>> This is Sara Jammal and Mary Baldwin from
Kennesaw State University here with
Ahmad Hall at Sans Souci Women's Club in Adairsville,
Georgia on October 12, 2016.
We will be speaking with Ahmad
about his family genealogy,
its legacy to the City of Adairsville,
and Ahmad's role in the community today.
>> This is Mary Baldwin speaking. Hello, Ahmad.
>> Hello, Mary.
>> Thank you for being with us today.
[LAUGHTER] Just to begin with, will you introduce
yourself and tell us when and where you were born?
>> Yes. Well, this is for the record.
My government name is Herschel Ahmad Hall,
and I don't tell it to everyone,
but this is something that I'm very adamant about,
so I want everybody to know everything about me.
I go by Ahmad, and I was born on May 4,
1986 in the county of
Floyd and city of
Rome because Adairsville didn't have any hospitals here.
We still don't, it's 2016, we don't have a hospital.
So you have to go to either Rome, Cartersville,
[inaudible] for hospital period or anything.
Dealing with any type of illnesses.
We have a educated here but it's not you know.
There's something serious have to go to the city.
>> Well, what school did you attend,
and tell us some of the activities you
participated in when you were in school.
>> All 12 years of grade school was Adairsville.
So Adairsville Elementary, Adairsville Middle,
,Adairsville High School.
Preschool was a place called
Just Kids, right down the street
from here where the building is,
is no longer in business.
And also, I spent a little time at
Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Alabama.
>> So you grew up in Adairsville.
Can you share a favorite memory
of growing up in Adairsville?
>> I think if you asked me about activities,
so drama club, of course,
band, I was first chair.
That means I was sort of good.
It was so funny even with chorus class,
we had seven different course teachers
over the course of the time I was in high school.
I don't know what was going on with the
art department of the school
but there were times even when I taught the chorus class.
So that was fun.
And the course teacher,
just I'm not going to say his name.
He used to stay in his office and I would do
his job and he get paid for it.
So that marching band and memories about Adairsville.
I think if you ask anyone from Adairsville what one of
the greatest memories is or
what they remember as a child is,
the Great Locomotive Chase Festival,
which you have a time.
That's big here.
That's the thing.
This year, actually, I saw a difference as far as
the organization of it and I was
very well pleased in the direction that is going,
and I think it's going to be
something that we're going to be able
to look forward to for years to come.
>> And then somewhere along the line,
you became interested in family genealogy.
Can you tell us how that happened?
>> Well, it's my grandfather,
Thomas Howard Colm Jr.
He really started me with my interest in family history.
He snacking in there on me
because we would go and he had throat cancer at one time.
So if you see me do
this and I start signing like a robot,
that's because I do that all the time when
I talk about him because he had a [inaudible].
He had throat cancer and so as a result of that,
he had surgery, we remove
all the cancer and they gave him a cert,
what they called [inaudible].
It simulates the vibration
of vocal chords, we don't have [inaudible].
And so he ride down the road, he said, oh,
[LAUGHTER] I actually live
here and we used to live over there.
And I'd be like,
grandpa, nobody wants to hear about that.
But what happened is
now I understand that he
was teaching me stuff, and I didn't even know it.
So now I can say this is where
so and so used to live and this is what happened here.
He was teaching me and I
didn't even have an idea that he was doing that.
So he really sparked my interest in genealogy.
And he had an aunt who who lived to be 98, aunt Emma.
Her name was Emma Butler Dozer,
and she lived to be about 98 and
she lived by herself her entire life.
Well, she was married at one time but I'm
saying the latter part of her life,
she still lived by herself.
She was able to
do for herself. Cooking and that type of thing.
But she would call us three times a week to go get,
well, she called it Kentucky chicken, but it was KFC.
[LAUGHTER] She loved fried chicken.
So all these health fanatics,
I don't know, but she ate greasy food all her life.
She lived to be 100, so I don't know.
