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Tag Archives: Decatur (Ga.)
All the news that’s missing
How can a self-styled publisher/editor/reporter have “One Of The Oldest Women In The World” living in his community of only 20,000 people and not know it?
Or, how did the Washington Post and suburban news outlets miss what the residents in a historically Black community were telling them for years about an old bridge?
I am looking for sources who can speak to the role journalism plays in gentrification and erasure. Have a story? Let’s talk.
A Decatur, Georgia, Recap
Professional accomplishments directly resulting from my research in and about Decatur, Georgia, 2011-2023. No, it’s not a game.
September 6, 2023: “Decatur Day and the History of Serial Displacement in an Atlanta Suburb.” The Metropole (Urban History Association blog).
April 24, 2023: “Our Missing Middle Housing Didn’t Just Go Missing. It Was Torn Down.” Next City.
August 6, 2022: “Heirs, History, and Land: Recovering and Conserving Black Spaces and Stories.” Featured presentation, Shelton Family Settlement at Possum Trot Family Reunion and Historical Marker Unveiling, Berry College, Rome, Georgia. (Delivered remotely.)
July 2022: Agnes Scott College is awarded a $750,000 Mellon Foundation grant to conduct research, community engagement, and develop curriculum on race and racism in Decatur, Ga. The grant application relied on my research; the institution wrote that if the grant is awarded that the college would seek to hire me as a researcher and adjunct professor. It would have been nice if Agnes Scott College had consulted with me prior to using my name and my credentials in the application. Needless to say, I did not collaborate with Agnes Scott College on its project.
January 2022: Georgia Tech History Professor Todd Michney invites me to participate in a panel on redlining, housing and race for the 2022 Atlanta Studies Symposium. My paper was accepted and the panel was scheduled to present on May 6, 2022. My participation in planning the session included providing the name for the panel, “Spatial Imaginaries, Racial Realities: Boundaries and a Changing Atlanta Metropolitan Area.” Work obligations in Pittsburgh prevented me from presenting my paper.
June 2021: The City of Decatur in collaboration with the Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights developed a Juneteenth walking tour of downtown Decatur based entirely on a walking tour that I designed for the National Council on Public History’s 2020 Atlanta conference, the “Decatur Displaced and Erased” walking tour (see below).
May 29, 2021: Members of The Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights invited me to be a speaker at the 2021 Decatur Juneteenth celebration.
May 28, 2021: The Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights invited me to be a member of its Reparations Committee.
May 5, 2021: Invited presentation of a virtual version of the “Decatur Displaced and Erased” walking tour for Decatur High School educators and professional staff.
April 21, 2021: Invited virtual presentation, “Gentrification’s Consequences in Decatur: Displacement, Erasure, and the Environment,” to students enrolled in Agnes Scott College’s history program.
April 20, 2021: Members of the Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights and the Coalition for a Diverse Decatur & Coalition for a Diverse Dekalb invited me to give an illustrated virtual presentation about asset mapping.
March 22, 2021: “Decatur Displaced and Erased” walking tour presented virtually for a class in Agnes Scott College’s Department of History.
March 7, 2021: Invited presentation of a virtual version of the “Decatur Displaced and Erased” walking tour for the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany, Decatur, Georgia.
October 9, 2020: Invited Presentation, “Silver Spring Sundown Suburb,” for The Well Community Church in Silver Spring, Maryland.
September 23, 2020: Invited presentation of a virtual version of the “Decatur Displaced and Erased” walking tour for the Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights.
September 23, 2020: Invited presentation, “A Path to Reconciliation and Repair: Telling the Full Story on Race and History in Montgomery County,” for members of the Montgomery County, Maryland, Bar.
September 10, 2020: “A Virtual Walking Tour in Decatur, Georgia: Linking Race, History, Community,” published in History@Work (National Council on Public History).
July 27, 2020: “Decatur Displaced and Erased” presented virtually for the Goucher College Masters in Historic Preservation Program and Decatur, Ga., community members. This event was documented in my Sept. 10, 2020, History@Work Article, “A Virtual Walking Tour in Decatur, Georgia: Linking Race, History, and Community.”
March 21, 2020: “Decatur Displaced and Erased: The Black Experience in Decatur, Georgia” walking tour conducted for the National Council on Public History 2020 annual conference. The conference and walking tour shifted online after the onset of the Covid pandemic.
February 7, 2020: “Decatur Displaced and Erased” walking tour and classroom lecture, Agnes Scott College Department of History, Decatur, Ga.
2020: Brock, Julia, Elayne Washington Hunter, Robin Morris, and Shaneé Murrain. “‘Send Out a Little Light’: The Antioch A.M.E. Digital Archive.” In Digital Community Engagement: Partnering Communities with the Academy, edited by Rebecca S. Wingo, Jason A. Heppler, and Paul Schaderwald, 2020. Book chapter inspired by “Antioch’s Eyes” (see below).
