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Georgia Today
Georgia's bird flu response; Education funding legislation; Sherman's March book
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Host
Foreign.
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Sarah Kalis
Welcome to the Georgia Today Podcast from GPB News. Today is Tuesday, February 11th. I'm Peter Biello. This podcast features the latest reports from the GPB News team. Got a suggestion or story tip? Send it to Georgia todaypb.org on today's episode State officials lift a suspension on poultry sales following a nationwide bird flu outbreak. Georgia Democrats look to increase funding for the state's public schools. And we'll have a conversation with historian Bennett Parton on how Georgia became home to the largest emancipation event in American history.
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Bennett Parton
And it is a moment that is important for this constant redefining of this idea of American freedom.
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Sarah Kalis
These stories and more are coming up on this edition of Georgia. The Georgia Department of Agriculture yesterday lifted its suspension on live poultry sales after an outbreak of H5N1, an avian flu. This is the second year for the US of dealing with the virus, sometimes called bird flu. Georgia has been able to stay ahead of it until recently. Earlier this month, bird flu caused the shutdown of an operation growing chickens for the dinner table in Elbert County. As GPB reporters Chase McGee and Sophie Gratis explain, that's because the state has a long standing system for disease prevention and response.
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Grazielli Maboni
Old sun bleached biosecurity signs warn unauthorized people to stay out of farms on the way to ground zero a few days after the Elbert county outbreak. Closer to the site, back roads leading into the infected chicken houses are blocked, part of a quick response to the outbreak. State veterinarian Jane Marie Hennebell says speed is crucial and humane.
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Alex Turner
We want to get out there immediately so that we limit suffering of those birds. It is very unpleasant for the chickens that are affected.
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Grazielli Maboni
All it takes is one infected chicken for the avian flu to spread and wipe out a whole chicken house. And so, Hennebell says, any chicken producer with a positive case has to kill their entire flock, cull them all at once. Culled birds can't be sold or eaten either. In Albert county, that meant killing over 100,000 chickens over a weekend.
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Alex Turner
To go through that, to see that on your own farm, with your own birds, it's very difficult.
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Grazielli Maboni
But Hannibal says to do otherwise would risk the collapse of a major part of the food system.
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Alex Turner
What I have to think about from where I'm sitting is I have to think about the entire population of chickens in the state of Georgia, all of our neighbors and across the country. We are trying to protect human health and we are certainly actively protecting the food supply.
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Grazielli Maboni
That work takes thousands of people, scientists, policymakers, plus farmers big and small and.
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Sophie Gradas
Avian influenza isn't going away. Over the past year, the virus has mutated and spread into previously unimaginable species, including cows, domestic cats and humans. Luckily, officials we talk to in Georgia say they are prepared.
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Host
And you know Georgia is the number one poultry state in the nation. Over 35% of Georgia's ag economy is tied to the poultry industry.
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Sophie Gradas
That's Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper at the state Capitol. Chickens are Georgia's number one farm product, and eggs are its second. To protect this industry, chicken farms are expected to use biosecurity, essentially steps to eliminate virus spread that starts in wild bird populations, explains Alex Turner with the U.S. department of Agriculture.
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Bennett Parton
Because the virus can pass on trucks.
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Sophie Gradas
On equipment, on feed, on feet, it's very transmissible.
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Bennett Parton
But the virus is not a tough one to kill. As viruses go.
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Sophie Gradas
Chris Schodel uses Lysol, and she hasn't let anyone near her 16 chickens for about three years. She met me at a feed store wearing her shoes meant only for errand running.
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Chris Schodel
These are my leaving the house shoes I have slippers I wear in the house and then boots I wear up to the coop.
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Sophie Gradas
She'll disinfect her shoes before driving home. Schodel says measures like this have worked.
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Chris Schodel
The worst I've had in my flock lately has been just a little injury on a foot.
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Sophie Gradas
How long do you think you'll maintain the biosecurity measures that you do?
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Chris Schodel
Probably forever.
