Historic Macon Foundation
Road map for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility
April 15, 2021
Introduction
In 2020, members of the HMF staff embarked on a new strategic plan. Not only were they working on a new plan, but they were working within a new structure for the organization. Thanks to the generosity and support of HMF trustee Robert Betzel, the strategic-plan process followed the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) approach. The most important difference between EOS and the traditional planning process is that in 2020, the EOS approach started with the staff rather than the board.
As HMF has grown and matured over the past five years, the intent was to empower the paid staff to create and own the new plan. The results are powerful.
Over three full days of work, Rob facilitated the HMF team through the EOS process, which resulted in the Vision Traction Organizer (VTO). The VTO is a simple document that clearly lays out the goals, values and action items for the organization.
One of the most compelling pieces of the VTO is the 10-Year Target or BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal), which is “every building has a purpose and every person has a story.” In order to meet that big goal, we needed to then break out the 3-Year Picture so we knew how to reach the 10-Year Target.
In order to reach our BHAG, the organization needed to prioritize equity and inclusion. So what does that look like for HMF, and how do we ensure we aren’t merely “virtue signaling,” a term coined in a year of unrest. When HMF debated issuing a statement of solidarity with Black Lives Matter protests, in the end we chose to “do the work” rather than issuing an empty statement. As a result, the board formed a Racial Equity Task Force co-chaired by Susannah Maddux, immediate past chair, and Gerri Marion McCord, the incoming board chair. The Task Force includes six members of the board of trustees.
The following “road map” is the organization’s plan to fold diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) into the fiber of HMF. The document will provide guidance for including DEIA in HMF’s human capital, neighborhood revitalization, education and advocacy, and financial development.
As a disclaimer and a genuine effort at transparency, we should note that the primary author of this document is a white male who has implicit biases.
Preserving Places for All
In summer 2020, the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) released a report titled “Preserving African American Places: Growing Preservation's Potential as a Path for Equity” that addressed the preservation industry’s shortcomings related to diversity and inclusion. It also provided case studies and examples of organizations that are doing positive work addressing these challenges.
HMF was featured in the report for our Neighborhood Leadership Institute (NLI). The NLI was born out of a grant with the Knight Foundation in 2016 that funded a new initiative called the Neighborhood Incubator. The intent was for HMF to foster stronger and more engaged neighborhoods. Our partnership with the University of Georgia’s J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development sparked one of the organization’s most important new initiatives in the past 10 years. The 44 graduates of two NLI sessions included representatives from 26 neighborhoods, over half of which are predominantly African American residents. The program was powerful and should be a staple offering of HMF.
In addition to the case studies, the NTHP report opens with a succinct and helpful guide to a shared lexicon and a thorough overview of why preservation and the “built environment” has largely not been inclusive of African Americans.
Suggested Reading List
The NTHP report should be read by all HMF staff and trustees for a deeper understanding of systemic racism in the historic preservation field.
Additionally, the following books will illuminate the inherent issues and challenges:
“So You Want to Talk about Race,” by Ijemoa Oluo
“The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America,” by Richard Rothstein
“Macon Black and White: An Unutterable Separation in the American Century,” by Andrew M. Mannis
People
As of the initial writing of this document in December 2020, HMF employs 10 people. None of those staff members are African American. However, the county population is 54% African American. Without a staff reflective of the community we serve, it is more challenging for the organization to work in diverse neighborhoods and with diverse historic resources.
With that awareness, the staff and organization as a whole must be diligent and intentional to ensure that our work reflects the whole community by including diverse voices on the board, committees and consultants.
The HMF board of trustees, however, reflects our community better than it has in our nearly 60 year history, and in fiscal year 2021-22 it will have the first African American board chair. Even with that accomplishment, the board is only 27% African American. Needless to say, there is much more work to be done to recruit more African Americans to the HMF board and staff.
Unfortunately, HMF’s membership database does not track our members’ race or ethnicity, but anecdotally it is safe to assume that our membership is more than 80% white.
Simply put, historic preservation has not successfully shared the stories or history of nonwhite people.
Recommendations for Action
Hire nonwhite staff. How exactly is this accomplished, especially in the majority white field of historic preservation?;
Continue to diversify the board of trustees so the makeup reflects the community;
Create an African American task force or committee to continue prioritizing this work;
Offer trainings in anti-racism and awareness
The Racial Equity Institute’s Groundwater Approach
Differences are Good: This course lays the foundations for exploring biases and stereotypes and the importance of moving beyond them. Through dialogue and activity participants will analyze their own perceptions and how they can work better with others.
