And the Path Forward for Macon’s Youth

AI-generated photo of Central City Park circa 1863, now known as Carolyn Crayton Park

The recent shooting at Carolyn Crayton Park, where eleven high school students and one adult were wounded, has shaken me deeply. These young people are not strangers to us — they are our children, our neighbors, our students, and the future of Macon. Their pain is our pain. Their fear is our fear. And their actions, however tragic, are rooted in conditions we, as a community, have allowed to grow unchecked.

Where it happened.

For more than a century, Carolyn Crayton Park, originally known as Central City Park, has been one of Macon’s most important civic spaces. Its history is intertwined with Black freedom in this city.

On New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1862, as the nation waited for the Emancipation Proclamation to take effect the next day, Macon’s enslaved and free Black residents gathered in Central City Park. They did not gather in celebration. They gathered in fear — fear that Southern planters might harm them to prevent their liberation, fear that violence might erupt before freedom could be claimed.

So they banded together.

They came to the park not to harm one another, but to protect one another. They prayed, watched, waited, and stood guard through the night. Out of that gathering, born from courage, solidarity, and the determination to survive, came two of Macon’s leading churches:

Bethel Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, my own home church
Unionville Baptist Church, a pillar of the community

These congregations emerged from the soil of that park, from a moment when Black people in Macon chose unity over fear, protection over violence, and community over chaos.

To see gunfire erupt on that same ground 163 years later is not just tragic; it is heartbreaking. It is a painful reminder of how far we have drifted from that night's spirit.

I want to be clear: This is not a moment for blame. It is a moment for truth.

Our teenagers are navigating social and economic pressures that would buckle many adults. They live in neighborhoods where opportunity feels distant, where conflict escalates quickly, and where carrying a weapon seems to them like the only way to feel safe. These choices do not arise in a vacuum. They are shaped by poverty, by limited access to mental‑health support, by underfunded schools, by the absence of structured community spaces, and by a culture that too often glorifies violence while ignoring its causes.

Law enforcement has an important role to play, and accountability matters. But we cannot place the full burden on parents who are themselves struggling under the same systemic conditions. Families cannot carry this weight alone. Schools cannot carry it alone. Police cannot carry it alone. We must rebuild the ecosystem that surrounds our youth together.

Next month, former Mayor C. Jack Ellis will moderate a roundtable at the historic Douglass Theatre with five of the twelve Black boys who integrated Lanier Jr. High School for Boys in 1965. I am honored to be among them. We were children then, too, navigating hostility, uncertainty, and fear. Yet we found strength in one another, and in the belief that our presence could help change the city of Macon.

That moment in 1965 was not just about integration. It was about courage, dignity, and the quiet determination of young people who refused to be defined by the limitations placed upon them.

Today’s students deserve to hear that story.

I strongly encourage the Bibb County School Board, civic teachers, and administrators to bring their students to this live interview. Let them see what resilience looks like. Let them hear from men who sat in the same classrooms, walked the same streets, and faced challenges that required bravery of a different kind. Let them understand that community pride is not built through rivalry or violence, but through shared purpose and collective hope.

We cannot undo what happened at Carolyn Crayton Park, a place where Black people once gathered to protect one another from violence, and where violence now echoes among their descendants. But we can respond with clarity, compassion, and commitment. We can create safe, prosperous communities where young people feel seen, supported, and inspired. We can give them reasons to believe in a future worth protecting.

This violence grieves me tremendously. But grief can be a catalyst. Let us use it to build the Macon our children deserve.

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On the Carolyn Crayton Park Shooting