[LAUGHTER] But she knew almost everything.
She was actually a twin.
She had a sister named Ada.
So it was Emma and Ada, they were identical twins.
And she taught me a whole lot about the family history.
Sitting with her and talking with her.
>> Well, tell us about William Arthur Butler?
And his significance in there.
>> Well, William Arthur Butler
was my great great grandfather.
That's on my mom's side of the family.
I'm sorry, tell us how I pulled him that we
just spoke of. It was his grandfather.
And he was born on November 7,
1872 in a little place called Easley, South Carolina.
And at the time he was born it wasn't
incorporated to be Easley but it was Pekins County.
And that's right outside of Clemson
and not too far from Greenville, South Carolina.
And so in the late 1870s,
he, his family, mother,
father, and siblings, they moved to
Adairsville and they weren't
the only family, there were several families.
Their story, I can have you read
later and documents that I brought
about different families who came from
that one place and settled here in Adairsville.
And when they got here,
he started to work on the Western Atlantic Railroad,
which is a big business here at that time,
because you see there's
a railroad right out here and be like,
that's what Adairsville in itself
was incorporated around the railroad.
That's why it became to be what it was.
And so one day he was working on the train and
late at night he fell off
the train and one of the wheels,
he fell up under, and it crushed his leg.
So he was fitted with a peg leg.
And from that point,
he's like, I guess, I don't know,
in my mind, I'm saying he's like,
I have eight girls to take care of.
So it's seven daughters and then a wife.
He was the only dude in there.
No offense, ladies, [LAUGHTER] I understand.
But he was like, hey,
I got to do something to provide for my family.
And I'm not sure if he
knew the trade of shoemaking beforehand,
but after this time, he became a shoemaker.
And also, the story recorded that he was
also a stableman in South Carolina with his father.
When he was a little boy, he used to work with horses.
And so he became a shoemaker
after that accident he had on the railroad track here.
And the shoe shop was
not too far from where we are right now.
Downtown off Gua Street.
It's a vacant buildin but that building,
we hope to one day turn into a Black history and
there's some talk about it
and we're trying to work on that.
But that's who William Arthur Butler is.
He became one of the first black
business owners in this area,
he was very well respected.
>> And how do you feel about his story being shared in
the train depot with the new exhibit?
>> I'm very appreciative of the San Sushi Women's Club.
They heard about the story.
I came and did a presentation about
my great great grandfather a couple of years ago.
And from that, they approached me and said, hey,
we would like to display
something to honor your great great grandfather,
William Arthur Butler in our depot.
And, of course, they are the ones who
oversee and the caretakers of the depot.
And they had part time artists
as a business we have here [inaudible].
He took a picture of my grandfather and a story
about him and matted it and framed it.
So it was really nice and we're very proud to
have that as a part of the depot here in in Adairsville.
>> That's great. So just so we
can know where we're at with your line of descent,
is this your mother's line of descent?
>> Yes.
>> Can you just give us
a quick brief overview of how that descent goes?
>> So if you're into genealogy,
you know that a death certificate is like a gold mine.
It has when they died
and when they were born, who their mother was,
who the father was, where they were born,
what they died of,
what funeral home bear or what cemetery?
It's like a gold mine.
And so I was fortunate enough to
find his death certificate.
The William Arthur Butler's death certificate.
And I then was
able to find who his father and mother was.
That's really big for
African Americans because prior to 1870,
we were just property as far as
the census, we we weren't listed.
Our name weren't even listed, just the number
of slaves that you had that were male,
children, and female, that type of thing.
But I was able to find William
Arthur Butler's death certificate.
He died on Christmas Day,
1930, of Influenza, the common flu.
And so from that death certificate,
I found that his father was named
Humphrey Butler and his mother
was named Mary Agnes Brockman Butler.