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Sophie Gradas
All of Schotel's birds get tested for avian influenza twice a year.
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Bennett Parton
Kind of a clean area where we.
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Binu Veliad
Have all the PCR machines.
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Bennett Parton
These are the PCR machines where they.
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Grazielli Maboni
Amplify those samples get sent here to the UGA Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory in Athens directed by Binu Veliad on so we.
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Binu Veliad
Are ready and prepared all the time.
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Bennett Parton
To rapidly respond to any high consequence pathogens.
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Grazielli Maboni
Another lab test samples from commercial flocks. The labs work with the USDA and receive federal funding for surveillance. That lab microbiologist Grazielli Maboni calls critical.
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Sophie Gradas
We know that diagnostics is essential and we need, you know, to invest on.
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Grazielli Maboni
That, especially, she says, as scientists warn of the threat H5N1 could pose to human public health. For GPB News, I'm Chase McGee.
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Sophie Gradas
And I'm Sophie Gradas.
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Sarah Kalis
Georgia Democrats yesterday announced new legislation aimed at increasing funding for the state schools. GPB's Sarah Kalis reports.
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Chris Schodel
State Senator Jason Estevez, a former school teacher, says it's time to revisit Georgia's public school funding formula, which dates back to 1985 and some critics say it underfunds public schools.
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Host
Teachers and districts in low income communities across this state face unique challenges and we must provide additional resources through a poverty weight or an opportunity grant.
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Chris Schodel
Estevez says his Bill set a bill 128 would steer about $2 billion in funding to low income schools around the state. While the state's funding formula was originally designed to balance funding between wealthy and poorer districts, some critics say that balance has eroded over time. For GPB News, I'm Sarah Kallas at the State Capitol.
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Sarah Kalis
Georgia lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow the state's pension fund to take on more risk in hopes of higher returns. Senate Bill 23 would raise the cap on how much the Employee's Retirement System of Georgia can invest in alternative investments, things like private equity and hedge funds. Right now the limit is 5%. The bill would double that to 10%. Opponents like Democrat David Lucas of Macon worry it could be risky. What happens if they take the money and when they invest it and the folks belly up who gonna have to pay the difference in Supporters say it could boost returns and strengthen the pension fund's long term health. A Georgia state House member won't face a new election after all. A judge ruled yesterday there was not enough evidence to prove voters who received the wrong ballots swayed the election's outco. That means Democratic incumbent Mack Jackson will stay in office. He beat Republican challenger Tracy Wheeler by 48 votes out of more than 27,000 votes cast in November. Wheeler sued to seek a new election, arguing that some people got ballots for the wrong district. The judge says Wheeler failed to meet the high bar for overturning an election. Wheeler says she may appeal legislation backed by governor Brian Kemp aimed at limiting jury awards and civil suits cleared a state Senate committee. After a five hour hearing last night, the Republican majority Senate Judiciary Committee voted 8 to 3 along party lines to advance the measure to the full Senate for consideration. John Triplett, a grocer from southeast Georgia's Scriven county, told the panel large jury awards are driving up business costs.
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Binu Veliad
Insurance premiums have gone up. Hours have gone up. The future of the grocery industry is at stake if something doesn't change because of the tight margins.
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Sarah Kalis
Opponents, including trial lawyers, argue the bill will further enrich insurance companies and harm accident victims, which without reducing insurance premiums, Former Georgia senator Sam Nunn is warning people about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence. Nunn spoke last week at an annual National Security Forum at the Museum of Aviation in Warner Robins. He said AI has great potential to improve humankind it needs to be guided by human values and decision making.
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Binu Veliad
The bottom line is you're going to have to be in the loop. Humanity is going to have to be in the loop if we're going to enjoy the huge benefit, the huge benefits of the innovative technology and avoid the dark side risk, at least mitigate those. Humans must give shape and purpose to our technologies and breathe heart, breathe soul, breathe values and breed wisdom into our science and technology.
