Decatur Street is one of the original 7 streets of Atlanta, Georgia; it was also a famous (and infamous) entertainment area from the 1850s through the early 20th century.
Decatur Street is one of the original 7 streets of Atlanta, Georgia; it was also a famous (and infamous) entertainment area from the 1850s through the early 20th century.
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In 1854 the first theater in the city, the Athenaeum, opened on Decatur near Peachtree Street.
In the early 20th century, it included an African American entertainment district. In 1906 it was the trigger point of the Atlanta Race Riot; allegations that the street's dive bars, frequented by blacks, were showing nude pictures of white women and "troublesome Negro vagrants" were hanging around there were among the allegations whipping up anti-black sentiment among poor whites.
After the riot, the Atlanta Constitution regularly ran stories documenting city efforts to clean up the street's dance halls, saloons, and dives; ragtime music; whiskey and drug peddling.
In 1909 the city nearly changed the name of the street to East Main Street in an effort to clean up the street's reputation. [1] At the start of the 1920s it was commemorated in the Clarence Williams song "Decatur Street Blues."
Today, Decatur Street cuts across the Georgia State University campus in the downtown area, while farther east it was part of a 1940s urban-renewal area that became Grady Homes, which were demolished in 2005 and replaced by the Ashley Auburn Pointe mixed-income community, now considered part of the Sweet Auburn neighborhood as it is officially defined. Its span across the Georgia State University campus includes a skyway that connects the two sides of its LCC-collated library, with the southern side housing only one class: Class Q -- Science, and the northern side houses all the others.
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia. With a population of 498,715 living within the city limits, it is the eighth most populous city in the Southeast and 38th most populous city in the United States according to the 2020 U.S. census. It is the core of the much larger Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to more than 6.1 million people, making it the eighth-largest metropolitan area in the United States. Situated among the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains at an elevation of just over 1,000 feet (300 m) above sea level, it features unique topography that includes rolling hills, lush greenery, and the most dense urban tree coverage of any major city in the United States.
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The Sweet Auburn Historic District is a historic African-American neighborhood along and surrounding Auburn Avenue, east of downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The name Sweet Auburn was coined by John Wesley Dobbs, referring to the "richest Negro street in the world," one of the largest concentrations of African-American businesses in the United States.
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Violent attacks by armed mobs of White Americans against African Americans in Atlanta, Georgia, began on the evening of September 22, 1906, and lasted through September 24, 1906. The events were reported by newspapers around the world, including the French Le Petit Journal which described the "lynchings in the USA" and the "massacre of Negroes in Atlanta," the Scottish Aberdeen Press & Journal under the headline "Race Riots in Georgia," and the London Evening Standard under the headlines "Anti-Negro Riots" and "Outrages in Georgia." The final death toll of the conflict is unknown and disputed, but officially at least 25 African Americans and two whites died. Unofficial reports ranged from 10–100 black Americans killed during the massacre. According to the Atlanta History Center, some black Americans were hanged from lampposts; others were shot, beaten or stabbed to death. They were pulled from street cars and attacked on the street; white mobs invaded black neighborhoods, destroying homes and businesses.
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Black Atlantans are residents of the city Atlanta who are of African American ancestry. Atlanta has long been known as a center of black wealth, higher education, political power and culture; a cradle of the Civil Rights Movement and the home of Martin Luther King Jr. It has often been called a "black mecca". Atlanta is also home to many African and Caribbean immigrants. Atlanta’s black population is increasingly foreign-born. Atlanta has attracted African Americans who seek financial prosperity.
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Carrie Steele Logan was an American philanthropist, founder of the oldest black orphanage in the United States. The home, The Colored Orphanage of Atlanta, was officially dedicated on June 20, 1892.
Media related to Decatur Street, Atlanta at Wikimedia Commons