Athens Activists Reunited, Reflect.

Segregation kept blacks and whites apart.

Desegregation drove Doc Eldridge and Michael Thurmond together.

Following a screening of the Peabody award-winning film “The Search for Quality Education: Busing,” the pair shared their story:

Both Eldridge and Thurmond had been student council presidents until the dawn of desegregation re-drew the map and brought whites and blacks together.

Thurmond, in particular, was unhappy about the move. At a new school, he’d be just another new student, instead of “head of the class,” which he was guaranteed at Burney-Harris High School.

The pair weren’t thrown together by their differences, however, but their similarities — both loved football; both shared the title of “head of the class.”

In time, the pair became good friends — and that friendship has helped make their story emblematic not just of social turmoil, but positive social change.

Because although Athens-Clarke County had a contentious history with desegregating its schools, when officials did decide to institute a busing plan, it resulted in at least one success.

Some parents refused to stay or change, and withdrew their children to nearby Oconee.

But not Eldridge or Thurmond.

Now the former mayor of Athens and former state Labor Commissioner, respectively, Eldridge and Thurmond have gone on to influence far larger stages than that of the Classic City, but their story remains vital.

“I think it symbolizes how far we’ve come,” said Dr. Cully Clark, Dean of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, “and how far we have left to go.”

“We originally thought we would try and find some people that were featured in the documentary, but that proved to be a little more of a challenge,” said Diane H. Murray, Director of Public Service and Alumni Outreach at Grady, which is coordinating the event in celebration of the 50^th anniversary of the desegregation of the university.

“We thought it was a natural fit,” Murray said, referring to the film’s place both in the list of commemorative events and in the university’s extensive archive of Peabody-winning work, overseen by professor and awards director Horace Newcomb.

So Grady reached out to Eldridge and Thurmond.

“They’re both very interesting on their own,” Murray said, “and the two of them together talking about their experiences, we [thought], [would] be very interesting.”

The answer was immediate.

“It was an easy ask,” Murray said.

They were happy to appear and connect with an audience — an important part of the screening and discussion.

“We’ve been really pleased with how the audience has engaged,” Murray said.

Some of the positive reaction may be due, in part, to the documentary’s regional feel: one segment features Athens specifically, with comments from William Tate and Charles McDaniel, among others.

Of course, that was always the hope.

“We chose this documentary, in part, because it features Athens,” Murray said.

However there is more than one part to the issue and side to the struggle.

Although “Busing” was made in 1972, almost 40 years ago, its problems remain a very real part of the landscape of today, Murray said.

“What we’re hoping I people will see how far we’ve come,” she said, “and that we still have a ways to go.”

Charlie the Unicorn

A-hem:

Here is Charlie Sheen, rambling about something. I chose this video because it perfectly compliments the shambling, shaky nature of Sheen's meltdown.

Come Together.

Segregation kept blacks and whites apart.

Desegregation drove Doc Eldridge and Michael Thurmond together.

Following a screening of the Peabody award-winning film “The Search for Quality Education: Busing,” the pair shared their story:

Both Eldridge and Thurmond had been student council presidents until the dawn of desegregation re-drew the map and brought whites and blacks together.

The pair weren’t thrown together by their differences, however, but their similarities — and in time became good friends.

Now the former mayor of Athens and former state Labor Commissioner, respectively, Eldridge and Thurmond have gone on to influence far larger stages than that of the Classic City, but their story remains vital.

“We originally thought we would try and find some people that were featured in the documentary, but that proved to be a little more of a challenge,” said Diane H. Murray, Director of Public Service and Alumni Outreach at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication which is coordinating the event in celebration of the 50^th anniversary of the desegregation of the university.

“We thought it was a natural fit,” Murray said, referring to the film’s place both in the list of commemorative events and in the university’s extensive archive of Peabody-winning work, overseen by professor and awards director Horace Newcomb.

So Grady reached out to Eldridge and Thurmond.

