Fairburn City Council approved the renewal of the lease for courthouse to the Old Campbell County Historical Society at the Feb. 12 meeting. Custodians of the courthouse for 36 years by agreement with Fulton County and, more recently, by Fairburn, concerns were raised in November over the appropriateness of leasing to the historical society due to issues such as the presence of the Confederate flag and other Confederate memorabilia in the old courthouse.

Councilmen Scott Vaughan and Mario Avery had initially called in November for a public hearing on the lease renewal. Their concerns were bolstered by residents of St. John’s Crossing subdivision who were present at both meetings.

Speaking Feb. 12, historical society president Nancy Cornell gave a brief overview of the founding of the society in 1970 in order to preserve the courthouse, one of the last examples of that architectural design in Georgia. The society later had the building included on the National Register of Historic Places. Cornell said the decades-long work of the society was to collect information from the original Campbell County, a geographic area that includes south Fulton, current day Douglas County and portions of Fayette County.

Also speaking Feb. 12, nearly a dozen St. John’s Crossing residents addressed the council, though their questions and comments were largely directed to the historical society. Their questions included a range of related topics, but were largely relegated to issues such as the overall mission of the organization, the hours and days of operation, the society’s status as a service organization and the need to add the history of blacks and others in the area and to include area history as it evolves.

Cornell responded, saying that the primary concern in establishing the society, with the help of Atlanta Historical Center, was to set up a museum and preserve what had been a viable political unit in Georgia. She agreed that the society did not have enough black history and asked that residents provide genealogical and other information. She said the society needed research and other assistance and asked that anyone interested contact the group.

Mayor Betty Hannah asked that residents interested in contributing their family’s history to the society contact the all-volunteer group. Community participation, Hannah said, will help make Fairburn a better place.

Councilman Scott Vaughan made the lion’s share of remarks from the council table. The Creekside High School teacher said he had previous concerns with the historical society. History needs to tell all sides, but not all sides had been told to a thorough enough degree that does justice to everyone, he said.

“After my conversation with Ms. Cornell, I’ve thought about it and I think the services they provide are very important to our community. I think no one is better suited to provide those services than their organization and I have no question about that,” Vaughan said. “I think that what needs to happen is that the rest of us, myself included, who have very strong reservations about what they’ve done in the past as a group, that we be more active in that group to ensure that those stories that we want to be told are told. There is no room to stand on the sidelines and complain about what they are not doing if we’re not willing to step up and do it ourselves.”

Vaughan said he is a life-long resident of the county and a 15-year resident of Fairburn. He said that in terms of criticism of the historical society, he had never heard an African American surface a complaint about the group.

“I’ve heard many whites complain about it regularly, for a number of reasons,” Vaughan said. “I don’t want this to fall into a racial issue. I think it’s about telling the story of history appropriately from a perspective that everyone will benefit from, that will make a difference. I think that Ms. Cornell is right. There is less and less left of Old Campbell County around us. And if we don’t have an organization like that, to preserve it, it will be gone forever.”

Also commenting on the historical society was Councilman Mario Avery.

“Diversity is what Fairburn and this region is known for. We had every ethnic group and religious group in this city here at Christmas. Part of my problem is that if we’re going to bring this (topic) back to the council from the November meeting, my question, with the opposition I expressed, is why haven’t I personally heard from the historical society, in terms of what I could do or what needed to be done before it was brought back to council,” Avery said. “One of my questions would have been, what could we do to display some of the historical black history. We just had Black History Month. That would have been a great idea if that could have been presented.”

Responding to the portion of Avery’s statement about not having been contacted by the society, Cornell said the councilman had been invited to a coffee at the old courthouse but did not attend. Avery responded, saying he had not received the invitation.

The vote on the issue followed those comments. The motion to approve the lease passed 5-1, with Avery voting in opposition. Terms of the lease will be determined at the Feb. 26 council meeting.

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