Macon Magazine

porches and backyards of neighborhood homes, from living rooms full of sweet grandmas and aunties during Wednesday evening prayer meetings. "ere was so much poverty, so much prejudice in those days," Richard once said. "I imagine people had to sing to feel their connection with God." ere was prejudice, too, against boys like Richard, boys who idolized their mother and imitated the way she talked, who would sneak into her bedroom sometimes to use her perfume and makeup, who always wanted to be the mama when playing house with his cousins. "I felt like a girl," Richard said, "so the boys wouldn't play with me 'cos I'd been saying stuff like that." Richard was born with one leg shorter than the other, and kids made fun of the effeminate way he walked to compensate, calling him "faggot, sissy, freak, punk," he said. "ey would call me anything." As he grew older, name-calling turned to physical violence. He was scared to walk the neighborhood solo or hang out with any of the unpredictably brutal boys, but he couldn't shrink himself to be safe, either. He had a need to be seen for who he was. or moved elsewhere; some say we should leave history be. Maconite Maggie Gonzalez captured the zeitgeist and made the news by creating a Facebook group whose name - "Tear Down Crusty Confederate Dude; Erect Fabulous Little Richard Statue" – is also its goal. "I'd love to see us greet the people who come to Macon with something really positive about our past," Gonzalez said. Coleman happened to see that group posted on Facebook on the Saturday that Little Richard died. He'd been listening to Little Richard's music all day and considered how accessible that Confederate statue was from the big front window of Mercer's McEachern Arts Center on Second Street. As an artist who works in mixed media and digital imaging, Coleman had projection equipment readily available, and he was flush with ideas from a symposium on activist art he'd recently taught. On the evening of May 9, with the streets downtown mostly empty, Little Richard showed up and showed out, as he always did. Coleman projected black and white images of our beloved beauty-on-duty onto that tall, pale statue and before long, photos of the one-off art installation were making the social media rounds, garnering praise for the fitting tribute and the cheeky yet substantial message conveyed. "I felt that the symbolism of this, his image on that statue – that was important," said Coleman. 'COMIN' OUT OF MACON, GEORGIA' Just by being his authentic and undiluted self, Little Richard changed the world, and he never let the world forget that it all started in Macon. Countless artists and musicians were inspired by his larger-than-life presence. e mixed-race audiences who congregated at his early shows to swoon, sweat and dance made segregation look as ridiculous and outmoded as it was. Audiences ate him up, always, no matter what he was doing or how long he'd been out of the spotlight. Musical talent isn't enough – you've got to have that thing, Little Richard once explained. "I always did have that thing, but I didn't know what to do with the thing I had," he said. "I always had my little thing I wanted to let the world hear." We heard you, loud and clear, Little Richard, and we miss your voice already. "I look back on my life, comin' out of Macon, Georgia – I never thought I'd be a superstar, a living legend. I never heard of no rock and roll in my life. Black people lived right by the railroad tracks, and the train would shake their houses at night. I would hear it as a boy and I thought: I'm gonna make a song that sounds like that." Richard Wayne Penniman grew up in a shotgun house in Pleasant Hill, clamoring for attention alongside 11 siblings. Religion was an integral part of his young life. His grandfather and uncle were preachers, and his mother, Leva Mae, met Bud, his father, at a church revival. Bud Penniman was a deacon, but he also ran a juke joint and sold moonshine on the side. Richard was born into that dissonance, and would spend his life pinballing between the sacred and the profane. Singing was omnipresent during Richard's childhood. He sang in church with gospel groups, but music also swelled from the front 34 maconmagazine.com | JUNE/JULY 2020

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