I’ll never forget my first visit to Mathis’ Bar & Grill in downtown Macon, Ga.

It was 1974, the heyday of the Allman Brothers Band, and I had moved down there to get in on the music scene.

I had heard Mathis was a jazz-blues virtuoso on the Hammond B-3 organ and had a great band. So one night I slipped down there to check them out.

The music was incredible, as I expected. But that wasn’t why that particular night stands out in my memory.

It was because I was the only white person in a dark, smoky, packed room of about 200.

It was my first time ever being in that situation. And if you’re white and you’ve never been in that situation,

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