1960s
The Cotillion Ball was the crowning moment for a series of social, civic and educational engagements for the debutantes.
About
The Cotillion
For six decades this chapter presented young women of Middle Georgia at an annual ball, and the ball was the last evening of a much longer programme.
The Ball
The two earliest programmes the chapter still holds are for 1959 and 1960. The first of them announces the Second Annual Cotillion Ball, at eight o'clock on the evening of Friday 1 May 1959, at the City Auditorium in Macon — which places the first ball the year before.
The auditorium stayed the home of it for most of the run. Later programmes move around the city — the Crowne Plaza in 2004, the Scottish Rite Temple in 2015, the auditorium at Central High School in 2017 — and then come back. The hour moved too: an eight o'clock ball through the 1950s and 1960s, and an afternoon one by the 2010s.
The chapter presented the ball itself for most of its history, and the later programmes are presented by the Epsilon Beta Lambda Foundation. The last programme in the archive is the fifty-fourth ball, on Saturday 17 February 2018.
- Earliest
- The Second Annual Ball, 1 May 1959
- Latest held
- The 54th Ball, 17 February 2018
- Usual venue
- Macon City Auditorium
- Presented by
- The chapter, and latterly the Foundation
- Programmes
- Twenty-six in the chapter's archive
What It Became
Four panels, one to a decade, in the chapter's own words rather than paraphrased.
1970s
Cotillion activities expanded to include social activism, signified by the Black Pride movement, in addition to sport and recreational activities.
1980s
The Cotillion expanded its efforts to become more inclusive by modifying its requirements to allow more deserving young ladies to participate. The Cotillion Program Book was developed to assist participants in their fundraising efforts.
1990s
The Cotillion evolved to be more “culturally relevant,” allowing for greater self-expression and embracing the interests and concerns of young people living in a more difficult and challenging world. Talent shows and oratorical contests were two of the means used.
Sixty Years of Covers
Twenty-six programmes survive in the chapter's archive — the 1959 and 1960 books, and most years from 1982 to 2018. Twelve of them are here, as they were printed.
The Ball, Photographed
What survives in pictures. The chapter supplied no dates and no names with any of these, so nothing here claims a year or names a face.
Who Ran It
A ball on that scale is a year of somebody's evenings. Two of the exhibit's panels are given over to the people who gave them.
Choreographer
Mrs. Jacquelyn Mays
Cotillion choreographer for almost fifty years. She taught the Minuet, etiquette and the social graces, and often served as a mentor and a mother figure to young women who needed one.
Coordinator and Host
Bro. Horace Donald Black
For many years the coordinator and host of the Ball, and in some years an escort for the debutantes themselves. A Jones and Bibb County educator and school administrator, and active in the AME Church.
Chair and Announcer
Bro. Dr. Rufus Johnson
Chair and announcer of the Ball, and in some years an escort for the debutantes. Between him and Bro. Black, more than forty years at the front of it.
Hear From the Chapter
Scholarship cycles, Alpha Esquires, and what the chapter is doing in Middle Georgia. A few times a year, and never your details to anybody else.
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