Posts Tagged ‘Atlanta’

Crum and Forster Building Granted Landmark Status

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The Crum and Forster building has been granted Landmark status by Mayor Franklin, says Maria Saporta.  Franklin’s signature follows a unanimous vote by the Atlanta City Council to preserve the building as a city landmark.

Wahoo!

The Georgia Tech Foundation is appealing the decision to deny a demolition permit and may also appeal this decision, which must be heartening to Georgia Tech architects the world over.  That said, it’s still a major victory for the building, the neighborhood, and historic preservation in Atlanta.

Preservation in Atlanta: 14!  Demolition in Atlanta: 36,871

1967 Editorial Condemns Segregation at the Wren’s Nest, Praises Uncle Remus

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This week I happened to read Malcolm Gladwell’s  “Atticus Finch and Southern Liberalism” and Kevin Kruse’s White Flight: Atlanta and the making of modern conservatism.

Both works tackle mid-20th century perceptions of “racial justice.”  For African-Americans, this meant equal rights.  For many whites, this meant “freedom of association” (or, in other words, the freedom to maintain segregated neighborhoods).

Yesterday I stumbled across a 1967 Atlanta Journal editorial about the Wren’s Nest by the esteemed journalist Reese Cleghorn.  It’s about racial justice at the Wren’s Nest, which had sided with the “freedom of association” camp even well after 1967.  Yikes!

The editorial is a damning criticism of the Joel Chandler Harris Memorial Association that ran our museum until 1983.  But it’s also an eloquent defense of Joel Chandler Harris and Uncle Remus that is just as relevant today as it was 40 years ago.

I love how Cleghorn points out that Harris’ desire for “the obliteration of prejudice against the blacks” was later completely ignored in the name of (the white version of) “racial justice.”

We Distort Them: Of Joel Chandler Harris and Uncle Remus

Reese Cleghorn, December 8, 1967

IT IS A grievous thing that Atlanta’s major memorial to Joel Chandler Harris is among the last of its public places to be segregated.

A suit has just been filed in federal court asking for an order to end racial discrimination at the Wren’s Nest, Harris’ home in West End.  The home is now a museum operated by a private association in memory of Harris and in honor of his “Uncle Remus” stories.  It has admitted Negroes in the group, by special arrangement, but it turns them away individually.

The courts will have to determine whether a private association may do this even though it is open to the general public.  But whatever the outcome, it seems in order to contemplate what Harris himself would have thought.

I am very glad that a granddaughter, Mrs. Mildred Harris Camp Wright, has now publicly expressed herself on that.  In a letter to The Constitution, she has refuted a report that Harris’ will required a policy of segregation at the Wren’s Nest.

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“GRANDFATHER HAD no will–everything was left to his widow,” she wrote.  “He had no idea that there would be a memorial to him–and if he had, he would not have required such a policy.  His stories were about the Negro, and were written with affection, sympathy, and understanding. “

I think Harris would have been appalled that such a practice could be followed even now, in 1967, at the Wren’s Nest.

In 1905 he wrote to his friend Andrew Carnegie that he would publish an Uncle Remus magazine, and that its purpose would be to further “the obliteration of prejudice against the blacks, the demand for a square deal, and the uplifting of both races so that they can look justice in the face without blushing.”

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HOW THE PRESENT directors of the Wren’s Nest can look that attitude in the face without blushing is beyond me.  They and their predecessors have performed a a great service to the community by keeping this museum alive when it otherwise would have been neglected, but they seem not to fully understand about Joel Chandler Harris and Uncle Remus.

Many people do not.  The man and his stories have been enshrouded in the fog of the new white supremacist period that began, in earnest, at just about the time Harris died in 1908.  That was the year that Georgia embarked upon forced segregation.  Within two years, the legislature had done its deed, fastening that system upon us for half a century.

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TOO MANY PEOPLE look back through that fog from which we just now are emerging and think that a man who lived in Harris’ time must have though in the same way that many men of 20 or 30 years ago thought.  They would make congenial and gentlemanly bigots of men like Harris and, for that matter, Robert E. Lee (who, it is now forgotten, rose from his pew and went to the communion rail of his church with a Negro when no one else would).

People have forgotten, also, that the stories Harris put down in his “Uncle Remus” books were not his own, and he was always the first to say so.  They were the authentic lore, wisdom and folk poetry of Southern Negroes of that time.  They are today one of the worlds’ greatest collections of such literature.

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NOW SOMETIMES PEOPLE praise them as the inventions of a fine writer.  But Harris himself wrote of the stories: “Not one of them is cooked, and not one nor any part of one is an invention of mine.”  He was a man of great artistry who faithfully collected the stories wherever he could find them, usually from ex-slaves, and presented them in their true dialect.

