This "cultural crusader" is preserving the Sweet Auburn Historic District...
Mtamanika Youngblood
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When Mtamanika Youngblood and her family moved from suburban Atlanta to a Victorian in the heart of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Historic District, it became an adventure in urban pioneering. The birthplace of the civil rights movement had suffered from decades of neglect. “It was like the Wild, Wild West,” Youngblood says.
As chairman of the board of the Historic District Development Corporation, she worked to rebuild the residential section of the neighborhood, but the former commercial locus known as Sweet Auburn proved more problematic. “It was the center for African American entrepreneurship, innovation, and business development,” she says. “We needed to find a way to re-create that legacy.” |
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In her work with the HDDC, Ms. Youngblood has partnered with banks, developers, and community agencies to aid the neighborhood without displacing residents or sacrificing historic integrity. Salvageable homes have been preserved and industrial spaces repurposed. Construction has been regulated to accommodate diverse income groups. “Whether we made money or not, we had to do it, because it was the right thing for the neighborhood,” Youngblood says.
In 2013, after helping to save the historic offices of the Atlanta Daily World, the nation’s first black daily newspaper, she partnered with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and local stakeholders to launch Sweet Auburn Works, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving buildings and cultivating new tenants to help revive the storied district.
The Royal Peacock, a once-famous nightclub, will reopen soon as Swig and M-Bar, a supper club and lounge. “Millions of people come to see this neighborhood that birthed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” Youngblood says. “For people to understand who he is, they have to understand where he came from.” Now her focus turns to Auburn Avenue’s small business corridor. Until it attains the luster of its 1950s heyday, she says, people will not understand Dr. King and the community that shaped him. Hers is an important mission, and one she’s determined to achieve. Source: Garden & Gun + AJC (full articles linked below) |
Atlanta Daily World offices on Auburn Ave
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"There may have been a time when historic preservation was about saving an old building here or there, but those days are gone. Preservation is in the business of saving communities and the values they embody." — Richard Moe, National Trust for Historic Preservation
How & Where to Connect
The best way to connect with Mtamanika Youngblood is to visit the Sweet Auburn Historic District. Instructions for getting there are provided below. You can see what Sweet Auburn look like today like in the Google 360-Street Maps below...
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Auburn Avenue is the reason Atlanta is the city it is today. Auburn Avenue, the historic “Main Street” of Black Atlanta, traces its roots to the 19th century. After the Civil War, freed Blacks established Shermantown, a neighborhood bordered on the south by Wheat Street, that attracted both Black and White settlers and the neighborhood expanded. In 1893, the city council voted to give Wheat Street a more sophisticated name: Auburn Avenue. At the turn of the century, the City Council passed segregation ordinances and Whites gradually left the avenue. In the face of segregation, Black citizens recognized the need to strengthen their community by establishing more businesses and homes. It was dubbed the “richest Negro street in the world” by Fortune Magazine in 1957. Source: Rolling Out (full article linked below)
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Interpretive sign at near the MLK Nat'l Historical Park
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Getting there...The Sweet Auburn Historic District extends (going west) from Old Wheat Street in Old Fourth Ward to Peachtree Street in Downtown Atlanta.
The eastern end of Auburn Ave is a two-block walk from where the Atlanta Beltline (where it crosses Irwin St) and 1/2 mile (walking) from the King Memorial MARTA station. Don't miss... |
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