And so with that being said,
it goes Humphrey Butler, William Arthur Butler,
Sally Butler Pullon,
Thomas Howell Pullon,
Phyllis Daris Pullon,
and then me,
Ahmad Hall. Uncle Sam. [LAUGHTER]
>> And you've mentioned
some other ancestors that
you had that contributed to the community.
Can you tell us who those are?
Dr. Harris, for example.
>> Well, yeah. Definitely want to mention Dr. JV Harris.
He was born about 1900 in Deville,
and you heard me mention William Arthur Butler,
we were talking about my great great grandfather.
His wife, Sally Harris Butler,
had a brother named Samuel Harris,
and Samuel Harris had a son named James Buchanan Harris;
that's Dr. JV Harris.
So that was my great great grandfather's nephew.
And he became one of
the first known recorded Black doctors that we know.
There may have been some before then in this area,
even in Bartow County as a whole,
but that's the one that we know came
from this area of Bartow County area.
And he went on to to
be what they call one of
the inaugurate fathers of Morehouse School of Medicine.
And I have several documents that confirm that.
Actually, got to spend a lot of time with his daughter.
His daughter was born when he was about
maybe in his 40s, almost 50.
So she was still alive when I was coming up,
and so I got a great chance to
have talks with her and I have
some documents and pictures
that she gave me that were his.
And he gave the first
$10,000 to start Morehouse School of Medicine.
That's a lot of money. I think it was the 70s that did
really incorporated the school,
but that's a lot of money.
That's still a lot of money now.
>> Do you know where his office was in Adairsville?
>> Well, his office actually wasn't in Adairsville.
He was born in Adairsville but he practiced in Atlanta.
He had a huge farm in Palmetto, Georgia.
I don't know if you ever heard of Palmetto.
It's Washington Road right off of 2805
going south in Atlanta and if you go
Washington Road it'll take you right
into the Palmetto area.
And so that's where he was.
>> Okay.
>> He was also really quick.
I just found this right before we met a few weeks ago.
He was on the Board of Directors for a long time.
But I found that in the early 1980s when
President Bush was still a vice president, his wife,
Barbara Bush served on the board with my cousin,
Dr. JV Harris for Morehouse School of Medicine,
they were on the board together, First Lady Bush.
>> Interesting. And you had mentioned I think,
it was your grandfather told you stories about
the Jim Crow era in Adairsville and
also a cousin had some stories about the KKK.
Can you tell us about those stories?
>> Well, yeah. I'll tell
you to the extent that I know them.
There's so many more stories that I would have
to jot, it's just all a lot.
I have a cousin named June Hill who hopefully will
be interviewed at a later date.
June was born in the late '30s,
if I'm not mistaken.
And she once told me of a story she remembers that
had to happen mid '40s that she recollects,
mid '40s, late '40s.
That her mother and aunt told her to get under the bed.
And she was like, "Wow, why?".
They got under the bed and
her mother told her that the KKK is outside.
So they were hooded and everything
and the whole cross
burning all that type of thing that happened then.
And that was a memory she had concerning the KKK.
And Jim Crow,
I remember my grandfather just saying,
if you were walking on the sidewalk and white man,
woman, boy or girl approached you,
whether it was raining or what,
you had to get down in the gutter with your head down,
not look them in the face and keep walking.
So that's one thing that I
remember him telling me about as well.
And he said that one of the craziest things was
you would have these people
dressed in these these KKK garments,
I guess, run around your house and
your community the night before,
and then the next day you go to
the store and you buy something from people
who were wearing these hoods
and garments the night before.
He said that that you had nowhere else to go.
That's the only place you could buy stuff
from but these were the same people
that were running around
your house and burning crosses and that type of thing.
>> What about the over at the Depot,
we understand there's the different waiting room,
the segregated waiting rooms.
do you know anything about that?
>> Yes, and I think that was
more so probably mid 20th century.
After integration they had
too much problems, especially in Adairsville.
But I can even remember my mother
telling me in the '70s that the KKK was still there.
They had a rounding year.
>> In the '70s?
