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Auburn Avenue (Sweet Auburn)
Extending
less than two miles eastward from Peachtree Street, Auburn Avenue was the commercial, cultural, and spiritual center of African
American life in Atlanta prior to the civil rights movement. "Sweet Auburn" boasted a concentration of black-owned businesses, entertainment venues, and churches that was unrivaled
elsewhere in the South. Its bustling retail trade and wealthy business owners earned the street a national reputation for
African American finance and entrepreneurial zeal. In 1956 Fortune magazine memorably described Auburn Avenue as "the richest Negro street in the world."
Sweet Auburn's Golden Era
Originally called Wheat Street, the road was renamed in 1893 at the request of white petitioners who believed Auburn Avenue
had a more cosmopolitan sound. During the next two decades, as restrictive Jim Crow legislation was codified into law, the
city's African American population became confined to the area between downtown and Atlanta University and to neighborhoods on the city's east side, known today as the Old Fourth Ward. It was during this period that Auburn Avenue
first achieved prominence as a commercial corridor and became home to the city's emerging black middle class.
Although
composed mostly of small businesses, Auburn Avenue was also home to what historian Gary Pomerantz describes as Atlanta's "three-legged
stool of black finance." The first of these institutions was founded by Alonzo Herndon, a former slave who became the city's first black millionaire. After earning a modest fortune as the owner of a barbershop
on Peachtree Street, Herndon founded the Atlanta Life Insurance Company in 1905. Six years later an enterprising Texan named Heman Perry formed a second black insurance company, Standard Life.
Citizens Trust Bank formed the third leg of the city's black financial stool, extending credit to black homeowners and entrepreneurs who were
underserved by the city's white lending institutions. Because Auburn Avenue's financial institutions amounted to a consolidation
of African American wealth unique for its time, black Atlantans referred to the street as "Sweet Auburn." Coined by John Wesley Dobbs, a civic leader and the neighborhood's unofficial "mayor," the name reflected the avenue's prominence as a national center
of black commerce.
But
Auburn Avenue was not simply a place to do business. Black Atlantans worshipped at Auburn's many churches, including Ebenezer Baptist Church, where three generations of Martin Luther King Jr.'s family were pastors, and Big Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church; dined at the legendary Ma Sutton's; and spent late
nights listening to ragtime at the famous Top Hat Club (later the Royal Peacock). The National Association for the Advancement for Colored People (NAACP), the Odd Fellows, the Masons, and the National Urban League maintained offices on Auburn Avenue, which was also home
to the nation's first successful black-owned daily newspaper, the Atlanta Daily World . Whether for work or play, Auburn Avenue was the center of African American life in Atlanta.
Civil Rights Era and Beyond Ironically,
Auburn's civic activism led to its undoing. As the NAACP and local voting-rights organizations, from their Sweet Auburn offices,
lobbied state and local governments for an end to segregation, and as native son Martin Luther King Jr., who was born at 501 Auburn Avenue, led the crusade for civil rights before a national
audience, the street began its steep decline. With the legal barriers to integration removed, many Auburn shopkeepers moved
their businesses to other areas of the city, and residents began migrating to Atlanta's west side. At the same time the street
was bisected by the construction of the downtown connector. Once vital and vibrant, the community's fabric began to tear as
Sweet Auburn fell victim to disinvestment and neglect. "It turned into a decaying memorial to a bygone era," observes Gary
Pomerantz, "a necessary though regrettable price for freedom."
Despite repeated attempts at renewal, Auburn Avenue remains a model of urban blight. A revitalization plan undertaken by Atlanta
mayor Maynard Jackson in the 1970s failed to stem the neighborhood's decline, and his successors have not made a sustained commitment to the neighborhood's
welfare. Auburn's designation as a national historic landmark in 1976 and the construction of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change and the Martin Luther King
Jr. National Historic Site in the 1980s encouraged hopes that the neighborhood might be revitalized, but those expectations
have gone unfulfilled. While these sites are among the largest attractions in the city, few of the more than 600,000 annual
visitors (as of 2005) have ventured farther down the block for dining or entertainment.
Past
failures notwithstanding, residents and advocates have not given up on Sweet Auburn. In 1984 civil rights leader Hosea Williams founded the Sweet Auburn Heritage Festival, which offers entertainment, food, art, and children's activities along Auburn
Avenue each year. As of 2006, a $45 million redevelopment plan to create thousands of square feet of retail space and hundreds
of condominiums, spearheaded by the historic Big Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, suggests that the community is
poised for renewal. Moreover, the area has been designated a "tax allocation district," meaning that potential developments
would enjoy municipal financial support. While Sweet Auburn's future remains uncertain, its supporters believe that it is
prepared to regain its former glory.
Suggested Reading
Clifford M. Kuhn, Harlon E. Joye, and E. Bernard West, Living Atlanta: An Oral History of the City, 1914-1948 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1990).
Carole Merritt, The Herndons: An Atlanta Family (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2002).
Gary M. Pomerantz, Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn: The Saga of Two Families and the Making of Atlanta (New York: Scribner, 1996).
Edward A. Hatfield, New Georgia Encyclopedia
Published 6/2/2006
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