HISTORIC PRESERVATION AND BLACK ATLANTA SERIES
This five-part program seeks to broaden conversations about preservation in Atlanta, with particular attention paid to the city’s Black history, culture, and communities. The series will explore the meaning and relevance of preservation, in general, as well as its meaning within the context of the Black experience.
Over the course of five months, we will explore the following topics: Historic Preservation and Civil Rights in Atlanta’s Black Communities; Black Women and Historic Preservation in Atlanta; Preserving African American Cultural Patrimony; Preserving Atlanta’s Black Churches and Cemeteries; and Rethinking the Historical Importance of the Former Chattahoochee Brick Company Site.
Guess speakers will include, Mary Joseph, African American Programs Coordinator, Georgia Department of Community Affairs; Mtamanika Youngblood, Founding Director, Historic District Development Corporation (HDDC); Leslie Caanan, Senior Manager, Preserving Black Churches | African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund; and Ereshnee Naidu-Silverman, PhD, Senior Program Director: Transitional Justice, International Coalition of Sites of Conscience.
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Date: February 15, 2025
Time: 1p.m. – 3p.m.
Site: Atlanta City Studio, 235 Mitchell Street, Atlanta, GA, 30303
Description: This event will trace the history of preservation work vis-à-vis Black places and spaces in Atlanta, including at the state level. Speakers also will share information about and reflect on the preservation efforts in three historic Black communities—Auburn Avenue, Vine City/English Avenue, and Collier Heights. The program will end by considering how these communities helped to craft Atlanta’s civil rights narrative and how that narrative has evolved and /or been preserved.
Guest Speaker(s):
Mary Wilson Joseph, African American Programs Coordinator, Department of Community Affairs, Historic Preservation Division
Panelists:
LeJuano Vardell, Executive Director, Sweet Auburn Works
Juanita and Harold Morton, Historic Collier Heights
Karl Barnes, Historic Preservation Consultant
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Date: March 22, 2025
Time: 1p.m. – 3p.m.
Site: Haugabrooks Art Gallery, 364 Auburn Ave NE, Atlanta, GA 30312
Description: Founded in 1980 by Mrs. Coretta Scott King, the original goal of the Historic District Development Corporation (HDDC) was to restore the MLK, Jr. Historic District to what it had been during Dr. King’s childhood—a viable, proud, and economically diverse neighborhood. Since its founding forty-five years ago, HDDC and the example of Mrs. King’s historic preservation efforts continue to provide meaning for and inspiration to Black women preservationists. This session will give voice to the local pioneers in the field and those currently working to save the spaces and places important to Black Atlanta.
Guest Speaker:
Mtamanika Youngblood, Former President/CEO, HDDC
Panelists:
Chenee Joseph, President/CEO, HDDC
M. Alexis Scott, Journalist and Publisher, Atlanta Daily World
Karcheik Sims-Alvarado, Ph.D., Preserve Black Atlanta
Candy Tate, Ph.D., Museum Curator, Tuskegee University
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Date: April 26, 2025
Time: 1p.m. – 4p.m. (with reception)
Site: Woodruff Library, 111 James P. Brawley Dr., SW, Atlanta, GA 30314
Description: Of the comparatively few African American libraries and archival repositories in the country, Atlanta is home to five—Atlanta University Center’s Robert W. Woodruff Library, the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, Spelman College Archives, Emory University’s Rose Library; and Georgia State University’s Music and Popular Culture Archives. This event will focus on the important roles these institutions play in collecting, preserving, and interpreting Atlanta’s African American cultural history and ephemera.
Guest Speaker: La’Neice Littleton, Ph.D.
Panelists:
Kayla Siddell, Ph.D., Associate Library Director, Robert W. Woodruff Library
Victor Simmons, Administrator, Auburn Avenue Research Library
Holly A. Smith, College Archivist, Spelman College
N’Kosi Oates, Ph.D., Curator of African American Collections, Rose Library, Emory University
Brittany Newberry, Music and Popular Culture Archivist, Georgia State University
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Date: May 10, 2025
Time: 1p.m. – 3:00p.m.
Site: Old Stone Church, 470 Candler Park Dr NE, Atlanta, GA 30307
Description: Considered by many to be the institution at the center of the African American experience, the Black Church created opportunities for leadership, gave rise to educational institutions, was at the forefront of the fight for Black civil and human rights in the United States, and served as a refuge from the scourge of anti-Black violence, oppression, and local and national injustices. This event will focus on the importance of preserving Atlanta’s historic Black churches and sacred burial grounds—today, often located within upper-middle-class and/or wealthy White communities. Speakers will also talk about the benefits and challenges of saving these iconic spaces.
Guest Speaker(s):
Leslie Canaan, Senior Manager, Preserving Black Churches | African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund
Elizabeth Clappin, Urban Planner III, Office of Design, City of Atlanta
Panelists:
Elon Butts Osby, Mount Olive Cemetery (Bagley Park)
Reverend Jamese Beauford, Antioch East Baptist Church
Mary Howard, First Existentialist Congregation and BiRacial History Project
Leroy Durden, Jr, Mayson Chapel Baptist Church
Natasha Washington, Historic Black Cemeteries of Georgia
Kim Oliver, Cobb-Bethel AME Church
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Date: June 21, 2025
Time: 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Site: Jimmy Carter Presidential Library
Description: Acquired by the City of Atlanta in August 2022, the site of the former Chattahoochee Brick Company embodies a legacy of civil and human rights abuses against Black women, men, and youth. During the post-Reconstruction Era (1865–1877) and into the first decade of the twentieth century, laws passed in Southern states to restrict the freedom of African Americans—commonly referred to as Black Codes—ensnared numerous Black people in extrajudicial cases that often led to their arrest and incarceration. Subsequently, many found themselves essentially re-enslaved in a system of convict leasing. This event will consider how the site of the former brick company, and the efforts underway to preserve and memorialize it, might be in line with the work of the International Sites of Conscience and their members around the world.
Guest Speaker:
Ereshnee Naidu-Silverman, Ph.D., Executive Director, International Coalition of Sites of ConscienceSpeaker Bio:
As the Executive Director of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, Dr. Ereshnee Naidu-Silverman leads a global network of over 370 Sites of Conscience in 75 countries dedicated to championing memory, truth, and justice.Dr. Naidu-Silverman has over twenty-five years of non-profit experience and has a demonstrated ability in designing and implementing programs with a focus on community co-creation and ownership. Having joined ICSC in 2007, she helped to found its Global Initiative for Justice, Truth and Reconciliation (GIJTR) in 2014 and, through it, pioneered the organization’s unique, multidisciplinary, and survivor-centered approach to transitional justice. Under her leadership, GIJTR has engaged over 800 local civil society organizations; worked with practitioners and survivors in 78 countries; produced 50 publications; and supported over 500 community-led memorialization projects.
Ereshnee earned her Bachelor of Arts and two Master of Arts degrees from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa—the first in Dramatic Arts (1998) and the second in Forced Migration Studies (2004). She subsequently earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.