One Handshake at a Time
Two-time Award-Winning Author Harold Michael Harvey and Macon-Bibb County Mayor Lester Miller are forging a partnership to collaborate on future projects during the 50th Legacy Celebration.
On December 12, 2025, in the chambers of Macon’s City Hall, I stood in a place that once tested the resolve of my youth. As a young activist, I petitioned for paved streets and a recreation center, only to face intimidation from those who sought to silence the voices of change.
During the Dog Days of Summer, August 1974, standing before Mayor Ronnie “Machine Gun” Thompson (a moniker he earned by issuing shoot-to-kill orders during a protest over the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.), I felt sweat dripping from my armpits trickling down my sides, suddenly the air conditioner stopped humming, the only sound in the room was my voice, and the voice of Mayor Thompson, who constantly interrupted by presentation; then just as I became aware that the temperature in the room had risen, Police Chief Lynch and his Chief Deputy Henry appeared from doors behind where Mayor Thompson sat.
Immediately, I discerned a trap. The mayor wanted me to blow my cool so he could have the Chief of Police handle me not like a citizen exercising his First Amendment right to petition the government for redress, but like a criminal in need of a night stick upside his head.
Mayor Thompson flashed Masonic signs in my direction. I was full of the arrogance of a 24-year-old, so I flashed the KKK sign back at him. I had learned the sign at George Wallace’s kick-off rally for his run for President in Ozark, Alabama, in 1972.
We went point-counter-point for about fifteen minutes. About this time, I had demonstrated that their tactic could not dupe me into a disorderly outburst, and Mayor Thompson concluded the debate by saying, “I want the young man to know there will be no more paved streets in Macon this year.”
I sauntered out of the chamber with my liberty, dignity, and life intact. In December of ’74, the city came out and paved all of the streets on my list except the street where I lived. My street did not get paved until January 1975. Such was life in Macon before the Fantasy Five, Willie C. Hill, Vernon Colbert, Julius Vinson, Delores Brooks, and Rev. Eddie D. Smith were elected to the Macon City Council.
Fifty years later, in that same chamber, Mayor Lester Miller proclaimed December 12 as Harold Michael Harvey Day. That moment was not mine alone—it was a full-circle testament to the power of persistence, the endurance of memory, and the transformation of civic life.
Macon-Bibb County Mayor Lester Miller presents Harold Michael Harvey with a proclamation proclaiming December 12, 2025, as Harold Michael Harvey Day for his efforts in hosting the 50th Legacy Celebration honoring the first five Black members on the Macon City Council.
The proclamation honored not just an individual, but the collective spirit of the Fantasy Five. Fifty years ago, we dared to challenge the status quo, believing that our communities deserved dignity, opportunity, and justice. Our struggle was not without risk, but it was rooted in the conviction that ordinary citizens could bend the course of history. The Legacy Celebration gathered over one hundred people who came not simply to remember, but to affirm that the seeds planted decades ago have borne fruit in the lives of generations.
C. Jack Ellis, Macon’s first and only Black Mayor, addresses the 50th Legacy Celebration.
And yet, the day was more than a commemoration of past victories. It was a reminder of the work that remains. In my closing words, I echoed the truth that the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice only if we bend it. Justice is not inevitable; it is shaped by hands willing to labor, voices willing to speak, and communities willing to stand together. Let us go forth with gratitude for the courage of Hill, Brooks, Vinson, Colbert, and Smith. Their legacy is not a monument to the past-it is a living call to action. It reminds us that justice is never finished, that representation must be guarded, and that memory must be kept alive.
Let us go forth with gratitude for their courage, with faith in our own responsibility, and with hope for generations to come. May the arc of history continue to bend toward justice, because we are willing to bend it. May this legacy live in all of us.
The applause that followed was not for me, but for the shared recognition that each of us carries the responsibility to bend the arc further still.
Cyn Harvey, WMAZ-Radio’s first Black reporter and co-host, admiring her husband during the 50th Legacy Celebration.
To all who attended the 50th Legacy Celebration, I offer my deepest gratitude. Your presence transformed memory into living testimony. Together, we honored the journey from struggle to proclamation, the collective legacy of the Fantasy Five, and the universal call to bend the arc of justice. May we continue to bend it—toward fairness, toward dignity, toward a future worthy of the sacrifices that brought us here.