Local, USA

TINA McDUFFIE: In Athens, Georgia, a Black neighborhood erased.

HATTIE WHITEHEAD: That was the first time I ever saw my mom cry.

When she realized property can be taken from you.

McDUFFIE: Descendants push for an apology and recognition for their losses.

KELLY GIRTZ: If you would look today where those families lived, they're some of the most valuable pieces of property in Athens.

Giving people fair market value.

That's what reparation would mean to me.

McDUFFIE: "Linnentown" on "Local U.S.A." WHITEHEAD: The only thing that is left, besides the dirt, is this white oak tree, and this tree is 150 to 200 years old.

My Aunt Bessie and my Uncle Dave lived over on this side of the street.

They had a screened-in porch.

Where that tree is, it's where the... my house used to be, as a little girl.

This is where I was born.

And now on this side of the road were homeowners as well.

Now when you look out the area, you just look at pavement, and parked cars, and buildings.

I see this big dorm for "freshmens" that come and go.

They called it, um, progress.

But it was progress for who?

I'm no stranger here.

I've been here before.

But today I want to talk with you as a first descendant of Linnentown.

I lived in Linnentown with my mother, father, three brothers and three sisters.

This is an actual picture of the houses that I was born in.

It was on 22 acres of land; three streets: South Finley, Lyndon Row, and Peabody.

BOBBY CROOK: We lived at 167 Peabody Street.

I lived on Lyndon Row, 193 Lyndon Row.

And Hattie's grandfather, who was on Finley Street, was my grandmama's brother.

I lived at 183 Lyndon Row.

WHITEHEAD: So I want to talk about this Black community that was made up of 50 families, hardworking adults; construction workers, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, cooks.

My parents were Roy and Essie Crook.

We ran, like, a... ...a hotel.

As you know, in those days, Black people couldn't go to just any hotel.

When one person needed something, everybody else pitched in.

WHITEHEAD: My mom bought up a lot on Peabody Street and the men in the community, the electricians, the plumbers and all, built the house.

That's how my parents became homeowners.

It was segregated then.

We went to totally Black schools and we played all over the neighborhood, because we knew that the adults in the neighborhood was going to watch after us.

In this community, we were happy children.

The community was tight-knit.

Everybody was like family.

CROOK: Mainly, the thing about growing up in Linnentown was the University of Georgia and football.

Just a, a neat area because you were so close to the University of Georgia.

You could stand in our bedroom and see the 50-yard line.

WHITEHEAD: This sign right here, I remember it as a child.

That's when the community knew something was wrong.

CROOK: I remember vividly coming from school one day and everybody, the whole neighborhood, was in an uproar.

CHRISTINE JOHNSON: My mother was really calm and she said, "We're going to have to go."

WHITEHEAD: U.G.A.

wanted the land for expansion; to build dormitories and a parking deck.

If urban renewal, eminent domain had not happened, we still would have been a family together, and we would have been at 141 Peabody.

These politicians put that in place to help colleges and universities, not communities.

The few dollars that they threw at the families was not enough.

It was not enough.

And the calculations was even different from Black families to white families.

FREDDIE: It's this old saying, "You can't fight City Hall."

It was a matter of Freddie Mae, we got to find somewhere to go.

WHITEHEAD: That was the first time I ever saw my mom cry, when she realized that property can be taken from you.

All of us shut down, and she got to where she didn't talk about anything.

So we didn't know what was going on, because she wouldn't speak it.

And my daddy was there, but he could not let us know what was going on either.

So, it was really hard.

There was a time when I was, um, doing integration.

I was going to do my part in making Athens a better place, even though it was going to be hard; and I did.

I went to jail, I was locked up, I was-- went downtown every time we had to go and, uh, sit at the lunch counters.

Those long days of being called names and spit on and all of that was within me.

And coming home in the evenings, listening to what happened in the community, was another stack of stress on me as well.

The next thing that we knew that we were moving.

My parents were hurt and disappointed.

Finally, my dad said he had to go work at the mountains where he could make more money.

But things didn't work out as well as he thought, and he wasn't able to make as much, and so then my momma did the same thing.

And so I had, I was left with my older sister and brother.

The family splits up my younger brother and sisters.

They were, you know, went with aunts and uncles until my daddy came back.

But at that time I was graduating, so.

JOHNSON: My parents were thriving, people worked hard on their property, and we had to go.

We had to leave our homes and struggle to find other places.

CROOK: We were the last family to leave Linnentown, so I witnessed everybody that lived in Linnentown at that time move.

It was like a ghost town.

It was like we-- people had forgotten about us.

That was a big thing, you know, Linnentown being erased.

LINK: My name is Melissa Link, and I am the Athens-Clarke County Commissioner for District 2.

I knew of this neighborhood that was wiped off the map to make way for U.G.A.

dorms.

Joey Carter was a graduate student in the department that I work in, the philosophy department.

I mentioned the name of the neighborhood.

I told him it was called Linnentown.

A few weeks later, ran into him again and he had clearly started doing some digging and doing some research.

He asked me if I knew anybody who might've lived there.

So I put him in touch with my constituents, and they were able to put him in touch with Hattie and, and others.

And the Linnentown Project was born.

WHITEHEAD: The Linnentown Project is made up of first descendants.

We start going over some things, and start talking about a resolution.

And start writing a resolution and put a strategy in place and go to work.

