sweet auburn

As part of my training to be a volunteer tour guide with the Atlanta Preservation Center, we went on a tour of Sweet Auburn, one of the most interesting historic neighborhoods of Atlanta. After Emancipation it became a strong black community district and during the Jim Crow segregation laws, its was a city within the city, self sufficient and exclusively black. Also, it's the birth place of Martin Luther King Jr. and where he started preaching his nonviolent civil rights activism.

 

Place of birth of Martin Luther King Jr. 

An old ghost sign for Gold Dust Washing Powder discovered after the neighboring building was demolished.

The Odd Fellows Building

Going back into the past is fundamental to understand how life is lived today.

On this note, while I'm writing this, I'm listening to chapter 6 of the audio book Outliers (by Malcolm Gladwell) on the culture of honor, social and behavioral pattern specific to, among other places, the American South. Interesting. Cultural legacies are powerful forces. They have deep roots and long lines. They persist...