Passing of a Public Servant

This week I had the opportunity to participate and assist in the final arrangements of Charles Dudley.



Charles Dudley, a former Macon city councilman and police officer whose public service was marked by his advocacy for children and the Unionville community, died Monday at a local
hospital.



He was 58. The cause of death was a blood clot and respiratory failure, Bibb County Coroner Leon Jones said. Dudley had been admitted to The Medical Center of Central Georgia for undisclosed medical reasons. A friend of the family, Kecia Morris, said Dudley was hospitalized after complaining of shortness of breath Sept. 17 and that his condition had worsened since then.


For about 18 years, Dudley represented the city's fourth ward. First elected in 1987, he served through 2005 before leaving in the middle of his last term to take a job as the police department's truancy coordinator.


"He was always interested in the community," said longtime Unionville activist Dorothy Johnson. "He worked with the kids. His slogan was 'save the kids.' He would have a day with them. He solicited funds for the Unionville Improvement Association. ... He was a wonderful person, a wonderful person. It's a shock."



Bibb County school board member Tommy Barnes remembered Dudley as "always looking out for the little guy."


"He was very active and cared about Unionville," Barnes said. "I saw him three or four months ago at the Frank Johnson gym working with kids. He was outside talking to them about staying in school."



On the council, Dudley was highly respected and known to be thorough in his business, said Councilman Ed DeFore, who had already occupied a council seat for nearly 16 years when Dudley first arrived. He said Dudley was instrumental in bringing to Macon the Miracle League, a baseball league for disabled children.


Dudley also excelled at brokering compromises among his colleagues, putting together the coalitions needed to get done work he felt was important, DeFore said. And when that wasn't possible, Dudley was not one to hold a grudge.


"It's tough to lose a good leader like he was," DeFore said. "It's sad. It's sad."
Mayor Robert Reichert, who was elected to the council the same year as Dudley and served nearly four years with him, also described him as easy to work with.



"I remember him fondly," Reichert said. "Always pleasurable, gregarious, outgoing. And he had a contagious laugh."


As a member and chairman of the council's Public Safety Committee, Dudley was able to put his law enforcement experience and expertise to use. It was a committee he was interested in immediately after taking office. And it was one he continued to think about after he left, said Councilman Virgil Watkins, the current Public Safety Committee chairman and occupant of the same Ward IV seat Dudley held.



"When I got that, he was more excited than I was," Watkins said. Dudley would frequently call the young councilman to school him on the background of various issues, and Watkins said he has spent hours at Dudley's house jawing about local politics.


"He knew it well, and he enjoyed it," Watkins said. "He was a good man. He worked hard for the community, really hard. He definitely loved Macon."


Years before joining the council, Dudley patrolled the streets as a Macon police officer. And he made a mark in his eight years with the department.



In 1976, Dudley spearheaded a class-action lawsuit in response to the treatment of black officers in the department. The lawsuit was eventually settled in 1981 for $500,000 and a consent decree that required the city to maintain a 31 percent minority representation across a range of departments and job levels.


Dudley eventually rose to the rank of detective sergeant. Gary Collins, now the police chief for Mercer University, was his partner when Dudley joined the detective squad.



"All I can say was that he was a heck of a policeman and a good guy all around," Collins said. "He was humble and very bright. He was a great investigator and a good person. He believed in what was right and believed in speaking up for what he believed in."


Collins said he and Dudley often went out into the community to meet with people, which was helpful in getting information for cases. It also gave Collins an early peek at Dudley's political prowess.



"I knew Charles was going to be successful in politics," Collins said. "He would meet with people, and they got to know him."


While on the force, Dudley was cited for heroism several times. In 1981, a photographer from The Telegraph captured Dudley talking down an armed robbery suspect who was pointing a gun to his own head and threatening suicide. That same year, Dudley helped rescue two female hostages from an armed robbery at a local Kentucky Fried Chicken.



Former Mayor George Israel created the Mayor's Award for Superior Achievement for his efforts.


"He was always a good police officer," said Mike Carswell, deputy chief of police. "He was a decorated police officer. He was on the SWAT team. He was very vocal about equal rights and not afraid to speak up for what was right."



But despite his success, Dudley's tenure in the department was cut short. In 1982, he was fired following his arrest for DUI in Jones County. Although a judge threw out the charges, Dudley did not keep his post because he had not told supervisors about the arrest when it happened. Dudley sued the city for reinstatement but was unsuccessful.


Dudley also had a DUI conviction in 1994 while a member of the council. He voluntarily entered a hospital for alcohol addiction treatment.



After leaving his job as a police officer, Dudley worked several years for Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. He left after the company closed its Macon plant in 2005, returning to the police department as coordinator for its truancy program.



"I think he saw that if you talked to anybody in jail, he could tie a lot of those individuals to school truancy issues," said Bibb County schools Deputy Superintendent Sylvia McGee. "He saw that was an indicator."


Dudley worked, through a city truancy grant, at Bruce, Burghard, Ingram-Pye and Burke elementary schools and found students who were absent from school. He knocked on their doors, McGee said.



"He did home visits," she said. "He got incentives, food coupons and bicycles donated to use as rewards. It was about pulling all the pieces together to make a difference."
In the final years of Mayor Jack Ellis' administration, Ellis made Dudley his liaison to the Macon City Council.


Ellis and Dudley butted heads in 2001, when as a councilman Dudley wanted to post "Stop the Killing" signs in city parks to promote an anti-violence message. Dudley had already led a campaign that printed 30,000 similarly marked bumper stickers.



Even though they disagreed, they maintained a mutual respect, Ellis said, and he had "a great deal" of confidence and trust in Dudley. Everyone who knew Dudley, said Ellis, "will know that he always put the community first, that he had a genuine love, caring and concern for the people that he represented."


"He did make a difference in the lives of people."



That was the article in the paper . . .



I had the opportunist to assist his children in planning his final arrangements in such a way that would be fitting for a man who had done so much for the community. I personally knew him and the work that he did in the community for children. I was a recipient of many of the activities and funds that he brought to the Unionville community. It was a somber yet uplifting service. He died suddenly without much warning. He had been attending our church for a number of years but had never joined. I was contacted on the Monday of his passing and asked if our Pastor Dr. Maurice Watson would be able to preach the funeral and if not would I do it. I was taken back by the invitation but assured the family that if Pastor Watson was available he would perform the services. He agreed and did a great job with the Eulogy comparing his service to that of Martha as she served Jesus at the passover meal. Our choir sang and our ushers served so it may as well have been a Beulahland service but it technically wasn't. He will be sorely missed and I ask that everyone keep his family and the community in your prayers.