48 maconmagazine.com | February/March 2025
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S t a n d i n g o n b u s i n e s s :
B r i n g i n g t h e h i s to r y o f
C o t to n Av e . B l a c k B u s i n e s s
D i s t r i c t i n to a b r i g h t f u t u r e
STO RY BY E L D R E D G E M C C R E ADY | P H OTO BY MAT T O D O M
he Cotton District in Macon has a
long history which began in the 19th
century, when enslaved Black people would
arrive from nearby plantations and haul
large bales of cotton a few miles down a dirt
road to the Ocmulgee River, to be processed
before being shipped around the country.
A er the Emancipation Proclamation
abolished slavery, Jim Crow laws began
keeping people of African descent
segregated from white society. So Black
people began creating and owning
businesses of their own in Macon. Many
thrived on the same road which those cotton
bales once traveled – Cotton Avenue.
"Cotton Avenue was Macon's Black
Wall Street," said Alex C. Habersham,
comparing it to an area in Tulsa, Oklahoma
where a thriving district of Black-owned
businesses was burned to the ground during
a two-day reign of terror and murder
by white supremacists in 1917. Tulsa's
Greenwood District encompassed a six-
square block area prior to the massacre and
was called Black Wall Street.
In its heyday from the 1920s until
the early '70s, Habersham recalled, "I
remember the pride and the unity that
it generated in the African American
community. You had the business element,
the social element, the spiritual and
educational element. Cotton Avenue
encompassed a variety of businesses and
