October/November 2024 | maconmagazine.com 57
Monya and Charles Rutland, ancestral:
Charles: I'm a Pleasant Hill native, fourth generation Pleasant Hill. Parents,
grandparents and great grandparents. Pleasant Hill, particularly the Pleasant
Hill I grew up in, truly had diversity and it was an equitable environment where
janitors lived next door to PhDs, and everyone was regarded with the same
high regard. It was the most humane place I've ever lived in my life. And from
corner to corner, this one square mile is one of the most special square miles
on the planet Earth.
My hope for Pleasant Hill is really my hope for the city of Macon. To the
extent that Pleasant Hill is preserved and progresses, Macon will be preserved
and progress.
[The reunion] is an explosion of culture. The music, the food, the laughter,
the talk, the generations. It's rare to see ve generations out there, all blending
and melding and coming together with one love. When I was coming into the
park, I was remembering one of the original founders and kind of the father of
the Pleasant Hill reunion, Hassan, who had this vision.