>> Yes. It's a lot.
My mother remembers that.
And just speaking of racism in that matter,
I can remember just a few years ago,
I was at a red light in Rock Mart, Georgia.
There was Triangle grocery store there.
I was just sitting at a red light
and the guy pulls up next to
me and says the N-word several times.
And if his dog could actually speak words,
he would probably say
the same thing because he was barking.
So it is prevalent and it's relevant and I
think that it's something that
we need to learn how to openly discuss,
and I think that when we
do that we'll be able to move on from that.
But it's something that we faced for a very long time,
but I think that it can be something
that can be resolved and if not resolved,
we can come to an understanding about
it and I think that's what really needs to be done.
And especially nowadays,
I think we're trying to about this,
a few weeks ago, even with
our Muslim brothers and sisters.
I don't like the way they're being treated.
I'm Christian,
but I believe that
this country was founded on freedom and
religion should have the right to
be practiced whatever religion
you want to in a safe way.
As long as you're not arming anyone else.
And I hate to hear when they
confuse people
of the Muslim faith with radical Islamic.
Those are two different things.
My own political point on that.
>> When you mentioned you've encountered this incident,
I guess not too long ago, the one you mentioned.
And you're fairly young, but can you even tell us,
ways that racial relations have changed in
the Adairsville area just since you were a child?
>> Well, you know what? I have to honestly say,
maybe in the moment I didn't notice,
but now I can look back this.
There were some times it seemed that there were
some things that were not right and
could have been because I was a Black man.
But I must say that now Adairsville has come a long way.
And I'll be honest, I don't think it's
ever been as bad as it may have been in other places.
Now, this is just my take on it.
But I do think that we have a great diverse community.
We have a great diverse city council,
our mayor is a Black man,
the first Black mayor ever,
so that's a big step on.
And so I would say as of
now I think Adairsville
really on the move when it comes to that.
I don't think we see, in my take, for the most part,
I'm sure that there's always a few,
but we don't see color here in Adairsville.
And I like the small town field and all that,
it feels like family. Everybody knows everybody.
So there's times every now and then,
I be like, who is that?
Even when we have a movie, so everybody knows everybody.
>> We're changing direction a little bit.
We were interested in the Beach family and what you know
about them and their role in your family history.
>> Well, really quickly,
the Beach family from
my research and seeing
how they were intertwined with my family,
even in the late 1800s,
they were the family.
They owned everything,
they had a meal here,
they had all kinds of stuff.
If you were buying land,
you bought it from the Beaches.
If you were getting grocery,
you got it from the Beaches.
Everything worked through the Beaches.
That's how it really were.
We're a big family here in Adairsville.
My great grandfather, William Butler had
an older sister named Viola Butler.
She actually married a man named George Green,
who was one of the people of the family that came down.
The Green family came in from either as well.
They married Viola Butler and George Green.
She actually worked for the Beach family,
and we were going through some documents a lot.
I just have so much stuff, I don't have to read a lot.
I know she worked for the Beaches,
but she actually bought
land from the Beaches back in the late 1890s,
I think it was, for $275.
We have a document, I could read it but
that's a lot of money at that time.
And she later sold it to my great great grandfather,
William Arthur Butler, her brother.
It was passed down to generation to generation.
And Aunt Emma Butler,
who I spoke of earlier was the last person
to live on that land.
>> Well, you said Viola worked for
Mr. Beach or the Beaches, do know what she did?
>> Yeah. And most of the time,
you don't even have to think about domestic work.
The movie we talked about,
the movie They Help, I'll
say this especially with Hollywood.
I'm so glad that we can make movies
now to talk about real life
because I've heard so many people
who had watched that movie and said,
hey, that's my mom or hey, that's my grandmother.
That's really what it was. I have several pictures.
Even some of the best pictures I
have in my family are with
them holding babies that
they took care of and that type of thing.
So that was very much a part of the life
of African Americans in Adairsville as well.