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Sarah Kalis
Nunn is now affiliated with the nonprofit Nuclear Threat Initiative. He represented Georgia in the U.S. senate for 25 years, ending in 1997, chairing the powerful Armed Services Committee. Coca Cola's CEO says he doesn't think the Trump administration's new tariffs on aluminum will have much of an impact on.
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Host
His company's bottom line.
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Sarah Kalis
CEO James Quincy told investors this morning the Atlanta based beverage giant can adapt to the tariffs in part by shifting to plastic bottles.
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Grazielli Maboni
If aluminum cans become more expensive, we can put more emphasis on pet bottles. So we will adapt the packaging strategy in function of changes in the relative.
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Sarah Kalis
Input costs of what goes into that, he said. The 25% tariff on aluminum is not insignificant, but also not going to quote radically change a multi billion dollar business. Coca Cola posted better than expected revenue in the fourth quarter as sales volumes rose in the U.S. china and elsewhere.
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Host
Perhaps the most widely known impact of General William Sherman's march to Savannah in the fall of 1864 is the near complete destruction of Atlanta. A huge portion of the city was burned as the Union army delivered one.
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Sarah Kalis
Of the final blows to the Confederacy.
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Host
But Sherman's march did more than that. As Union soldiers marched to Savannah, enslaved people joined them. And when the army arrived in Savannah.
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Sarah Kalis
Thousands of people struggled to survive in.
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Host
An unfamiliar place without connections or resources. In his new book, historian Bennett Parton looks deeply into this lesser known story. It's called Somewhere Toward Sherman's March and.
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Sarah Kalis
The Story of America's Largest Emancipation.
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Host
Bennett Parton, welcome to the program.
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Bennett Parton
Thanks for having me.
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Host
So what you're writing about happened after the emancipation proclamation in 1863.
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Sarah Kalis
But even before that, the U.S. government.
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Host
And the U.S. army were trying to figure out the legal status of enslaved people who fled to the Union Army. This was ultimately how enslaved people knew that they could join the army or be with the army to ensure their safety to some extent. But what were they considered legally at that point?
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Bennett Parton
The policies of emancipation in the Civil War is a real evolving story. It begins in 1861 with a law known as the First Confiscation act, which treats enslaved people as Confiscated property. However, the distinction there is that only enslaved people who claim to have been forced to work for the Confederacy in some capacity were given refuge within the army's lines. After that, about a year later, more and more enslaved people continue to flee to the Army. This becomes a problem for the army and also the US Government. Congress passes a humdrum bill known as the Second Confiscation act, which is essentially emancipation declaration. It is Congress's way of saying that enslaved people who come to army lines are considered thenceforth and forever free. So there is an evolution in emancipation policy from one that treats enslaved people as requisitioned property. Requisition from the Confederacy. Confederacy as quote, unquote, contraband of war. That's often the term that's used to one that recognizes them as free individuals.
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Host
So this book deals largely with the march from Atlanta to Savannah. What you write about here is essentially that on the way, enslaved people whose owners have been displaced, maybe their plantations have been burned, they join the army along the way, and it becomes a caravan of people led by the Army. What was that like for those people following along?
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Bennett Parton
It was a harrowing experience for a lot of folks and was one that was deeply complicated. Some of Sherman's soldiers and some of his subordinates, the officers of rank, were quite willing to allow enslaved people to join the army and to follow them. But there were equal numbers of soldiers and supporters of Shermans that were not as welcoming. And so it could really vary this refugee experience or this experience with emancipation. And this is important because I think that is how most historians now see the experience of emancipation more broadly, which is that it was quite literally for many, a true refugee experience. It's one that's defined by uncertainty, a lack of security, a lack of stability. This is well before any sort of legal refugee status is in place, before any conversations about citizenship status. And so it was a real liminal experience of sort that was defined by deep uncertainty and complexity. And I think that the experience of Sherman's march is really a kind of symbolic reflection of the emancipation experience more broadly. I should say. Sherman expected the enslaved people to follow him and at least run to the army. And in fact, as part of his official campaign orders, he says that enslaved people who run to his army may be taken along so long as they are able bodied and able to fend for themselves or help the army, but that it was the soldiers first responsibility to see to their own well being and the well being of their troops.
