Don’t Forget to Remember: Museum to Movement

“Atlanta’s most notable tradition is that we have no traditions, or at least that we are not bound by traditions and reverence for the past in the way that some other communities, especially in the South have been.  Like Rhett and Scarlett, we don’t look back.  Instead we look forward to the future with courage and confidence and one eye on the cash register.  We’ll try anything once, and if it works, we’ll keep it until something better comes along.”

Clifford Kuhn

Living Atlanta: An Oral History of the City, 1914 - 1948

I continue to document the transformation of Sweet Auburn Avenue.  It is my hope that my work will do what William Stott says good documentary work does.  William Stott said, “Social documentary work can depict how a situation feels and not just how it looks; it can convey factual information about the world compelling by delivering it in emotionally charged ways, harnessing compassion and sentimentality for persuasive ends.  It can sensitize our intellect and education our emotions.”[1] Stott gives us the potential of good documentary work.  The work has the potential to do more than document what is happening in a factual way but rather it has an emotional component. It moves those who engage the story to a point of connection.  I invite you to enter this story, Faith in Sweet Auburn: The Next Chapter.  This week I want to introduce you to, two of the many people who have a stake in the past, present and future of Sweet Auburn. Last week I had the privilege of interviewing two people from two different sides of the street, Mr. Dan Moore of the Apex Museum and Jennie Rivlin Roberts of ModernTribe. 

Dan Moore has been on Auburn Avenue since the late 1970s and he is a historian who is passionate about the history of Sweet Auburn.  Jennie Rivlin Roberts is a native Atlantan who has opened up a new “popup shop” on Auburn Avenue.  While Mr. Moore welcomes the new shop owners he is concerned about the history of Sweet Auburn being forgotten and he struggles with how the new Auburn Avenue will be connected to the foundation upon which it stands. Jennie on the other hand sees here presence as a continuation of the history of this great Street and great city.  She respects the legacy and history of Sweet Auburn while she and her colleagues write the next chapter.  Listen to their interviews and tell me what you think:

 

What does it mean to remember?   What does it mean to pay tribute to the past?  How do changing communities and city streets remember from whence they have come?  What does the present owe the past?

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[1] Stott, William.  Documentary Expression and Thirties America. (Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 5-63.