Grant To Fund Documentaries About Macedonia Cemetery, Johns Creek

JOHNS CREEK, GA — Several Student Leadership Johns Creek class of 2023 members will become documentary personalities in the coming year thanks to a recently awarded Georgia Humanities grant.

Student Leadership Johns Creek worked with the Johns Creek Historical Society and Mercer University to apply for the grant. This alliance will be working on four videos that will be shown to residents during a question-and-answer event in Johns Creek and then at a reception at Mercer University. The videos will be used by educators in the future throughout Georgia. The grant is titled: "They Were Here: Preservation and Commemoration of the Macedonia African Methodist Church Cemetery of Johns Creek."

Four groups from the Student Leadership Johns Creek class of 2023 will each be creating one of the videos as their community group assignment. The project will involve student-driven research and production of four documentaries that focus on different aspects of the history of the Cemetery and Johns Creek.

According to Student Leadership Johns Creek Executive Director Irene Sanders, “we see this as an incredible opportunity for our student leaders to meld the past with the future; learn and articulate what happened in history as they move into their futures.”

The first documentary will highlight the history of the cemetery and historical context of slavery and racial segregation from reconstruction through the 20th century.

The second documentary will highlight the legacy of the Cherokee and how the lives of local farmers of Cherokee descent were intertwined with Black residents who were buried in the cemetery.

The third film will focus on April Waters, a notable resident of Johns Creek who is buried at the cemetery. For years, scholars and residents assumed Waters was an enslaved woman who was freed upon her master’s death. However, genealogical uncovered that Waters was a man who was not freed as per his master’s will. This documentary will highlight the implementation of historical methods that are required when examining documents for accuracy when building a historical narrative.

The fourth film will focus on the living descendants of those buried in the Macedonia Cemetery. Interviews from community members will highlight the cemetery’s founding, its neglect, the impact of Jim Crow on the African American community, and the community effort to revitalize this space as a civil rights sanctuary for the multigenerational and diverse Johns Creek residents.