Day Eight: Macon 11.16.07

We showed up at Joshua Cup in historic downtown Macon around 10am for coffee and pre-game strategizing. I should say that I travel through Macon so often that I was able to redeem my frequent card for a triple vanilla/haze soy latte. As we began to work on the blog Fredando informed us the Oprah was in town for a her “home town” series. I attempted to find her publicists contact info but gave up after a few minutes.

We decided to head to the First Christian Church of Macon, who hosted the national Eyes Wide Open exhibit in 2004, to begin setting up the boots. Once we got there we were greeted by a half dozen local volunteers from the church and the local peace group, MaconPeace. There was a tremendous amount of media outreach done by the church. Within two hours we did several interviews for local TV stations. We had thousands of people drive by the boots, some stopped and took the time to view the memorial and pick up information. We were really excited to connect with several high school aged kids that came out to volunteer. We can’t wait to work with them in the future.

So I had secretly planned to leave the rest of the State of Hope folks to join the MaconPeace folks for their regular weekly street demonstration against the Iraq war. Right before it was time for me to go I told Christina I’d be back in a while. Craig Fluke drove me to Washington st. to join the demonstration. What a great group! Turns out the their site was only a few hundred yards from Oprah’s hotel. With so many cars honking in support of MaconPeace, I wondered if Oprah could hear.

Once back at the church the father of the soldier who’s sister left his picture with his boots at our Savannah stop arrived. We knew he lived in Macon and might show up. He wanted his sons name removed from the exhibit. This was the first time we had received this request and we of course complied with his wishes. It was a bittersweet end to the story that began in Savannah.

We packed up the boots at 6pm and headed into the church. Witt got to play in the church sanctuary! It felt very peaceful. After we left we treated our selves to a delicious warm meal at a local Chinese joint before we drove off into the night toward Americus.

Tim Franzen
Georgia Peace & Justice Coalition

Photos by Christina Repoley