Augustus Octavius Bacon - Legacy

Legacy

After his death, Senator Bacon’s 1911 will established a “whites only” park in Macon which was to be held in trust by the city. During the Civil Rights Movement, the use of Bacon’s park was the subject of a Supreme Court Case entitled Evans v. Newton which was decided in 1966. The Court held that the use of the park for “whites only” was invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause. Because the park was held in trust by a public entity, the Court held that it could not exclude non-white persons. Although the city tried to maintain the segregationist intentions of Senator Bacon by transferring the trust to private trustees, Justice Douglas’ majority opinion explained that a park is public in nature and may not exclude non-white persons from using the park for recreation.

The park was the subject of a subsequent Supreme Court case, Evans v. Abney, which was decided in 1970. After the Court held that Senator Bacon’s park was unable to perform a segregationist function, the state court held that “Senator Bacon’s intention to provide a park for whites only had become impossible to fulfill and that accordingly the trust had failed and the parkland and other trust property had reverted by operation of Georgia law to the heirs of the Senator.” The decision involved the doctrine of cy pres, and it was necessary for the court to determine Senator Bacon's probable intention in the matter. The Court concluded that, if Senator Bacon had been able to know that his objective was impossible or illegal, he would have preferred that the land revert to his heirs. The Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the decision of the Supreme Court of Georgia, holding that refusing to apply the doctrine of cy pres did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.