African Americans have immeasurably reinvented the American dream. With unshakable resilience, we have never accepted being told what we can’t do. Instead, we have relentlessly pressed our tattered souls toward what we can do. Among the best examples of this inherent determination—is the history of Sweet Auburn, and the work that continues to preserve this prestigious legacy.
I’d like to think that we want the generations of young African Americans who come after us, to know their history and the story of incredible accomplishment Sweet Auburn represented at a very difficult time for African Americans in this country. The lesson they need to take away is — if we could do that then, what can’t we do now,”
– Mtamanika Youngblood
Long before the seeds of the modern civil rights movement took hold, during the long dark night of legal segregation in the Jim Crow South, there was an African American neighborhood in Atlanta, Georgia, known as the Sweet Auburn community, which remarkably managed to transpire into one of the Nation’s first and most flourishing Black financial districts.
Beginning at the turn of the 20th Century well into the 1960s, Sweet Auburn was a bastion of African-American black-owned businesses, entertainment venues, and churches. The concentration of wealth and influence was unparalleled elsewhere in the South. In 1956 Fortune magazine memorably described Auburn Avenue as “the richest Negro street in the world” and black Atlantans referred to the street as “Sweet Auburn.” Coined by John Wesley Dobbs, Grand Master of the Prince Hall Masons and the neighborhood’s unofficial mayor. It was a place of synergistic harmony, providing employment and a rich social life, where the wealthy and poor lived and worked together.
in the United States. Founded in 1928 by William Alexander Scott II, who was only 26 at the time. Scott was a Morehouse graduate. When The Daily World was founded there was only one other black paper in the Atlanta area, The Atlanta Independent, which shut down in 1933, consequently leaving The Daily World as the lone voice for the city’s growing black community, though Scott launched the paper mainly as a business venture, not a political venture. Currently owned by Real Times Inc., it continues to publish daily online and weekly in print. Photocredit: http://gene-kansas-ze9z.squarespace.com/gallery This was the environment in which African American exceptionalism thrived. It was the birth place of one of America’s most important citizens—civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. It was here that WERD, the first black-owned and operated radio station in the United States, originated, and it was here that one of the first and largest black owned life insurance companies, Atlanta Life Insurance, was founded in 1905 by Alonzo Herndon.
desegregation
Unfortunately, by the late 1980s, Sweet Auburn, didn’t resemble it’s former glory. Like embers slowing dying out from a once blazing fire, it had lost its beautiful glow. The steep decline of the street, seemed to be benchmarked by the building of an interstate highway that sliced right through the heart of Auburn Avenue. Inarguably, the highway’s construction in the 1950s and ’60s was an enormous blow to the neighborhood—however, the chief culprit was actually desegregation itself.
Looking back, we have come to understand that In a cruel twist of fate, the hard won personal freedoms gained through the Civil Rights Movement, had an unintended consequence.
Once the legal barriers to integration were removed, the African American market that was held captive by segregation now began to buy, shop and live in what were heretofore all white preserves. The death knell occurred when it became obvious that the loss of that market was not offset by the white community’s requisite buying, shopping and living in our community. So, we loss black folks spending power and never had access to white’s buyer power. Essentially, desegregation was a one-way street. Sweet Auburn now had no significant market.
But the winds of providence breathed new life into the legacy of Sweet Auburn when Mtamanika Youngblood rose to the occasion and joined the ranks of those dedicated to preserving this storied place.
Before coming to Sweet Auburn, Mtamanika, was successful and living the American Dream, a great career, a wonderful husband and a house in the suburbs. The native New Yorker, may have had the proverbial white picket fence, but could not help feeling like a fish out of water. So she and husband, George Howell, decided to exchange their suburban quietude for a more energetic in-town lifestyle. As destiny would have it, it was in buying a home in Sweet Auburn that lead Mtamanika toward her fate as Sweet Auburn’s guardian angel.
