Faith in Sweet Auburn: Revival?.....A Seeing Project

Faith in Sweet Auburn: Revival?.....A Seeing Project

Vanessa, my wife, and I moved to Atlanta three years ago.  When we moved to Atlanta we made it  our goal to fall in love with our city.  We combed the city that first summer like scavenger hunters.  We went everywhere and read all we could about the history of Atlanta. One book that I couldn’t let go of and read several times was Gary M. Pomerantz book, Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn:  A Saga of Race and Family.  In this book Pomerantz tells the story of Atlanta through the lens of two families. The Allen family and the Dobbs family are the centers to Pomerantz’s book.  Both of these families produced mayors of our city.

Ivan Allen Jr. was  the 52nd mayor of Atlanta and he served from 1962 to 1970.  Maynard Jackson, the grandson of John Wesley Dobbs was our 54^th and 56^th mayor serving terms from 1974 to 1982 and then from 1990 to 1994.  Pomerantz connects these two families in terms of their leadership and shaping of Atlanta and the two streets that are synonymous with their stories, those streets being Auburn Avenue and Peachtree.  It was in reading this book that I was drawn into the history of Auburn Avenue to later be called Sweet Auburn.

Mayors Ivan Allen Jr. and Maynard Jackson

John Wesley Dobbs

@Ralph Basui Watkins
John Wesley Dobbs Monument
on Sweet Auburn 2014

Legend has it that Maynard Jackson’s grandfather, John Wesley Dobbs, coined the name Sweet Auburn.John Wesley Dobbs named the street Sweet Auburn because it was the richest place in the country in terms of African American wealth.  It was the cultural and business center of the African American community in Atlanta.  In 1956, Fortune magazine called Sweet Auburn the richest Negro street in the world.  The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation designated this street, which was once rich, in 2006 as a “Place in Peril.” In an attempt to revive this historic district one move has been the city of Atlanta’s streetcar project. 

The streetcar project is a 2.7 mile loop that connects the historic district of Sweet Auburn, to include the Rev. Dr. Martin L. King Jr. National Historic Site, to downtown.  The hope is to revive this community by providing a new transit route that will bring both tourist and residents to this area.  The residents will not look like those who were there during the time of John Wesley Dobbs.  The new housing in this area is geared to a downtown / mid-town resident who will be middle to upper middle class. What will Sweet Auburn look like in the future?  Who will walk this street?  Will its history be maintained, remembered or celebrated?  Will the Black pass of Sweet Auburn be covered over in the green of new dollars, new people, new tourist traffic and new ways of living?  Should we care?  Will we see what is happening? Will we remember to remember? Does it matter?

The Atlanta Streetcar Map http://streetcar.atlantaga.gov

@Ralph Basui Watkins

I am watching.  The project that I have committed myself to over the next few years is to see what is happening?  Where is urban renewal taking us?  I have begun a writing, photo and documentary project to tell the story of the transformation of Sweet Auburn.  Is this a revival, gentrification, urban renewal or simply the next chapter of Sweet Auburn’s history?  I don’t know what this is but what I ask is that you walk with me as I walk this street, take pictures, do interviews, shoot video and write about the experience.  What will see and what will we do about what see? 

http://sweetauburn.us

http://www.apexmuseum.org

http://www.nps.gov/malu/index.htm