Macon Magazine

APRIL/MAY 2022 | maconmagazine.com 99 L ocations of importance with historic ties to our Black community are bountiful in Macon. They serve as markers of the city's past designed to educate and empower today's residents with a sense of who we, all of Macon, were and what we can be. RUTH HARTLEY MOSLEY MEMORIAL WOMEN'S CENTER InTown Macon, the half mile area just outside of downtown in all directions, is a great place to begin exploring locations with historic ties to local Black folks. One is the Ruth Hartley Mosley Memorial Women's Center, located at 626 Spring St. and encircled by H&H Restaurant, Beverly Knight Olson Children's Hospital, St. Joseph's Catholic School and Washington Memorial Library. The stately two-story Victorian style home was built around 1890. Its exterior is accented with a multi-gable roof, a prominent porch, an asymmetrical front entrance and period sash windows. Inside is equally as wonderous. Guests are transferred immediately back in time by the aura of its owner and the eras in which Mosley occupied this space. A feeling of who Mosley was and why she matters is evident. A portrait of her over the fireplace dominates the family room along with a playable piano, original furnishings and breathtaking imported chandelier. Connected to it is an elegant dining room complete with a cabinet of china. The 3,000-square-foot home is topped off with generous bedrooms, a gathering space and, unique to its time, an adjacent room with large windows for lots of sun and a great view of downtown Macon. For those who knew Mosley at the time, it was easy to see why she desired and deserved to call this abode home after purchasing it in 1917. It doubled as her respite and as a gathering place for a host of everyday folks — and some well- known folks as well — until her death in 1975. Visitors included renowned educator Mary McLeod Bethune and United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Macon-Middle Georgia Black Pages founder Alex Habersham records his community-minded multimedia show, "A Call to Action," at the center. He said it's an honor to host his show in the house that Mosley made known. "This house is an early indication of Black greatness in Macon. That almost starts with her. We've got to preserve this place so that the youth have a reference point and something to aspire toward," Habersham said. Born Ruth Price in Savannah in 1886, Mosley was a tall woman of commanding presence with a beautiful but serious face and penetrating eyes that gave her the look of a leader, according to the center's website. She was trained as a nurse in North Carolina and completed her clinical training in Chicago. Mosley flexed her intellectual muscles after returning to Georgia by becoming the head nurse of the Colored section of the Georgia Sanitorium in Milledgeville at age 24. She was the first Black woman to achieve that rank. Gerri M. McCord served as the executive director of Ruth Hartley Mosley Memorial Women's Center for seven years, and is still involved there as a volunteer when not guiding Historic Macon Foundation's board as its first Black chairperson. Mosley's achievements as a young Black woman in the segregated South during the early 1900s is a big deal, McCord said. Her early achievements served as the launching pad of her life as a globetrotter, philanthropist, Civil Rights advocate, educator and entrepreneur. "She was a woman of culture with a rich social life," McCord said. "If she accomplished what she did at that time, then anything's possible for today's youth and young adults." Mosley married twice. In 1917 she wed Richard Hartley, a Macon businessman who purchased a funeral home — where she became a licensed mortician — and other real estate. Six years after his death, she married Fisher Mosley in 1937. As she rose to social prominence in Macon, she traveled widely, took speech lessons and developed a refined speaking style. Mosley was active in the Civil Rights movement, planned and participated in sit-ins and was a leader of Macon's NAACP. She was also a founding member of the Booker T. Washington Center in the historic Pleasant Hill neighborhood. When Mosley died at age 89, her estate included trust funds to establish the Ruth Hartley Mosley Memorial Fund, which aided financially challenged students seeking to become nurses or other providers of health care, and to establish the Ruth Hartley Mosley Memorial Women's Center in her home. LEFT PAGE: AT LEFT, SYLVIA MCGHEE CHAIRS THE BOARD OF THE RUTH HARTLEY MOSLEY MEMORIAL WOMEN'S CENTER. AT RIGHT, STEWARD CHAPEL AME CHURCH. RIGHT PAGE: MOSLEY'S FORMER HOME IS NOW A WOMEN'S CENTER.

• Cover