Happy Holidays Serving DeKalb, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry and Rockdale Counties
Volume 18 Number 18
DeKalb Delegation sets Town Hall meetings
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eKalb County’s state representatives will host a series of Town Hall meetings to prepare for the 2013 Legislative Session. The DeKalb County Legislative Delegation of the Georgia House of Representatives is urging constituents to attend the meetings, where lawmakers will give legislative and hear comments from the public about their concerns. The meetings are being held at different locations to give as many people as possible the opportunity to participate. The first Town Hall meeting was held Thursday, Dec. 13, 6:30 p.m., Cross Keys High school, 1626 N. Druid Hills Road, N.E., Atlanta. Two additional meetings are scheduled: u Tuesday, Jan. 8, 6:30 p.m., Porter Sanford Center, 3181 Rainbow Drive, Decatur u Thursday, Jan. 10, 6 p.m., Agnes Scott College, Rebekah Scott Hall, 141 East College Ave. , Decatur. The Legislative Session begins Jan. 14.
DeKalb Delegation Rep. Dar’shun Kendrick (D-Lithonia) Rep. Pat Gardner (D-Atlanta) Rep. Mike Jacobs (R-Atlanta) Rep. Scott Holcomb (D-Atlanta) Rep. Stacey Abrams (D-Atlanta) Rep. Karla Drenner (D-Avondale Estates) Rep. Billy Mitchell (D-Stone Mountain) Rep. Simone Bell (D-Atlanta) Rep. Tom Taylor (R-Dunwoody) Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver (D-Decatur) Rep. Michele Henson (D-Stone Mountain) Rep. Ernest “Coach” Williams (D-Avondale Estates) Rep. Howard Mosby (D-Atlanta) Rep. Pam Stephenson (D-Atlanta) Rep. Rahn Mayo (D-Decatur) Rep. Dee Dawkins-Haigler (D-Lithonia) Rep. Elect Tonya Anderson (D-Lithonia) Rep. Elect Karen Bennett (D-Stone Mountain) INSIDE
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2012 White House holiday card puts smiles on faces of local Obama supporters
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By Valerie J. Morgan
or Shirley Reams, a bit of Christmas arrived early in a small, white envelope tucked inside her mailbox. The Henry County resident says the piece of mail she received on Dec. 12 is something she’ll always treasure: the White House’s 2012 holiday card with Dr. Shirley Reams greetings from President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, their daughters, Sasha and Malia, and the family dog, Bo. The card features Bo sporting a scarf, traipsing on the snowy lawn of the White House. “I was so elated to receive it. It is simply beautiful,” said Dr. Reams. “To know that our First Lady picked the illustration for this year’s card makes it that much more special to me.” DeKalb County resident Shirley Hill, who has organized online fundraisers for the Obama campaign, said she, too, loves this year’s card. It’s going in her special collection, which includes several thank you cards and letters from President Obama for the volunteer campaign work she has done since 2008. “I get a Christmas card every year,” said Hill, who served as South DeKalb’s regional field director, Obama for America. Loyalty to President Obama’s campaign has provided supporters like Reams and Hill not only the chance to receive various mementos, but also the opportunity to mingle with the nation’s top See First Lady, page 5
A close-up look at the holiday card that Dr. Shirley Reams’ received in the mail.
Photo by Glenn L. Morgan/OCG News
Shirley Hill shows off some of her Obama memorabilia, including a picture she took with First Lady Michelle Obama and the 2012 holiday card featuring Bo, the First Family’s dog.
Renovations take root in Rockdale’s Milstead Mill community By Joshua Smith
CONYERS—Eula Mae Smith rose before dawn and got “dressed to the T,” excited that a construction crew was coming to renovate her home. Smith’s green bungalow on Yellow Street is one of six houses in Conyers’ historic Milstead Mill community that Rockdale County is renovating with a $300,000 federal grant received through its Community Housing Improvement Program known as CHIP. The 83-year-old Smith, who has lived in Milstead all of her life, is getting a free $54,650 home makeover that will include a new roof, new electrical wiring, central heating and air-conditioning, new kitchen appliances, carpeting and plumbing, and handicapped-accessible rails and ramps that will make it easier for her to get around in her wheelchair. Crews started work on the house on Dec. 4. “She woke up everyone in the house to make sure we could take her on site during construction,” said Pennie Reid, who has taken her
Photo by Joshua Smith/OCG News
Eula Mae Smith is greeted by Rockdale Commissioners Oz Nesbitt and Janice Van Ness at the Dec. 4 groundbreaking to renovate her home.
mother in while the work on the house is being done. Milstead is located in Census Tract 603.09, an area that has Rockdale’s secondlargest poverty rate. Alice R. Cintron, Rockdale’s grants administrator, said many seniors who there are on fixed incomes and cannot afford to make repairs or renovate their homes. The housing is some of the county’s oldest, dating back to the early 1900s when the community was built for the families who worked at the cotton mill.
Smith’s mother, Onnie Jackson, who worked at the Milstead Mill as a sweeper, cleaning and mopping floors, was the first of three generations to live in the house Smith lives in today. Jackson lived in the house until she was 97. She then lived with her granddaughters for a year and then a nursing home until she died in 2003 at the age of 99. Milstead Mills was a bustling industrial community located on the banks of the Yellow River. Although
segregation forced blacks and whites to live apart in Milstead, the mill brought them together for work. Smith said she remembers that blacks did not ever go to the white side of Milstead for anything other than work. “We couldn’t play with the white kids. That just wasn’t something that you did back then,” said Smith, who was delivered by a midwife at home in 1929. Two of Smith’s three daughters also were delivered by midwives in the same house. The white and black Milstead communities were different too. Cintron said no swales were built for run-off in the black community, as a result, several of the houses flooded with heavy rains. She said the county is working on a grant now to install drains in the county. Meanwhile, Cintron said she hopes to secure funding to expand the housing renovation project in Milstead. She said she is encouraging residents in the community to apply for the free assistance, which See CHIP, page 4