“They’re both very interesting on their own,” Murray said, “and the two of them together talking about their experiences, we [thought], [would] be very interesting.”

The answer was immediate.

“It was an easy ask,” Murray said. 

They were happy to appear and connect with an audience — an important part of the screening and discussion.

“We’ve been really pleased with how the audience has engaged,” Murray said.

Some of the positive reaction may be due, in part, to the documentary’s regional feel: one segment features Athens specifically, with comments from William Tate and Charles McDaniel, among others.

Of course, that was always the hope.

“We chose this documentary, in part, because it features Athens,” Murray said. 

However there is more than one part to the issue and side to the struggle.

Although “Busing” was made in 1972, almost 40 years ago, its problems remain a very real part of the landscape of today, Murray said.

“What we’re hoping I people will see how far we’ve come,” she said, “and that we still have a ways to go.”

A Fable.

Last October, "Vanity Fair" published an extensive, scathing profile of Sarah Palin's apparent descent into secrecy and paranoia—a "public" life turned inside-out.

The problem? Writer Michael Joseph Gross fudged one of his opening facts. In the opening, an anecdote that sets-up the Palins in their disingenuous tableau, Gross misidentifies a baby boy as Sarah's son, Trig.

The piece is more than 10,000 words, and in many cases quite effective: Gross trailed the campaign through Alaska for months, and prodded at many corners of the state, building a version of the Palins from the voices of the people they governed. But his slip-up at the beginning is crucial, because it underlines and undermines the rest of the piece, weakening it irrevocably, not libel, really, but sloppy nonetheless.

If one error slipped-in, went the thinking at the time, couldn't another?

Come and See.

There would have been dancing and music and soul food.

Above all, the “Hot Corner” would have been alive.

“Things were always happening on the ‘Hot Corner,’” said Lynn Green, theatre assistant for the Morton Theatre. “You had music spilling out from the Morton and people hustling and bustling.”

Formed by the intersection of West Washington and Hull Streets in downtown Athens, and bordered by Wilson’s Soul Food on one side and the Manhattan Café and the Morton on another, the “Hot Corner” has played a role in the life of black culture over the last century.

“It was the center of African-American life,” Green said.

In the historically segregated area, the space — little more than a block — became one of celebration and liberation.

On display were not only shops and street life, but also the Morton’s own attractions, which have included, over the years, films, stage shows and a burlesque.

Before the mass appeal of television and home entertainment, it was Morton that brought people out at night.

"In order to be entertained, one still needed to dress-up and head out to the ‘Hot Corner,’” said Calvin Smith, a university alumnus and performer, who opened the Morton’s centennial season last year.

As with much else in the area, the decades took their toll.

By the ‘70s, the “Hot Corner” had lost much of its place in the culture of the city that surrounded it: the Morton had been dark for decades behind locked doors, left behind by the eponymous family that had once owned it, due to a violated fire code. The Manhattan, too, was long gone.

One-by-one, the businesses that had installed themselves in the Morton’s building, including the Bluebird café and several doctor’s offices, closed down or moved elsewhere.

“The face of it changed,” Green said.

For years, the space — shrunk down from a block to nearly nothing — lay dormant and unnoticed.

“I come down her a lot,” said Daniel Reynolds, a student at the university majoring in history. “But I’ve never noticed anything special about — what’d you call it? — ‘the Hot Corner.’”

And then someone, or rather someones, arrived to remember what had come before.

Every year, during the first week of May, the Hot Corner Association organizes a festival in commemoration of the mini-district’s past life in the city.

The group, headed up by businessman Homer Wilson, hopes to both revitalize and inspire, focusing on the corner’s legacy in the years since.

The “Hot Corner” is dead, but it is not gone.

New growth booms at the intersection of Washington and Hull:

The Morton is once again spilling out with music as performers and groups trek back to the renovated space; around and across from it, businesses have reopened and replaced the ones before: the Trapeze pub, Brown’s Barber Shop and Casa Mia, among others.

And along the streets, people are bustling.