Preserving the Historical Legacy of Tindall Heights Housing Development: A Community Issue
In October 2015, the Macon Committee on Urban Affairs was established to address poverty, poor educational systems, and sub-standard housing patterns in Macon. Comprised of individuals from Macon’s professional and civic communities, our number one priority is the approaching demolition of the Tindall Heights Housing Development, the oldest and most historically significant public housing development in Macon. Prior to 1940, many blacks lived in what the Macon Telegraph described as “Negro shanties,” with only “an outside privy and water tap,” located in what was then Tindall Field. The Field was converted into a “low-cost housing project.” The Macon Housing Authority was created for this purpose.
The shanties were inhabited by former slaves, many of whom migrated from the plantations of Byron/Centerville, Georgia. Now, seventy-five years later, the MHA is positioned to make it all “disappear,” even though the property is within a Nationally Registered Historic District, even though a protected pre-1942 section of it, green buildings, are the former homes of black educators and entertainers who made unparalleled contributions to Macon and Georgia history. Demolition of all the buildings appear inevitable, but what is not inevitable, and worth taking a stand for is the destruction of the history, and the people’s acceptance of such. As President and Professor of History, I invite you to a community conversation,"Preserving the Historical Legacy of Tindall Heights," Friday, January 15, 4p.m., Buck Melton Community Center. (Macon Telegraph, Dec. 9, 2015, Viewpoints)