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THE DIALECT VARIED, depending, for instance, upon whether he gathered them on the Georgia coast from “Gullas” (people apparently with origins in Angola) or in North Georgia from people who had come from other parts of Africa.  The stories were probably of remote African origin, he thought; folklorists, such as Dr. Stella Brewer Brooke [sic] of Clark College, have confirmed the African origins and the connections between these stories and others to be found in Asia.

The stories, and Harris’ care in setting them down, are part of a great heritage which is still not fully recognized by white or Negro Southerners.  To some, Uncle Remus is only Uncle Tom, and the use of dialect is offensive because of the racist manner in which dialect often has been used.

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HARRIS DID NOT like the confusion between his authentic use of dialect and the minstrel-variety use of it, which usually simply amounted to the telling of racist jokes.  He said he once intended “to apologize for the plantation dialect,” but then he realized that some of the greatest of English literature–in Chaucer, for example–is in the form of authentic dialect.

In his best days he paled when what he did was confused by the attitudes and prejudices of others, who seemed to be hearing something he was not saying.  The worth and humanity of the people out of whom the stories came was clear to him, and as evidenced in his letter to Carnegie, he hoped for the “obliteration of prejudice.”  His own words would be the best text for the Wren’s Nest.

Georgia Preservation Roundup

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The staff of the Wren’s Nest neglected to mention National Preservation Month during, uh, National Preservation Month.  Luckily, historic preservation cannot possibly be contained within the month of May, much like the NBA playoffs.  Here’s what’s going on ’round these here parts –

• Maria Saporta updates us on the threatened Crum and Forster building.  Here’s more information on how you can help (note: the date for the hearing has been changed to sometime in July).

• The AJC covers the unveiling of the handsome Noguchi Playscapes restoration at Piedmont Park.  Check out some before and after pictures.  The picture above is from 2006, courtesy of Tom from Docomomo/US-GA.

• Several buildings in Plains, GA might become a National Historical Park thanks to Jimmy Carter.

• This month the Atlanta Preservation Center is offering four Twilight Tours of Atlanta.  The tour of historic Midtown is tonight.

• And, the Atlanta Preservation Center’s summer camp — City Sleuths: Exploring the Mysteries of the City — is open for registration.  I chaperoned this camp a few years ago, and it is delightful.  Atlanta INtown has the details.

• Finally, the Buckhead Heritage Society is fighting to keep developers from removing the graves at Mt. Olive Cemetery, one of the oldest African American cemeteries around.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution Features Wren’s Nest Conservation Project

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Today’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran an article on our conservation project here at the Wren’s Nest.  We graced the cover of the Living Section and got a few lines on the front page too.

Online, ajc.com has a Wren’s Nest photo gallery.  Here’s one of the 17 pictures by Kent D. Johnson for the AJC –

This is probably when I was saying, “If you tell people that I only own one suit, I’ll have to get another one.”

After you check out the article and the photo album, come back here and tell me what you think.  I’ll wait, don’t worry.

Photos from the West End Concert and Tour of Homes

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WEND, our neighborhood association here in West End, celebrated the kickoff of their Tour of Homes at the Wren’s Nest on Friday night.

We had a great time.  The 4th Ward Afro-Klezmer Orchestra opened for Maria Howell, she often of the Sambuca Jazz Cafe (…and Army Wives!). 

Take a look at the pictures I snapped.

The weather held until 9:53 pm when we were pummeled with rain.  Your loyal staff did not have to usher anyone off the grounds at 1 am as we occasionally must do, and I don’t think anyone left disappointed.  Great success!

The West End Tour of Homes followed on Saturday and Sunday.

Amelia and I skipped out on the Wren’s Nest to catch the last hour of the tour.  I took a few pictures to show you what you missed.

The Wren’s Nest isn’t the only storied home in West End, and we’re honored to share our neighborhood with the rest of Atlanta.  Thank you to WEND, and specifically to Vonda Henry, for making the West End Tour of Homes such a successful event.

“West End Remembers” Mural Commissioned by City of Atlanta

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On Friday Creative Loafing published a blog post about the commission of a new mural to be painted in the West End, just a few blocks from here.

The mural is slated to be the very first of what will hopefully be many public art projects incorporated into the Beltline.

As you may recall, the Beltline broke ground first in the West End.  A lovely bike path has been installed, complete with a new park and the beginnings of an arboretum.  Right now, the trees are a little weenie.  It’s not their fault.

As projects like the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Porgram have long proven, murals can be a great way to give folks ownership of public space and connect individuals with their communities .  Plus, they’re pretty.

When Lain and I went on the Beltline tour a few weeks ago, there was a lot of talk of art being incorporated into the project.  And now it’s starting!  So close to us, no less.

Good work, Beltline.  I still like you so much.