Neighborhood Revitalization
Since the 1970s, real estate development and neighborhood revitalization have been at the core of HMF’s work. The organization has been recognized nationally for its revolving fund initiatives, and the HMF staff has helped cultivate revolving funds across the country.
As with all neighborhood redevelopment, there are issues of displacement, affordability, disenfranchisement and accessibility to resources. “The Color of Law” outlines the federal government’s role in segregating neighborhoods through a variety of policies including urban renewal, housing and lending discrimination and public housing. Sadly, Macon can point to nearly all of these detrimental federal policies as impacting African American neighborhoods.
Perhaps the most egregious example is the Pleasant Hill neighborhood. Developed from the 1870s until the 1930s, the neighborhood included property owners, doctors, dentists, educators, attorneys, businessmen, grocers, and ministers. Lewis Williams, a principal of numerous Macon schools, and Albert B. Fitzpatrick, manager of the black-organized Peoples Health & Life Insurance company, represent just a few of the influential black residents of Pleasant Hill.
Pleasant Hill consists of mostly one-story homes with simple porches reflecting the “L-shaped” Victorian cottages. Many homes in the area show the influence of other styles such as Neoclassical columns and Craftsman-style porches. Included in the area are several corner stores, a Masonic Lodge, one small, wood-framed church, and the St. Peter Claver Church and School in a late Victorian brick style.
In the 1960s the neighborhood was decimated and bisected by the construction of the new interstate. Needless to say, Pleasant Hill was never the same. And in the early 2000s the Georgia Department of Transportation set about reworking the interstate interchange, which again impacted Pleasant Hill.
In the late 1980s, the Macon Heritage Foundation, one of HMF’s predecessor organizations, was one of the first organizations to use the historic rehabilitation tax credit combined with the low income tax credit to renovate houses on Douglas Avenue – an extension of Walnut Street in Pleasant Hill. The organization received a National Trust Award in 1989 for that work.
This was a time when preservation organizations were focused on “white columns” rather than African American houses.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the organization decided to focus on one neighborhood at a time, thereby directing human and financial resources specifically on a defined area. These revolving fund efforts were wildly successful and had dramatic results on the neighborhoods where HMF worked. By buying, rehabilitating and building new houses, the organization transformed neighborhoods with blighted houses, vacant lots and high crime.
It is difficult to assess the racial disparity impact of previous revolving-fund work without demographic data. It is also unfair for the organization of today to disparage or minimize the work of our predecessors. However, everyone should agree that HMF can learn from and improve on our work. Always.
As such, in 2007 we began work in Beall’s Hill, our largest target neighborhood, a 32-block area tucked between the outskirts of the central business district and the campus of Mercer University, one of HMF’s earliest and most steadfast partners.
For decades, Beall’s Hill was anchored by a traditional, affordable housing development known as Oglethorpe Homes.
HMF’s work in Beall’s Hill is on track to wrap up in late 2021, and by all accounts it has been another successful revolving-fund endeavor. By completing 40+ houses, the neighborhood has reached a tipping point in which private sector forces will continue working.
This raises the question: Was the success of HMF’s Beall’s Hill revitalization at the expense or detriment of African American residents or buyers?
When HMF began work in Beall’s Hill, one of the assets of the area was that it is the most diverse neighborhood in Macon. HMF boasted this demographic makeup and included proactive policies to reduce or prevent displacement. For instance, HMF generally did not target occupied housing unless the property was being used for criminal activity or was in such disrepair that it was uninhabitable.
In other cases, HMF offered a life estate, which allowed the longtime resident to reside in place until her death, and a low-interest loan to longtime residents. Also, late in the project the organization strayed from its long-standing policy of delivering solely single-family, owner-occupied housing and is now acquiring rental housing in Beall’s Hill. Not only does the rental housing provide additional housing options for residents, it adds assets and revenue to the organization. Most importantly, though, HMF’s foray into rental housing is meeting a countywide need of quality, affordable rental housing.