I can remember my grandfather's first cousin,
whose named Jaqueline McConnell Sellers.
Her mother Anicia was a sister to Emma.
I'm trying to connect the lines for everybody.
By the way, and Jaqueline, she said,
"I remember a time when my mother would come
home and her payment would be
a few dollars and old dresses."
So she did domestic work,
and that was her payment for doing it.
So that type of lifestyle,
the domestic worker,
was very much a part of the lives
of African American in Adairsville.
>> And you had mentioned when we talked earlier,
your family's impression of the Beaches.
>> I had a cousin who told a story.
Terry Carson, I wish we could get him here,
but he's a great storyteller one way or the other.
But he was telling the story
about his grandfather who I have no relation to,
but it was still in that area of Adairsville.
Mr. Jim Clemens, he works for
the Beaches and he had promised his wife that,
I think, he would either go to church with
her, something like that.
And he wanted a day off, he had promised her.
And one of the Beaches,
Mr. Beach said, no, you're not.
He said, well, Mr. Beach, I promised my wife.
He was just so adamant about it because he
made a promise to
his wife and he didn't want to break it.
So Mr. Beach, he said,
you can take off if you want to,
but I promise you, you will
never work for anybody else in this town.
And that's the time for him
to open up the mouth and say that's type of
power that the Beach family had here in Adairsville.
And so needless to say,
Mr. Clemens had enough courage
not to go to work and honor
the request of his wife at Maine
and he didn't tell he was fired.
He lost his job on account of that.
>> Wow. Well,
back to the downtown in
Adairsville, like physical changes.
[LAUGHTER] Can you describe
things that have changed in Adairsville
just since you've lived here during your life?
>> I'll tell you one of the things I'm most proud of is
the way that the city as a whole,
the downtown development authorities,
the way we worked together to make sure that
Adairsville never lose its soul.
And I feel that the downtown area
is the soul of Adairsville and it is
almost exactly the way
it was when these buildings were built.
There are some buildings were built later 20th century,
you can tell,
but we tried our best to keep that same look.
And one of the great things about it is,
really quick story, the Bank of Adairsville
used to be downtown Adairsville.
And there was a story that it was made out of marble,
the facade was marble and all those type of thing.
But as years have progressed,
they had bricked it and they created
the city hall building
and made it into the city hall building.
So when I came up, of course, it was bricked.
And so I heard a story
about being marbled there and those type of thing.
Nobody knew that if they had removed
it and bricked it or just bricked over it.
So as luck would have it,
there was some damage done to the roof of the city hall.
So they had to move the city hall
to a couple of trailers down the street here,
and they were there for
maybe a couple of years, I think.
>> You remember what year it was?
>> Within the last 3,
4 years, and I don't think anymore longer than that.
So what they had to do is they
had to go take the bricks down.
And when you know it,
the marble facade from the late 1800s was still up.
And this is the sad thing though,
they decided they want to
vote if they were going to go to
a more modern or if they want to keep it.
What's the vote on? No, we're not doing that.
And so not unanimously,
the was one guy, I'm not going to say his name,
[LAUGHTER] but we still have that marble facade
on the front of the city hall now.
So it still says bank and all those type of things.
So people can really come and
enjoy that as well. It's amazing.
So really to answer your question,
coming back to that,
I like the fact that we've
made sure that we can keep as much of
the soul of Adairsville as we can,
and we want to continue to do that.
>> Well, we see that you love Adairsville.
>> I do.
>> I think you've answered our next question,
which is why you choose to stay here. I know you love it.
Can you explain what kind of
opportunities that would offer to
someone in your age group?
>> Well, I tell people this all the time,
if you've ever seen the movie Madea's Family Reunion,
they have a big cookout in the lawn, we lived that.
My grandfather, uncles listen to temptation songs,
we'd be out there doing these steps and everything.
We lived that and I think that's one of the things I was
fortunate enough to experience throughout
my lifetime and being brought up in a small town.