October 18, 2019: “Historic Preservation and Folklore: Dismantling the Diversity Deficit” delivered at the 2019 American Folklore Society meeting, Baltimore, Maryland.
October 2019: Published: “The Decatur Plan: Folklore, Historic Preservation, and the Black Experience in Gentrifying Spaces.” The Journal of American Folklore 132, no. 526 (2019): 431–51.
August 14, 2019: Bethesda Magazine reports that the Montgomery County, Md., school system completed an audit of school names in the wake of the decision to rename E. Brooke Lee Middle School (see below).
April 13, 2019: Invited lecture, “Silver Spring: A Sundown Suburb in the Capital’s Gateway,” Gwendolyn E. Coffield Community Center, Silver Spring, Md.
April 5, 2019: Invited panelist, “A Conversation on Atlanta, Georgia,” sponsored by the Black Geographies Specialty Group, American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C.
April 2, 2019: Invited lecture, “Sundown Suburbs,” University of Maryland African American Studies Program.
March 13, 2019: “Competing Histories or Hidden Transcripts? The Sources We Use,” History@Work | National Council on Public History (blog).
February 14, 2019: Montgomery County newspapers report on request by County Council President to change the name of E. Brooke Lee Middle School. My March 2017 Washington Post article, “There’s More to Fighting Racism than Getting Rid of a Confederate Statue,” is cited as the impetus. Umaña, José. “Navarro Requests Name Change for Middle School,” The Montgomery County Sentinel.
2018: “Producing and Protesting Invisibility in Silver Spring, Maryland.” In Demand the Impossible: Essays in History as Activism, edited by Nathan Wuertenberg and William Horne, 89–111. Washington, D.C.: Westphalia Press, 2018.
September 14, 2017: “Why Diversity Initiatives Rarely Make Gentrifying Neighborhoods More Equitable.” Next City (blog), September 14, 2017.
March 5, 2017: “There’s More to Fighting Racism than Getting Rid of a Confederate Statue.” The Washington Post, March 5, 2017.
December 14, 2016. Ritter, Ellie. “Tearing Down Decatur’s History: As Luxurious Houses Replace Small Homes, Gentrification Forces Minorities Out.” Carpe Diem (Decatur High School Student Magazine), December 14, 2016. I was interviewed for the article and I provided the illustrations.
July 11, 2016: Zainaldin, Jamil. “Digital History in the Making with Antioch A.M.E. History Project.” Saporta Report (blog), July 11, 2016.
April 14, 2016: “(Re)-Imagining Decatur: Gentrification, Race, and History in a Southern Suburb,” Delta Symposium, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, Arkansas.
February 18, 2016: “Tearing Down Oakhurst: An Oral History of Gentrification.” Documentary screening and discussion of gentrification, The Potter’s House, Washington, D.C.
2016: David Rotenstein Collection, Antioch A.M.E. Digital Archive.
2016: “Historic Preservation Shines a Light on a Dark Past.” In Preserving Places: Reflections on the National Historic Preservation Act at Fifty from The Public Historian, edited by Tamara Gaskell, 18–19. National Council on Public History, 2016.
October 27, 2015: “I Had to Move After Exposing the Seamy History of the City of Decatur, Georgia.” History News Network (blog).
July 28, 2015: “Historic Preservation Shines a Light on a Dark Past.” History@Work | National Council on Public History (blog), July 28, 2015.
March 29, 2015: “Doing Public History: This Is What Success Can Look Like,” History News Network (blog).
March 20, 2015: “Fragile History in a Gentrifying Neighborhood.” History@Work | National Council on Public History (blog).
February 22, 2015: “When a City Turns White, What Happens to Its Black History?” History News Network (blog).
October 18, 2014: “Tearing Down Oakhurst: An Oral History of Gentrification.” Documentary screening and discussion of gentrification, Oakhurst Presbyterian Church, Decatur, Ga.
September 2014: “Antioch’s Eyes,” The Anchor (newsletter of Antioch A.M.E. Church), pp. 1-2, Stone Mountain, Ga. Article reprinted from a blog post, “Antioch’s Eyes,” published on my site January 29, 2014.
April 14, 2014: “From Urban Homesteading to Mazeway Disintegration: Gentrification in Decatur,1975-2014.” Paper presented at the Second Annual Atlanta Studies Symposium.
April 11, 2014: “A Lesson in Racial Profiling and Historical Relevance,” Decatur-Avondale Estates Patch (reprinted from History@Work).
March 11, 2014: “Tearing Down Oakhurst: An Oral History of Gentrification.” Documentary screening and discussion of gentrification, Charis Books and More, Atlanta, Ga.
April 10, 2014: “A lesson in racial profiling and historical relevance,” History@Work | National Council on Public History (blog).
July 3, 2013: “Clinging to Jim Crow Through Historic Preservation.” Like the Dew (blog), July 3, 2013. Site defunct; no archive copy; Also posted on my blog, July 8, 2013 as “Separate and Unequal: Preserving Jim Crow.”
