Atlanta’s Collier Heights

The spacious homes with manicured lawns spreading block after block in northwest Atlanta?s Collier Heights were the very picture of mid-century American suburbia. The Black families who moved into them were not.

Built starting in the 1950s, Collier Heights stood as a testament to Atlanta?s Black elite and powerful, home to civil-rights leaders, educators, lawyers and entrepreneurs. It follows in prestige behind both Buckhead and Sandy Springs, both of which have greater wealth concentrations than Collier Heights. Supporters of the neighborhood vied to put the first major Black suburb built after World War II on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2008, it became the first community in the nation to be registered as a historic site, listed on the United States National Register of Historic Places.

?It was one of the first in the country created by and for African-Americans,? says Richard Laub, an historical preservationist at Georgia State University. ?The African-American community was flexing their muscles.?
Last October, Collier Heights was highlighted by the Docomomo/U.S. Society, which promotes conservation of buildings and architectural styles from the Modern Movement. The Georgia chapter planned a driving tour of those homes in this southern city, which is a bastion of a sizable Black middle class.

The idyllic setting was what Black business and civic leaders envisioned decades ago. In the mid-1940s, the group went to the white city fathers with a plan they called ?Proposed Areas for Negro Expansion,? says Andrew Wiese, a history professor at San Diego State University and author of the book Places of Their Own: African American Suburbanization in the 20th Century. ?Through some really interesting wrangling and politics, by using whites? racism against them, they were able to make strategic purchases of property,? Wiese says. ?They engaged in this sort of under-the-radar process at attempting to gain the west side for the Black middle class and they won.?

For generations before, even middle- and upper-class Blacks were confined to the cramped inner city by Jim Crow laws, in effect throughout the South for nearly a century after the American Civil War, which mandated segregation in all areas of life between Blacks and whites. But from the 1920s through the 1940s, they began buying up tracts outside the city limits to build their version of suburbia, with large lawns and airy homes.
They spent years acquiring land on Atlanta?s west side in hopes of improving housing options in the city ? and for Blacks in particular. In the end, nearly 2,000 homes were built. A cabal of Black doctors, lawyers, civil-rights leaders, educators and entrepreneurs flocked to seize this corner of the city for themselves.

A Who?s Who of Black Atlanta called Collier Heights home: the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr.; Ralph David Abernathy, an ally of Martin Luther King Jr. in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; prominent civil-rights attorney Donald Hollowell; entrepreneur Herman Russell; former U.S. congresswoman and presidential nominee from the Green Party, Cynthia Mckinney; television actress Jasmine Guy from the television show A Different World; famed coach Calvin ?Monk? Jones; and Dr. Asa Yancey, one of the first African-American doctors in the state. While the homes were primarily all-brick, ranch-style structures, some were as distinctive as their residents: one is dubbed the ?pagoda ranch? for its Asian influence and another is a unique circular house built of tan brick.

?There were many that were architect-designed and some were out of plan books. There?s a real diversity,? says Laub. Laub, who directs the Heritage Preservation Program at Georgia State, taught a class last spring, adopting the neighborhood as a case study. Though the suburb barely qualifies as historic ? the first of its 55 subdivisions weren?t built until the 1950s ? it was ripe for research in a way that is normally impossible on older districts. ?It?s very rare to be able to talk to the people who settled the neighborhood,? Laub says. ?In talking with the residents, this was really their piece of the American Dream.?

Gigi Dickens felt like she and her husband, Robert, had arrived when they moved into the neighborhood in 1961, next door to her brother. She was a public schoolteacher and her husband worked for the federal housing department. ?We used to have a great, big neighborhood picnic,? Gigi Dickens says, boasting that her brother had a huge barbecue pit that was popular for gatherings. ?We would get together for holidays, we knew each other?s birthdays. It was a very close-knit neighborhood.?

In the 1980s, Collier Heights? popularity and prominence began to fade with the growth of newer areas on Atlanta?s southwest side, such as Peyton Forest and Cascade Heights. Today, the neighborhood is not what it was a few decades ago. Its richest resource ? the many original residents ? are aging and unable to maintain the homes in their former grandeur. Younger prospective residents now have their choice of where to live in Atlanta. Crime has also become an issue, as evidenced by iron bars now covering some of homes? entries. The community reinvented itself in the new century with a strong homeowners association that brought in its own neighborhood security patrol and highlighted the prominence of its homes and homeowners in various publications.

Those who remain know they are part of something unique, says Richard Cloues, who works for the state historic preservation office and who prepared Collier Heights? application for the National Register. ?It was on land owned by African- Americans, financing was provided by African-American institutions, much of the development that took place, many of the contractors and all of the people who bought houses were African-American,? he says.

Organizers say the listing of Collier Heights on the National Register is more of a recognition that raises public awareness of a neighborhood?s history and allows those who restore area homes under federal guidelines to take advantage of certain tax breaks.

It also opens the way for Atlanta leaders to designate Collier Heights as a local historic district, protecting the suburb from demolition, new construction or changes that would alter the neighborhood?s character.
Looking back on the suburb?s founding, Gigi Dickens recalled how word-of-mouth spread quickly when Collier Heights was being built. Soon the neighborhood was populated with many of Atlanta?s Black and educated middle class seeking spacious properties of their own.

?This was more of a sophisticated area,? she says. ?The homeowners were Black and professional people. It was a big deal. I was so glad to be included.?