Admittedly this oversimplifies the most complex issue regarding historic preservation’s impact on neighborhoods and displacement of residents. With that in mind, HMF should further study and evaluate the impact of our work in Beall’s Hill with in-depth economic and demographic analysis reports.
Recommendations for Action
Use demographic data and public meetings to determine where HMF should work and what programs HMF should offer;
Traditional revolving fund — owner occupied;
Interpretive markers celebrating residents and their unique stories;
Low interest loans;
Emergency home repairs for long-term residents;
Rental portfolio — mix of low rent/market rate;
Rent to own or seller finance
Down payment assistance;
Create programs on homeownership education and opportunities for African Americans (https://blackwomenbuild.org/);
Property tax assistance — OLOST (Other Local Option Sales Tax) would freeze assessed values for homeowners until the property sells, loans.
Hire neighborhood representatives whenever possible;
Offer Neighborhood Leadership Institute regularly.
Education
HMF’s mission is to “revitalize communities by preserving architecture and sharing history.” Unfortunately, “sharing history” often gets pushed to the bottom of our list. Education opportunities abound in Macon and for HMF, but with limited staff and financial resources allocated to these programs, the organization has not prioritized education programs.
In 2021 HMF sold the Sidney Lanier Cottage and the non-Lanier items in the collection. The proceeds will be added to the existing endowment fund at the Community Foundation of Central Georgia and rebranded as the Lanier Education Endowment Fund. The hope is that the annual draw from the endowment will cover the overhead of an education staff position. More than likely, the position will start as part time with hopes of growing the fund and the position.
In recent years, despite the limited resources, HMF has hosted and curated some remarkable educational offerings that should be the foundation of future education endeavors.
In May 2019, for instance, HMF hosted a panel of speakers about the historic neighborhood known as Tybee. The neighborhood was decimated during urban renewal to make way for more industrial development on the edge of the central business district. A once thriving and bustling community, the area today is largely vacant land or dilapidated industrial buildings. Only a handful of buildings remain extant from the historic neighborhood.
In addition to learning and sharing more about historic places in the community, HMF should be working to expand homeownership literacy and opportunities. After all, according to the Federal Reserve's latest Survey of Consumer Finances, homeowners have 44.5 times more net worth than renters.
Traditionally preservation organizations, including HMF, have not known how best to preserve and share the history of places that no longer exist or educate citizens on home ownership and maintenance. In other words, if there are no buildings to save in Tybee, what should HMF’s role be to “share history.”
The 2019 panel is a step toward the answer.
Recommendations for Action
Raise $1 million for the Lanier Education Fund to fully fund a full-time education coordinator;
Collect oral histories;
Research, exhibit and promote the stories of underrepresented people in Macon. (lynching sites, slave markets, sites of conscience, lynching memorial, Linwood Cemetery, Tybee Community marker more prominent);
Trades education — help create job opportunities by offering trades training opportunities;
Programs — hands-on workshops, Sidney Salons, children focused.
Advocacy
In 2014 the Macon community lost two high-profile preservation fights, resulting in the demolition of Tremont Temple Baptist Church and the home of Charles Douglass. Both buildings, located in the historic Cotton Avenue District, were significant to the community’s African American heritage. Losing the two buildings was heartbreaking.
One of the initiatives resulting from the loss is HMF’s annual list of endangered places dubbed the “Fading Five.” Since the first list was announced in August 2015, 15 places have been listed. Nine have been saved and only one has been lost.
In August 2020, one of the new listings is the historic Roxy Theater in Macon’s Greenwood Bottom neighborhood. The theater was the hub of the community and operated only about a decade, but the theater still holds indelible memories for neighborhood residents, especially those who lived there during the Jim Crow era.
The Roxy Theater is an example of a culturally significant building that is not protected or designated by traditional preservation systems — the National Register of Historic Places or local historic districts.
While the Fading Five has become HMF’s most notable advocacy program, it’s important for the organization to consider additional advocacy opportunities. For example, HMF should work with local partners to bring the Bibb County lynching monument from the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Ala.
Recommendations for Action
Use the Saving Places Index (SPI) to guide the advocacy efforts of HMF, including working in underserved communities;
Continue asking people to tell us what places are important;
Nominate sites of conscience for the National Register of Historic Places;
Work with local partners to recognize the disparities through formal resolutions and interpretive signage; (Linnentown Resolution in Athens)
Fading Five should reflect the diversity of the community.