wasn’t until July 1865, when the end of slavery was declared from the Bibb County courthouse. Once the enslaved were declared free, black neighborhoods of Macon began to be developed. Once the Confederate soldiers were defeated at Tattnall Square Union soldiers gathered the formerly enslaved people known as contraband and carried them to Washington Heights. They divided 7 square miles of land for the contraband and named it Unionville, naming the land after the Union soldiers who freed them.
Unionville’s artistic Resilience
There are a number of historical and artistic assets within the community. Habersham Records is a pinnacle of the community and Black history itself. It is owned and operated by Phillis Habersham Malone and has been open for over 50 years. It is one of the few Black-woman owned record stores in the country and the oldest among the few.
Historical place-making is also found within the artists of the neighborhood. Bartholomew ‘Sugar’ Duhart was an architectural genius who left his circular mark across the neighborhood. With his easily identifiable circular details of his structures, his work is seen today including the huge arches at the entrance of Jesus Mission of Love Holiness Church Cemetery, the Prayer Tower standing at 12ft high, and a number of homes and churches for his community making him an artistic icon of the neighborhood.
Visual Arts through the medium of graffiti also stands out within the community, specifically a graffiti mural which honors those whose lives were lost. Just west of the old Colonial bakery and, further east, Pio Nono Avenue, lies in the epicenter of Macon’s violent-crime crisis and now lies a 10x10 mural gracing the side of Dusty’s Barber Shop created by Carl Dudley Jr. The man depicted on the mural is Andre ‘Gangster ’Dre’ Taylor who was fatally shot in 2017. Although Taylor was known as the leader of the Westside Gangster Crips, he also encouraged the youth to stay in school and promoted non violence. Although this work is a result of violence, it is also a beautiful work honoring the life of Taylor and many others whose lives have been lost.
The practice of remembrance also lies within the Homeland Village Cultural Center in Unionville. Kirklyn Hodges opened the Center in 2001 to create a safe space for people to come and learn more about African history and their own ties to it. The space sells African products like shea butter and African black soap along with providing programming for the youth of the neighborhood. Hodges says “Homeland Village is a little more than a business. It’s like a refuge. It’s a place where people of like minds can come and sit around and share ideas and work on solutions that are directly affecting our community.
The ‘Mayor of Unionville’ Frank Johnson created the Frank Johnson Recreation Center in Unionville because he never had a rec center growing up and wanted a place where kids could come. Today children and adults come to the center to play and connect with other community memebers, learn more about the arts and culture, stay informed about happenings in the neighborhod, and have a central safe space to be within the community.
F.U.B.U Fest serves as an extension to existing cultural mecas in Unionville in hopes of expanding arts activities throughout the neighborhood.