Norfolk Southern has just announced they are backing out the plans to build a transfer terminal on the former Chattahoochee Brick site. While there is still a lot left to do, I wanted to replay this episode from April of 2019. 

The end of the Civil War marked the end of slavery in the US...right? In all Southern cities, convict leasing booms in the post-war period and the largest user of the system was right here in Atlanta. This week, I am sharing the history of Chattahoochee Brick and the English Family.

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The Montgomery bus boycott officially ended a month after the court deemed racial segregation on buses was illegal. U.S. cities with similar segregation ordinances understood that no challenge to their laws would stand, but they weren't going to willingly desegregate. Instead, it would take a group of 6 Atlanta ministers, led By Rev. William Holmes Borders, and this movement - the Love, Law and Liberation Movement, to bring integration to our city.

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Atlanta’s Office of Housing & Community Development recently created a revised zoning plan and I got to interview director Josh Humphries to find out some history, the new plan's details and next governmental steps. 

By 2050 Atlanta expects our population to (more than) double and right now, we're the 316th densest city in the US...so there is room to grow and it’s up to Atlanta residents to decide how that growth is going to happen - will we continue to be the one of the most racially and economically segregated in county, or will we have a place where all different income levels live in the same neighborhoods? 

http://bit.ly/acdhousing

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This week, we’re talking about the 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition. Opened for over 100 days, from September through December of that year, it would attract around 800K visitors from across the US and 13 different countries. In 1895, Atlanta had 75,000 people, of which 40% were African American, there were 125 miles of electric trolley lines and you could feel the energy about the upcoming exposition - good and bad.

Links:

"Race and the Atlanta Cotton States Exposition of 1895"

"The Atlanta Exposition"

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At the turn of the century, Georgia was one of three states that did not allow women to practice law. That changed in 1911, when Minnie Anderson Hale graduated from the Atlanta Law School and was denied admission to the bar because of her sex. A new bill was introduced but not signed until 1916, making her the first official woman lawyer in Georgia/Atlanta. 

It was not until 1943 that Rachel Pruden Herndon became the first Black woman to practice law in the city and state. She never went to law school, instead learned from her boss, A.T. Walden, by reading all the books in the office and through a correspondence course.

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This week, I’m talking about volunteer militia formed by Black men in Atlanta from the 1870s thru 1903. These men, just years out of the slavery system and most of them Radical Republicans, pushed for the militia for two reasons - military service was the epitome of masculine, model citizen Victorian manhood and also for protection. The end of Reconstruction left African Americans in the South unprotected. There were five militias in Atlanta, led by prominent businessmen and community leaders and I share some fun stories of parades, encampments and mock battles. 

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Regardless of age, I bet you have a personal memory that involves a pair of roller skates - and almost every decade, from 1870 onward, had them too. Through this research I learned that the skating trend ebbs and flows, rinks come and go, but the activity has stood the test of time. 

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Mark and his wife Melinda were inside Broad Street Antiques in Chamblee, when a certain watercolor caught their eye. It had faces, swirls, rhythms, colors, musical notes, keyboards, bits of instruments and books with poems. After trying to find information on the artist, Jewel Simon, they found almost nothing published. Mark dove head first into the archives and as her life unfolded, so did the story of this remarkable Black woman, artist, mother and Atlantan. 

If you know of any Jewel Simon pieces, you can contact Mark here!

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While women only made up 3% of prisoners, Black women made up 98% of that group. From grading the railroad ‘cuts’ in 1866, all way into running the Haven Home in 1959, women as young as 16 served their time in places like Chattahoochee Brick, Bolton Broom, the almshouse property and Camp Mattox. These are stories about childbirth, death, escape and what is left in Atlanta that connects us to these women. 

Books to read:

Slavery by Another Name

Chained in Silence

Website Mentioned: www.savechattbrick.com

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As an outsider to the preservation world, I had a lot of questions: What is historic and who decides? Does that little National Register plaque do anything? Why do historic buildings still get demolished? Is historic preservation bad for low-income communities? This week, I interviewed Charles Lawrence, Board Chair of Historic Atlanta and got the answers to all the above, and more. You do NOT want to miss it.

Support Historic Preservation in Atlanta here

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