History Repeats Itself, Kinda

In our modest but perpetually improving bookstore, the Wren’s Nest offers the volume Herren’s: An Atlanta Landmark. The book is the story of Ed Negri, restauranteur who willfully and willingly integrated Herren’s in 1963, before any other Atlanta restaurant. He also played a major role in saving the Fox. Of course, those of you who know anything about anything know that the Fox is worth saving for about a million reasons. One reason, incidentally, is that the Fox housed the premier for Song of the South in 1946. And let us not forget the first annual BET Hip Hop Awards in 2006.

Anyway, one of the chapters in Herren’s is called “The Wren’s Nest.” Not long after saving the Fox, Mr. Negri was instrumental in preserving and restoring the Wren’s Nest in the mid-80s. By 1984, finances had spiraled out of control, and the Board, originally a group of “100 white ladies” according to the by-laws, had become inneffective long before. Negri explains:

The income of the building, from tours, was totally inadequate to begin to cover the expenses. A huge gas bill (I believe it was around $700) had just been received and there was no money to pay it. …When asked how much money [the board] needed to raise, they didn’t know. When asked what specifically needed doing, their answer was, “Everything!”

Sounds familiar, huh.

Now, I’m not calling our current board a bunch of old ladies, but certainly the Wren’s Nest is and was in need…of everything! Mr. Negri was able to shake things up, become the first male member of the board, and turn the Wren’s Nest around in what looks like less than a year. I’m impressed. I wonder how long it will take us.

Though this was but a small event for Mr. Negri and spans only one chapter in a book chock-full of cool stuff, it was revolutionary for the Wren’s Nest. And in effect, Negri’s influence at the Wren’s Nest crowned his legacy rather appropriately. That is, in preserving the Wren’s Nest as he had aided in preserving the Fox, he finally forced the board to come to terms with race, just as he had with Herren’s twenty years prior. By opening the Wren’s Nest to the African-American community in 1984 (!), Negri in some ways bookended the reaction to the civil rights movement in Atlanta. That’s a complicated and very debatable claim, sure, and I don’t really stand behind it, but instead more to the side of it, shrugging my shoulders. Perhaps, though, you see what I’m driving at.

Our current board, of course, is completely different and distinct from the previous board. In fact, board chair / live wire Marshall himself was even denied access to the Wren’s Nest not so long ago.

In many ways the history of the Wren’s Nest is just as interesting as the history of Joel Chandler Harris. For those of you my age, and perhaps even moreso for those not my age, it’s worth contemplating that I was alive when the Wren’s Nest was still turning away blacks because of the color of their skin.

Anyone else feel those shivers?