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Is Nancy Denson a True Democrat?
PLUS, CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS, COMMUNITY POLICING, THE COMP PLAN AND MORE LOCAL NEWS
By Blake Aued and Nate Harris news@flagpole.coma
Mayor Nancy Denson
For years, the question has lingered: Mayor
Nancy Denson is a Democrat, but is she
really a Democrat?
She may not be for long—or at least,
she may lose her post on the Athens-Clarke
County Democratic Committee. The com
mittee has scheduled a vote to remove her
on Sept. 28, based on allegations that she
violated a bylaw stating that committee
members cannot support candidates from
other parties.
At issue is a fundraiser Denson hosted
for Houston Gaines, the Republican can
didate in the upcoming House District
117 special election, at her home in Forest
Heights. The event was a
who’s who of elected offi
cials from both parties in
both Clarke and Oconee
counties, rubbing elbows
with deep-pocketed
political donors, many
of them developers. Half
the ACC Commission—
Mike Hamby, Jerry
NeSmith, Andy Herod,
Sharyn Dickerson and
Diane Bell—was there.
It’s no surprise that
Denson would support
Gaines, who managed
her 2014 re-election
bid. In fact, Denson
told Flagpole that had a special election
not been called—necessitated by Rep.
Regina Quick’s resignation to accept an
appointment as Superior Court judge—she
would have resigned from the committee
in order to back Gaines. (There is some
dispute over whether the bylaw’s language
includes special elections, or just regular
general elections.) Like many Democrats,
she also supported Quick in her primary
race against Rep. Doug McKillip in 2012,
although there was no Democrat running
then.
“As an American, as a Georgian and an
Athenian, I want the best candidate,” she
said.
That’s struck many people as a reason
able position, but ever since she first ran for
mayor in 2010, many others have suspected
that Denson is a Republican in blue cloth
ing. “She’s not a Democrat. This just con
firms it for the millionth time,” said Russell
Edwards, former chairman of the ACCDC
and a candidate for Commission District 7
against Bell.
After all—considering that the overlap
between Republicans and Gwen O’Looney
or Tim Denson voters is about as small as
the overlap between Trump supporters and
Rosie O’Donnell fans—the majority of her
support likely came from the GOP. Since
local elections are nonpartisan, she was able
to run as a “lifelong Democrat” but also call
herself the “common sense choice,” a wink
and a nod at Republicans that developers
could run wild, and the era of frou-frou
extravagances like bike lanes and public
art would be over. (To be fair, the SPLOST-
funded public art program has continued,
and she appointed a committee to update
the county’s bike master plan.) Sprinkle in
a majority of African-American voters and
juuuuust enough white Democrats, and she
unlocked the winning coalition that eluded
Charlie Maddox in 2006.
In defending her record, Denson pointed
to the numerous fundraisers she’s held over
the years for Democratic candidates, includ
ing former Sen. Max Cleland, Secretary of
State Cathy Cox and Rep. John Barrow. “I’ve
probably been more active than many of the
people on the committee now,” she said.
As for the aforementioned five commis
sioners, I would describe at least three of
them—Herod, Hamby and NeSmith—as
left of center, at least
on state and national
issues. As NeSmith
explained to me on
“Athens News Matters”
last week (shameless
plug: the show runs at 1
p.m. Fridays and noon
Sundays on WUGA
91.7 and 94.5 FM), he
attended the Gaines
fundraiser in hopes of
heading off McKillip,
who’s further to the
right and angered many
Democrats by switch
ing parties in 2010.
(McKillip considered
running to regain his old seat but has now
endorsed Gaines—which could backfire on
Gaines by tarnishing his reputation as a
moderate.)
Edwards contended that when
Democrats back Republicans, “it under
mines faith in the party,” and it’s “disre
spectful” to the Democrat in the House
District 117 race, Deborah Gonzalez.
Gonzalez, though, said she’s unfazed.
“I understand,” she said. “They watched
Houston grow up.” But “I just hope
Democrats understand that a Democrat can
win,” she added. “They need to come out
and vote.” [Blake Aued]
Group Galls to Take Down
Confederate Monument
On the heels of an Athens-Clarke
Heritage Foundation lecture on the his
tory and context of Confederate monu
ments, the Athens Anti-Discrimination
Movement is asking the ACC Commission
to move the Broad Street memorial to dead
Confederates and “add another monu
ment—one that represents the future of
Athens.” They asked Mayor Nancy Denson
to put the issue on the agenda for the com
mission’s Tuesday, Oct. 3 meeting. They’re
also holding a second meeting to discuss
the memorial’s fate on Oct. 2 at 6:30 p.m. at
the ACC Library.