I hear from people who live even in Cartersville,
one city over,
they didn't experience that type
of family unit like I did.
My grandfather and grandmother,
[inaudible] and they had eight children together,
so a big family.
And so whenever anybody is in need or there is a need,
we all come together to make sure it's met.
There's no, that's not going to happen,
you're going to be left out on the corner by yourself.
We always come together.
I have that family unit
and the more I live, the more I meet people,
I understand how blessed I am to have that, I still do.
And that's one of the things that keeps me here.
My family is here,
my roots are here, my life is here. I don't care.
I I travel a lot of different places
singing and doing it,
I will always call Adairsville home.
I don't care if I become a millionaire,
I will be able to look [inaudible] railroad,
I will come back here.
I love Adairsville.
There is no place on the
face of the Earth like Adairsville.
>> Well, are there other people
like your age who maybe left
Adairsville because they felt like there weren't
opportunities for them or have you seen that?
>> Well, I've seen some people do that,
but more so than that,
I've seen people stay here and
create what other people may go outside to try to obtain.
I know a lot of people that I went to
school with who have businesses here.
My best friend, Kyle,
we've been best friend
since we were in diapers, literally.
He stays here, he's still in Adairsville,
and he just became
the assistant principal at a school in Rome.
He stayed here, but still
saw to it that he got his education.
He is now married with children and he built
his family here in Adairsville but make sure
that no ends were left out.
He still makes the money
he needs to take care of his family.
So a lot of them stayed
here and made a way for themselves here in Adairsville.
Now, some did go abroad and study,
and some did go and make homes in other places,
but a lot of my friends stayed here and
made a way for themselves here in
Adairsville because they loved here so much.
>> Well, if you are welcoming a visitor to Adairsville,
what two or three highlights would you want to show them?
>> I think number 1 would definitely be downtown,
it's so much history here.
And that's what I'm most proud of, the history.
I love history, that's my thing.
I do music professionally.
If I didn't do music, I'd be a history teacher,
which is pretty boring to a lot of people, but not to me.
I love history. Not to you,
not the people here, but probably the great,
great grandkids watching, history.
[LAUGHTER]
>> So especially downtown
as a whole and secondly, the depot,
because it's been here
for such a long time
and it houses a lot of the history here.
And then the next place I probably would take them to
is what we call St. Elmo.
St. Elmo is the community that
was designated as the Black community.
How they always put
the Martin Luther King Junior Drive
in the Black community,
they can't put that in the White community.
[LAUGHTER] Anyway, that's another story in itself.
But the road that used to be called
Metro Road is now MLK Road.
And my street,
Oakdale, is adjacent from it.
I call Oakdale Mayberry.
Our street is like Mayberry,
it's quiet, it's clean.
And then also, it helps to
express the across-the-railroad-track mentality.
I don't know if you've ever heard of that.
[OVERLAPPING] There's the side of
the railroad tracks that we're on now
is where the Anglo-Saxon moved in, okay?
[LAUGHTER] And then on the other side
of the railroad track is where we live.
I think those are some highlights into understanding
we're much more alike.
Maya Angelou put it this way,
we are more alike than we are unalike.
So I think that will help to
bridge that gap there as well.
So downtown as a whole,
the depot, and then the area across the hill on,
I think that speaks to what the Dales was,
what it is and what it will be in the future.
And the crazy thing is the cemetery is still segregated.
[LAUGHTER] At the end of the day everything is.
So we have a Black cemetery and a White cemetery.
It's not a stigma behind it now,
it's just that's what it is,
what it is, but we do have that.
So I know where I'm going.
[LAUGHTER]
>> We want to ask about the Martin Luther King Drive.
Can you tell us that story?
>> How it got changed?
>> Yeah.
>> Maybe the late '90s,
early 2000s maybe,
I don't know if you remember, but there was
a big whole every town in America had to have a MLK.
I don't know who got on that.