September 21, 2012: “Preservation conversations: When history at work is history at home (Part II),” History@Work | National Council on Public History (blog).
September 14, 2012: “Preservation conversations: When history at work is history at home (Part I),” History@Work | National Council on Public History (blog).
May 2012: “Decatur’s African American Historic Landscape.” Reflections (Ga. State Historic Preservation Office) 10, no. 3 (May 2012): 5–7.
2012: “Reviving South Decatur Through Urban Homesteading.” Times of DeKalb, DeKalb History Center newsletter, 6, no. 2 (2012): 1, 4–5.
2011: “Decatur’s Oakhurst: A Subdivision and A Castle,” Times of DeKalb, DeKalb History Center newsletter, 5, no. 4 (2012): 2-3.
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Public history
Ultimately, rendering marginalized communities the subjects of your research doesn’t absolve you of your privilege or complicity in an inherently anti-Black, racist, classist, and ableist system. In fact, it exacerbates the problem — GVGK Tang, History@Work, June 2020
Public history’s activism roots go all the way back to W.E.B. duBois. Over the past month
The author leading a walking tour in Decatur, Ga., Feb. 2020.
historians increasingly find ourselves in the thick of anti-racism movements responding to a white supremacist president; racialized police violence; and, the enduring hold that the Lost Cause has over too many white folks in our nation.
I wrote about my transformation into an anti-racism activist in an earlier post. This post goes back seven years to a plea that I made to the Decatur, Georgia, City Commission. The evening of February 4, 2013, I delivered a report that I had commissioned documenting the city’s racist historic resources survey. And, I asked that city leaders take immediate action to address displacement and the marginalization of the city’s Black residents.
My requests went nowhere. The city moved forward with demolishing historic African American sites and no action was taken to stem displacement. In fact, later that year, in October 2013, the city commission actually rejected a motion to enact a moratorium on single-family home demolitions.
That night in February 2013, I was terrified and angry — the emotions show in my shaking hands and voice. Two weeks earlier, a Decatur builder had filed a false report with the police alleging that I had threatened to kill him; that was his best and only way to silence my writing and speaking on racism, etc. in the city. By that time, my wife and I were one year into a sustained campaign by fragile white Decaturites retaliating against my efforts to shine a light on structural racism there. The racism was facilitating the removal of Black bodies from the city and the erasure of Black history.
Though I had worked in public history since 1984, I think I genuinely became a public historian that night in 2013.
© 2020 D.S. Rotenstein
How I became an anti-racism activist
In 2011, I started down a path towards becoming an anti-racism activist and I began dedicating my professional work to showing how historic preservation is implicated in erasure and the production of racist histories & commemorative landscapes. My work began in Decatur, GA, and Silver Spring, MD.
This video segment is from “Silver Spring: A Sundown Suburb in the Capital’s Gateway,” recorded April 13, 2019. It includes my explanation to a Silver Spring audience for how and why I became an anti-racist.
© 2020 D.S. Rotenstein
The urban displacement blues
Look closely and you will see not a damaged and decrepit Mississippi River town, but the anguish and despair of inner-city neighborhoods across the United States. — Steve Goldstein for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 19, 1992.
Helena, Arkansas, in the 1980s was a struggling Mississippi River port town when city leaders embarked on an ambitious economic turnaround using blues music and history as its foundation. I first visited Helena in the early stages of this “revitalization” during the spring of 1988 while working as a folklorist for the State of Arkansas. Results of some of my research there were published in a 1992 Southern Folklore article, “The Helena Blues: Cultural Tourism and African-American Folk Music.”
Ethnomusicology was the basis for my work in Helena and the subsequent article. Concepts like displacement and gentrification weren’t on my radar screen as I turned ethnographic experiences into written accounts. More than 25 years later I look back on Helena’s efforts to jumpstart its economy and the social engineering that went into turning the city away from its industrial past and towards its tourism-based future and I see the forces reshaping cities around the world in play in the Mississippi Delta. Continue reading
Separate and unequal: Preserving Jim Crow
Equalization schools were the South’s futile attempt to cling to Jim Crow segregation. They were built throughout Georgia, South Carolina, and other Deep South states as a last ditch effort to forestall court-ordered public school integration. According to Georgia architectural historian Steven Moffson, his state had the greatest number of schools built to preserve the separate but equal doctrine that ultimately was dismantled under the 1954 landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision.
Decatur’s Beacon Elementary and Trinity High schools were among the hundreds of equalization schools built in Georgia after World War II. They were constructed in 1955 and 1956 on the site where the city had maintained its African American school, the Herring Street School, since the early twentieth century. In early 2013, three years after receiving a $10,000 historic preservation grant that should have led to the property’s protection, the City of Decatur began demolishing parts of the two schools to build a new police headquarters and civic plaza. Continue reading