One year ago I began receiving messages about yet another attempt by the City of Decatur to erase its Black history. The city had moved the annual Decatur Day celebration from one site where Black history has been erased, the gentrified Oakhurst neighborhood, to a downtown site where the city systematically destroyed the Jim Crow ghetto it had created in the previous century.

Last week, a new Decatur resident reached out to me via Instagram.

Though I appreciate the sentiment and the acknowledgment of my work, I really wonder how much of my “voice” there is “in the local conversation.” Probably not much at all.

At any rate, Decatur Day is back next week, not in Oakhurst but in the former Beacon Community.

Shortlink for this post: https://wp.me/p1bnGQ-45a