But during that time,
I think there was a little backlash about it.
As far as I can remember, because it was
Metro Road and a lot
of people don't like it because
you have to change your address.
And so you have to go back to everyone and say,
hey, this is not my address anymore.
And a lot of people had been in
these houses for a very long time,
and you'd think they would be welcoming them.
The MLK Drive,
they were like, don't nobody want to do that.
[LAUGHTER] We've been living on Metro Road
for such a long time, but finally,
they went along with it and it was changed.
Like I said, I think it happened in late '90s,
early 2000s, because I can remember it when it
was Metro Road. I still remember that.
And one thing I'd like to add is,
I always say this to people,
growing up in the Dales in the '90s was
like growing up anywhere else in the '60s.
[LAUGHTER] I didn't know it,
but I grew up in the '60s.
We had a washer, but we had no dryer,
so we went out and we had
three pine trees and grinding that to the wire,
that took the wire across.
That's where we went
to hang our clothes so they would dry.
And we used to say we had to beat the life back into them
because if you keep the clothes out there
for a very long time, it's like this.
[LAUGHTER] To put the shirt on,
you have to beat the shirt,
so you're actually able to wear it.
I remember that and I can
remember going to
my grandfather's sister's house in the '90s.
We had to pour, there was
a bucket of water by the toilet.
The plumbing was so bad that you had to pour
water into the toilet to make it flush.
I can remember going to my grandfather's brother's house
and they didn't have furniture,
he had some pillows on the floor.
And even the doors, they had curtains,
they had no doors in the house. So this was in the '90s.
But the amazing thing is my grandfather
was blessed to build a house in 1970 for he,
his wife, and his kids.
A house, nobody had ever lived in it but them.
And so here you are in
the '90s and a couple of his siblings are living
in situations that are by far,
not even touching what he had for
his family in let's say 20-something years before.
That's amazing to me,
that God allowed him to,
I'm going to say God allowed,
because I believe there is a God.
Hallelujah, praise you, Jesus.
>> Amen. [LAUGHTER]
>> So I was very blessed in that fact to have a house.
So when I grew up, I grew up in that same house that
my grandfather had worked for
and it's amazing to be able to say that,
because I knew there were a lot of people who
were unable to do that.
And a black man in 1970,
eight kids, you weren't having that.
It was public housing or not.
>> Was your family in close proximity to each other,
could y'all walk to your houses and stuff?
>> Let me tell you this, the funny thing,
I'm going to let y'all in on the family.
But those sisters I was talking about,
my grandfather, his mother was named Sally.
She had sisters named,
Emma and Ayla, who were twins,
Aunt Izela, Aunt Eileen,
Aunt Loise, and Aunt Annie.
Now, these people lived like Aunt Annie lived here,
Aunt Emma lived over there,
Aunt Ayla lived right there,
Aunt Loise lived here, Aunt Ize lived there.
So they were in walking distance.
And my Cousin June,
she says she remembers their mother,
those sisters, my grandfather's sister's mother,
Sally Harris's brother.
Remember her and her sister, Lula Harris,
they would walk across a park there.
Well, it was a little playground area,
and it was really a churchyard,
a schoolyard that they lived so
close they'd walk and meet each other in the middle.
And depending on which house they'd go to,
they'd hold each other's hand and
walk to the house while they talk,
just like little girls, but
they all lived in close proximity.
And the house that I live in
now was actually built by my grandfather's brother.
And my grandfather and I grew up across the street.
And then there was another brother on to the left of him.
And that brother actually moved to Cartersville.
And he just recently within
the last few weeks moved back to [inaudible].
So you can't stay away from [LAUGHTER].
He's about 70 years old,
and Uncle Robert, he just moved back to Indiana.
So yeah, they were in close proximity.
Everybody is right here.
>> So you're very active in the community now,
could you tell us some ways
that you are in the community?
>> I sure can. And the crazy thing,
just segue into that,
is sometimes you're not doing things to be seen.