In 1985, Mtamanika and George purchased a historic Old Fourth Ward treasure. “In some ways, it reminded me of the street I grew up on in New York,” Youngblood recalls. “The yards were swept and the sense of pride among the little old ladies who sat vigil on their tidy front porches was palpable.” With paint brush in hand, and a ton of elbow grease, the couple, lovingly restored their turn of the century house, into their dream home. The Youngblood/Howells’s move to Sweet Auburn at the time was courageous to say the least. In that, while The National Park Service, keeper of the Martin Luther King Jr. legacy, had done a good job of restoring much of the Auburn Avenue block where King had grown up, making the turn from Auburn to Howell Street was like “falling into an abyss” Mtamanika recalls.
Feeling inspired by the restoration of her own home, Mtamanika encouraged others to relocate to the historic district, hoping they would see the potential. Her anticipation of an organic revitalization didn’t go as planned. This did not dissuade Mtamanika. In fact, her resolve only grow stronger, triggered by an indelible occurrence that happened shortly after she had relocated. It was on a warm summer morning, when she and a neighbor spotted one of the many King tour buses passing through the neighborhood. Still a vivid memory, she recalls the horror on the faces of the tourist as they caught sight of the dilapidated houses, and the unkempt vacant lots that dominated the landscape. Youngblood turned to her neighbor and said, “We have got to do something. This is not representative of us and the people who made this place the great neighborhood it once was.”
After the tour bus incident Mtamanika and her husband joined the nonprofit Historic District Development Corporation (HDDC), as volunteer board members. It was at this time, working through the organization, they began purchasing houses and lots.
In 1992, turning her passion into full-time devotion, Youngblood, a former Bell South executive with an MBA from Atlanta University aka Clark Atlanta University, became the Executive Director of the HDDC, created to revitalize the residential and commercial areas of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Historic District which contains Sweet Auburn. Additionally, in 2012 she helped organize and was named president and CEO of Sweet Auburn Works (SAW), a nonprofit organization supported by a broad range of stakeholders committed to the revitalization of the Sweet Auburn commercial corridor, modeled after the successful national Main Street program.
In her work with the HDDC, the dynamic baby-boomer has partnered with banks, developers, and community agencies building new homes on vacant lots, and rehabbing existing dilapidated structures. The goal remains to benefit 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.
Most of the initial residential development was geared to low and moderate income families and individuals. Projects included turning a multifamily dwelling that had been a magnet for crime into an apartment home called Henderson Place. Youngblood notes “Nobody was going to move into the neighborhood until we changed that dynamic, so we renovated the building and made it a safe place for many of the seniors who’d lived there for years.”
Another piece of the methodology was to improve the condition of many elderly residents who lived in poorly maintained rental housing. HDDC would acquire the rental property, temporarily relocate the resident to a newly rehabbed home—sometimes right next door or across the street. Once the resident’s original home was rehabbed, they would be given the option of moving back to it. HDDC would maintain the rent at its current level. This approach has contributed to long-term stability and created trust between existing residents and the new residents. HDDC also worked with existing homeowners, by assisting them in finding resources to improve the condition of their homes.
Further, turning her attention to commercial development opportunities in the Sweet Auburn District in 1998, Mtamanika, in one of her loftiest projects to date, secured $18.5 million in funding to turn a 225,000 square foot warehouse into what is now the trendy Studioplex. A 150 unit mixed-use loft project, where artists and creative individuals are able to benefit from a combination living quarters and retail space lifestyle.
A million visitors from all over the world visit here each year, and the image of what hasn’t been done to preserve the neighborhood, still drives Youngblood. “I’d like to think that we would want the generations of young African Americans who come after us to know their history and the story of incredible accomplishment Sweet Auburn represented at a very difficult time for African Americans in this country. The lesson they need to take away is—if we could do that then, what can’t we do now?” Youngblood said.
After 30 years of leadership, Mtamanika embodies the spirit of Sweet Auburn, as she remains dedicated to the cause, and for that, we all owe her a deep debt of gratitude for her life’s service.
**Story originally printed in the June/July Issue of Opus Cultural Lifestyle Magazine, all rights reserved!
