About The champion newspaper. (Decatur, GA) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (July 28, 2016)
LOCAL .'Al- 6 1C HAM P IQ M July 28 - Aug. 3, 2016 • Page 15A Time traveling with Tom Keating Local educator, researcher brings history to life at DeKalb County History Center Decatur educator, historian and community advocate Tom Keating discussed the topic of anti-semitism in Decatur. The DeKalb County History Center was filled to capacity for a lunch and learn session featuring Tom Keating. Photos by R. Scott Belzer by R. Scott Belzer sbelzer@dekalbchamp.com I t may seem strange today, but there was a period of time—1902 until 1932—when children attended school Tuesday through Saturday in Decatur. According to local educator and author Tom Keating, the practice has always been strange—it only took a new population to point it out. Keating’s 60-page Saturday School, completed in 1999, tells the story of an early Decatur board of education transitioning to the Monday through Friday schedule students know today. The book asserts the one-day difference was a unique institutionalization of bigotry and intolerance practiced only in Decatur. Keating held a talk at the DeKalb County History Center on July 19 to discuss further research on board members responsible for the decision as well as lessons learned since the book’s publication. The history center was filled to capacity with an audience interested in hearing points that seem to further prove Keating’s hypothesis. “Why did Decatur have school on Saturday?” Keating asked. “To keep out the Jews.” According to an article published by Keating in the Decatur Community Review in 1997, which cites research into 1,500 other school systems throughout the country, Decatur censuses and oral interviews, an influx of Jews from 1916 to 1926 both spurred the change and caused significant backlash. “The rechartering of the Ku Klux Klan, the discriminatory practices against Blacks, Catholics and Jews documented by endless research of those times, and the absence of other plausible reasons suggest that Saturday School had a singular intent,” Keating wrote. “That intent was to keep Jews, who observed the Sabbath on Saturday, out of Decatur.” Keating’s research eventually revealed that Decatur was the only school system in the country to uphold this practice. He said City Schools of Decatur has acknowledged this wrongdoing but not apologized while Decatur city officials have yet to do either. “I’m honored to be discussing Saturday School again nearly 20 years after its publication,” Keating said. “The story was not one that was easy to learn about. It was buried in history.” Keating said his new research brought him to the Decatur cemetery to research six board members who voted 3-3 to change the schedule in 1927, resulting in non-action: Charles McKinney, Homer Adams, Frank Hopkins, Catherine Hoke, George “Scott” Candler and Andrew Sledd. Keating’s research allowed him to find board members’ ages at the time of the decision, their average age, as well as one important variable: George Candler would go on to be a DeKalb County politician remembered as a Christian. He was also able to confirm McKinney was an avid pro-Monday- school day advocate. Keating has previously published that Hoke was upset enough about the Tuesday through Saturday schedule being upheld that she resigned. “I studied the head and footstones of all but one member. The board chairman—Hopkins—is not buried in Decatur,” Keating said. “Every head or footstone, save one, has name, birth and death only. Scott Candler’s is marked ‘Christian, Educator, Soldier, Statesman and Devoted Servant of the People of His County.” Keating also pointed out a portrait of Candler in the history center’s archives that reads “Educator, Soldier, Lawyer and Public Servant.” Rather than remember Candler for his vote to uphold the status quo of intolerance, Keating said, history prefers to remember him for his leadership. “And it goes on: ‘Mayor of City of Decatur, commissioner of roads and revenue in DeKalb County, builder of DeKalb water, sewer, health, fire and library systems,”’ Keating said. “We know, however, Christian is engraved in stone.” Keating called the Saturday School story a Christian story, not a Jewish one. “My Jewish friends have to give that up,” Keating said. “It’s a Christian story about public policy and it affected a certain group, very unique in history.” Keating concluded by advising attendees to tell their own school histories “warts and all,” to provide historians perspective on times, places and attitudes. “School calendars affect lives,” Keating said. “Consider how many education meetings are held on Sababths. Anti-semitism played out in a unique way in Decatur and that alone makes it worth sharing.” County votes against SPLOST by Horace Holloman horace@dekalbchamp.com After months of planning and deliberating, two words gave the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners reason to hesitate to vote against a special purpose local option sales tax (SPLOST). During the board’s July 19 meeting, commissioners voted 5-0 against putting a SPLOST referendum on the November ballot. District 2 Commissioner Larry Rader said approving the SPLOST would be a “poison pill” if it were to pass. Passing SPLOST would increase property taxes throughout the county due to language in House Bill 596, which was approved during last year’s General Assembly. According to an interpretation of HB 596, the homestead tax exemption would be suspended for the duration of the proposed SPLOST, which could potentially increase homestead property taxes. The SPLOST would have generated an estimated $551 million in funding over a five-year span. “The assessment freeze would be suspended if [SPLOST passes]. It’s effectively a poison pill. There would be an increase in the sales tax and property tax for every homesteaded taxpayer,” Rader said. DeKalb County Interim CEO Lee May said the bill’s intention wasn’t to end an assessment freeze for homeowners. HB 596 states, “if the General Assembly enacts an equalized homestead option sales and use tax and such tax is placed into effect in DeKalb County during the period the exemption granted by subsection of this section is in effect, the exemption granted by subsection of this section shall be tolled for as long as the equalized homestead option sales and use tax is in effect.” DeKalb County officials said the word “tolled” should have been revised or omitted from the section. “Although we do not believe that this is the legislative intent of the law’s authors, we are acting according to this interpretation until we can seek the bill’s change in the next Georgia General Assembly session,” May said. Among the items on the proposed SPLOST project list were road repaving, reconstruction of existing fire departments and a new consolidated government center. The estimated cost of the DeKalb County government center was $40 million, roughly 9 percent of the SPLOST funding. More than 42 percent of the SPLOST revenue was allocated to road and drainage projects. “We worked hard to try to come to a resolution. Some had different priorities. Some had roads and some had public safety. It was a mixture of different commissioners trying to come together,” Commissioner Mereda Johnson said. “We’ve heard conversations of a fancy government center but I don’t even have room for an intern in the office I work in. We’re trying to be an efficient and transparent government.” May said he was unsure whether state lawmakers would correct the wording of the bill, but said he was hopefully the issue would be resolved. “It’s sad. People were so excited about getting their streets paved,” Commissioner Kathie Gannon. “This is going to be a difficult thing to fix.”