You're doing it because you think
it's needed and you think
that what you have to offer will help in some way.
And so the mayor approached me,
I'm going to say maybe a year and a half ago,
about being a part of
the Downtown Development Authority of Adairsville.
So we had a meeting and I came and attended it,
and we were selecting officers.
And when they came to the part to elect a chairman,
everyone said that I should be chairman.
Well, I accepted and I later found out that I'm
the first African American to ever be
the chairman of the Downtown Development Authority.
And also, I'm the youngest to
ever be the chairman
of the Downtown Development Authority.
So here we are again,
the same family making history in the blood.
[LAUGHTER] We're just to doing it.
We're not looking for it, it just happens.
And also, I was honored to
be one of the grand marshals for the parade this
past Great Locomotive Chase Festival
that we had just a few weeks ago.
And what the mayor decided to do
is people who were the chairmans of
the Adairsville Development Authority
which covers the whole city,
there's authority that deals with industry,
the Planning Commission, I think is what it's called,
and a couple other.
And we were all the grand marshals
and I found out after that,
I was the first African American grand marshal.
So we did make a history.
>> What about the future?
You've shared earlier some of your future plans about
the museum where your grandfather's shoe shop
is. Can you tell us about that?
>> Yes. For a few years since I
really dug into the family history
and had gotten to an interest about the building here,
I've always said I would love
to put a museum out to be great.
Then we get a lot of tours that way,
just kind of add to downtown,
and that will help keep that building the way it is.
And so I've heard little talk
about the city council discussing a Black history museum.
I was actually out of town for
about eight days back in September.
When I got back,
they had had a meeting with
the whole city and they talked about it again.
So there is some interest there,
and I think that I might be helpful in pushing
it and getting it actually done.
So I'm excited about the prospect of
hopefully having a Black
history museum here in Adairsville,
and that would be a great place to showcase some of
the things that we've offered to the city.
>> Especially with all the firsts.
>> Right. [LAUGHTER]
>> The first business, the first doctor.
>> Definitely.
>> Just wrap it up by telling us what you consider
your family's legacy in
Adairsville and how you're hoping to continue it?
>> I tell this story often.
My grandfather, Thomas Howard Pullum,
died in August of 2010,
and he always told me that
a legacy is not houses and land and what you own.
That's nice to have to pass down,
he said, but your legacy is your name.
And so I can remember,
maybe this was a year or a year-and-a-half after he died,
I had a flat tire in the yard, in the driveway.
And I was like, goodness,
who am I going to find to help change his tire?
Because I don't do that kind of work, I got insurance.
I call state farm and say, look,
I need somebody to change the tire,
I just write it off.
So I called a wrecker company
to come and check the tire out and that type of thing.
It took them two hours to get there,
but when the guy got there,
he said, "Wait, aren't you Mr. Pullum's grandson?"
And I said yes. He said,
"If I would've known that,
I would have came right when you called me."
So I'm saying to say,
even after my grandfather had died,
his name still held weight.
And I think that's that's
something that we can all carry with us.
I think that the Pullum name, the Harris name,
the Butler name, they
still carry weight within the city and
they've made major contributions to the city.
Even the Bible says the greatest new king was a servant,
and we've served so many families, the Beaches.
And others have made so many contributions to the town.
I think that legacy is going to
be remembered even by the name.
The name is going to
be remembered and their contributions to
the city and the things they've
done to help make the community a better community.
I'm going to live the rest of my life to ensure that.
>> Well, thank you. [OVERLAPPING] We enjoyed talking to
you and you've taught us a lot about Adairsville.
>> Thank you.
>> [MUSIC]
>> For this song,
I'm going to say everything.
I can do this.
For God so loved
the world that he gave
his only begotten son,
that whosoever believes in
him should not perish,
should not perish,
but they shall have,
they shall have
everlasting life.
That's it. [APPLAUSE]
>> That's amazing.