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Host
Yeah, and as you write here, you know, there's Something of a symbiotic relationship with those who followed along in the sense that they were able to point Union troops in the right direction when they were plundering the abandoned plantations. Union soldiers also were providing some protection from Confederate troops who were still scouring the countryside in search of enslaved people who may have gotten away.
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Bennett Parton
Yeah, I mean, one of the things that surprised me the most in writing this book was just how present enslaved people were at every step of the march. And it wasn't just the fact that they were present. It's that they were active agents and active participants in the army's movements. They acted as scouts, as spies, as intelligence agents. They pointed the ways down hidden footpaths. They were able to offer information about where the Confederate cavalry was.
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Host
So when Sherman's army arrives in Savannah, it is not burned the way Atlanta was burned, in part because the local government there ingratiated themselves to Sherman in an attempt to preserve the structures of the city. And the formerly enslaved people who've been following the army. They kind of correct me if I'm wrong here, for the most part, stayed outside the city limits and eventually were settled on various sea islands, correct?
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Bennett Parton
That's right. Yeah. By the time that Sherman arrives on the Ogeechee, which, in the advance into Savannah, it's the Ogeechee river south of Savannah, which is one of those classic intercoastal waterways that becomes the main waterway for the army because it connects Sherman to the Atlantic Ocean. By the time he arrives there, at a place called Kingsbridge, which is a former bridge that had been burned that he uses as a depot on the Ogeechee, he sets in motion this real elaborate movement of the refugees down the Ogeechee, around Savannah, around Daufuskie island, around Hilton Head, into Port Royal Sound to begin settling them on the islands around Port Royal and Beaufort. This is the South Carolina Sea Islands. And the reason he does that is because at Port Royal and around Port Royal, in the town of Beaufort, there is an ongoing freedmen's colony known as the Port Royal Experiment.
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Host
Yeah, the Port Royal Experiment was an opportunity for formerly enslaved people to work land and profit from their work. And there were other attempts after Sherman's.
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Sarah Kalis
March to give land to formerly enslaved people, but those didn't work out as many had hoped.
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Host
And you go into detail about that in your book.
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Sarah Kalis
But overall, Bennett Parton, what would you say is the legacy of Sherman's march?
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Bennett Parton
One of the real legacies of the march, and one of the things that I try to argue in this book is that While we have long known the march as a military event, really the best way to understand it is as a freedom movement. And I think we should also recognize the march as being one of these moments in American history where what American freedom means is really on the table. And it is a moment that is important for this constant redefining of this idea of American freedom. And I say that because when enslaved people ran to the army, they were consistently imagining what freedom might mean for them. And in their conversations with the soldiers, they were explaining to them the reasons for why they decided to drop everything and follow the army and what they hope to achieve in arriving in Savannah or elsewhere. And so like a Selma, Alabama, like a Philadelphia in 1776, like a Gettysburg or Yorktown, it's one of these moments that has had real, I think, consequences for what American freedom actually means. And it's one of these moments where American freedom is being debated and acted upon in real time.
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Host
Well, the book is somewhere Toward Freedom, Sherman's March and the Story of America's Largest Emancipation. Bennett Parton, thank you.
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Sarah Kalis
And Bennett Parton will be speaking about his book tomorrow night at 7:00 at the Atlanta History Center. And Parton's book is the subject of the latest episode of Narrative Edge, GPB's podcast about books with Georgia connections, hosted by me and Orlando Montoya. You can find that@gpb.org or wherever you get your podcasts. That's all the news fit to podcast today. Thank you so much for tuning in. And we're going to be back tomorrow. We hope you will join us. Make sure you subscribe to this podcast and check gpb.org news for any updates. And again, if you've got some feedback, the best way to reach us is by email. The address is Georgia todaypb.org I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.