“Systemic discrimination, education
inequality, poverty and mass incarceration
plague the black community of Athens-
Clarke County,” AADM co-founders Knowa
and Mokah Johnson wrote in an open
letter. “By taking action and refusing to
uphold symbolism that lauds white suprem
acy in our community, we can show that we
do not fear the truth, but embrace it.”
Both of them attended the Sept. 20
ACHF lecture, which featured UGA his
tory professor Akela Reason. Since the
white supremacist riot in Charlottesville,
VA last month, protesters have torn down
a Confederate monument in Durham,
NC, and the city of Baltimore removed its
monuments in the dead of night, sparking a
similar debate in Athens.
The monument craze started in the
1890s and lasted until the 1920s, at which
point many people claimed to be suffering
from “monument fatigue,” Reason said.
There are about 1,000 Confederate monu
ments, including about 140 in Georgia;
some are in the North and some in states
that didn’t even exist during the Civil War,
she said. Often funded by elites with little
to no public input, many monuments were
built by local stonecutters—with African-
American laborers forced to help—but they
were so common that statues of soldiers
could even be ordered from catalogs.
The dates coincide with the popularity of
the “Lost Cause,” a now-discredited version
of history holding that Southerners fought
honorably for states’ rights and to defend
their homes against Northern aggres
sion, rather than to continue slavery. “The
South in this period was really dominated
by the Lost Cause,” Reason said. “This was
a revision. It was a way to survive defeat.”
But Southern states’
secession documents
“emphatically” list
slavery as the cause for
rebellion. Meanwhile,
Northerners looked
the other way and
ignored the South’s
Jim Crow laws after
Reconstruction, she
said.
At the time, Athens
was every bit as racist
as any other Southern
city. Reason showed
a newspaper ad from
1911 for the Black
Mammy Memorial
Institute, a proposed
school in Athens
to teach African
Americans to be better servants, because
whites believed standards had fallen since
slavery ended.
The Athens obelisk was erected in
1871, ostensibly by the Athens Ladies’
Memorial Association, but probably secretly
funded by wealthy men, because during
Reconstruction it would have been easier
for women to build a memorial mourning
the dead than for men to build one in defi
ance. The association said their goal was a
monument “as white and spotless as the
cause for which they [Confederate soldiers]
died was pure and holy.”
Reason said each monument should
be looked at individually. Options include
leaving them alone, removing them,
contextualizing them or moving them to
another location. Each has its drawbacks.
As far as moving them goes, some are
too big, and museums don’t want them
anyway, Reason said. She questioned
whether African Americans would want
to look at them in a cemetery any more
than in a park. Gathering them together in
one place, as some have suggested, could
inadvertently create “a neo-Nazi theme
park.” Efforts to add context with interpre
tive signs or new monuments might be
overshadowed.
The ACHF is not taking sides in the
debate. “Our goal is to create an environ
ment where open, respectful dialogue is
possible,” trustee Kimberly Davis said.
But for Reason, the memorial should
come down or be moved to a less promi
nent location. “Personally, I don’t think the
Athens monument should be at the center
of Athens,” she said. “I don’t think we’re
that community.” [BA]
Georgia Tech Shooting Sign
Disgusts UGA Students
Hunter Hulsey was disgusted when he
saw a sign with a poll in the Tate Student
Center Plaza last Wednesday asking if
people agreed that the shooting of Scout
Schultz at Georgia Tech was “a clean shoot.”
Schultz, a student at Georgia Tech, was
shot and killed by police responding to
a call of a suspicious person on campus.
Schultz reportedly refused to comply with
officer orders to drop a multitool Schultz
was wielding. It was later revealed Schultz
placed the call that brought officers to the
scene in what appears to be a suicide by
police shooting.
“It pissed me off, so I took a picture,”
Hulsey said. He posted it on Facebook, with
several people commenting on their repul
sion. “I think we can all
agree that the question
was inappropriate,”
he said. “Using Scout’s
death to justify a politi
cal opinion about guns
or anything is disre
spectful to the life they
lived.”
Who exactly posted
the question is still
unclear. By 5 p.m.,
the display had been
“voluntarily removed,”
according to Greg
Trevor, spokesperson
for the university.
“Although the language
on this sign was insen
sitive and offensive
to many members of
the university community, it is protected
expression,” Trevor said in a statement.
“I have seen a lot about the sign being
in poor taste, and then some turning it
into a free speech issue,” said UGA student
Alii Carton. “But to me, it’s not about free
speech or where it was, it’s about that, as
a university, we should show support for
Georgia Tech.”
Carton saw Hulsey’s photo on Facebook
and decided to contact the Department
of Student Affairs expressing her disap
pointment. She said she and a couple of
her friends are organizing a show of sup
port in the Tate Student Center Plaza on
Wednesday, Sept. 27 from 4-7 p.m., in the
same spot the sign was. [Nate Harris]
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FLAGPOLE.COM | SEPTEMBER 27, 2017