So that means forums, tours, demonstrations, meetings, community meetings-- whatever we had to do.

And I, I became an activist again.

I started reaching out to, uh, President Morehead, and asking him to be a part of this team and to recognize the Linnentown Project.

I wanted to meet with him or talk with him, but I never was able to do that.

And then you start getting the-- "President Morehead says well, you have to talk to the Board of Regents."

And the Board of Regents, you know, it start pointing fingers, and the fingers pointing in different ways.

The first thing we wanted was an apology.

That's the first thing we are taught as children.

If you do something wrong to somebody, you need to apologize.

So, went to the mayor in Athens and said, "Will you apologize?"

GIRTZ: I remember an early conversation that was very tense.

We started off rocky.

GIRTZ: When the first draft of a resolution was brought to myself and the county commission, they were certainly some language that seemed thorny to some of the people who were in elected office at the time.

Some of the commissioners said they were not going to vote for it if we had "white supremacy" in there.

GIRTZ: So if you think about the Athens of the 1960s, it wasn't a safe time to be a homeowner.

Because in the urban renewal era, it meant that your home may not remain your home.

JAMES BALDWIN: Cities now are engaged... ...in something called urban renewal, which means moving the Negroes out.

Getting-- it means negro removal; that is what it means.

And the federal government is, is an accomplice to this fact.

GIRTZ: In hundreds of cities across the country, the city collaborated with the federal government to remove what at the time was termed "blight."

Every community that had an urban renewal plan used it for different purposes.

In some communities, it was highways that tore through neighborhoods.

In other communities, it was hospital systems.

In some communities, like Athens, it provided a home for educational system expansion.

JOHNSON: The way the bulldozer at night was pushing the dirt so close to our house, at night, at 1:00 and 2:00 in the morning.

And my mother would say, "Just relax, don't worry.

They're not going to touch this house."

Brumby Hall was being built right in front of our house, and they would pile pipes on our property, and that was very intimidating.

WHITEHEAD: To see houses being burned, you got to hear it and you had to smell it all the time.

That was some of the terrorizing that we called it, that was done to get us to move out.

Some suggested that we changed that word.

We said, "No, we're not going to change that, because we were terrorized."

I tell my story through pain and gratitude.

I saw what happened in Linnentown.

Just imagine a Black family buying a house in, uh, 1938.

And then they come in 1965, uh, it's taken away for a little of nothing.

Linnentown is in your house, because... ...your predecessors took it from all of the residents.

Unilaterally used the power of the city and the state through U.G.A.

and the University System of Georgia and the federal government.

It is not just what you owe to them.

It is what you are obligated to do as a human being.

GIRTZ: Commissioner Edwards?

EDWARDS: I was wrong.

In fact, it was an act of terrorism to forcibly remove these people from their homes.

We are at the table.

We are negotiating.

What do we need to do?

Do we walk away or do we stay at the table?

So we decided that, um, we would stay at the table.

We changed the resolution to say "white racism."

But out of all the things that we had in there, things that we said that had happened to this community, none of that was questioned.

And so as county commissioners learned of these circumstances, I think they grew to understand that this isn't extremist language.

This is simply descriptive language.

Part of what it takes for mature leadership is to acknowledge wrongs, because if you don't acknowledge those wrongs, then you can't do any differently today.

I issued a proclamation apologizing to Linnentown, and all of the urban renewal residents for the harm that was done to them by the city of Athens.

"Whereas the former city of Athens entered into agreements with the United States government in the 1960s..." CROOK: "And whereas, these two districts "featured several hundred residents who were displaced during the decade that followed."

"And whereas, "despite the intent and expression of 'progress' provided at this time, this displacement..." "...resulted in the loss of generational wealth, particularly for Black Athenians..." GIRTZ: "And whereas "Athenians and the unified government "of Athens-Clarke County are together working "toward recognition and remedy for past injustices.

And whereas this includes the present Linnentown Memory..." "...and Justice Committee, "and will expand to include recognition of other neighborhoods that have been lost."

That speaks volumes.

GIRTZ: "Now, therefore, "the unified government of Athens-Clarke County, "extends to former residents of Athens urban renewal districts, "their descendants, and to all Athenians "a deep and sincere expression of apology "and regret for the pain and loss "stemming from this time and a sincere commitment to work toward better outcomes in all we do moving forward."

CROOK: I commend Mayor Girtz.

(voice breaking): Linnentown is a touchy subject.

It's a touchy subject for all the residents, because they lost... and didn't gain anything as I see.

(humorless chuckle) (sighs) They didn't gain anything.

GIRTZ: Descendants themselves had some ideas about what reconciliation and what reparations could look like.

I've reached out to the University System of Georgia, who were the partner with the city at the time.

They have declined to participate in the process, and thus declined to participate in the allocation of funds to these descendants of Linnentown.

JERRY SHANNON: In late summer 2021, the mayor invited me to be the lead researcher so that they could think through what might reparations look like for the Linnentown descendants based on their financial losses.

CROOK: Giving people fair market value.

That's what reparations would mean to me.

We need money.

SHANNON: When people talked about Linnentown in 1960 they were talking about the Black neighborhood that was south of Baxter Street.

When there's letters where the president of the university writes to the senator and says, "We need to clear out the total slum area that exists south of Baxter Street," more than likely, that's the area he was thinking of.

There was a white neighborhood kind of across Baxter Street that was also affected, but that wasn't considered Linnentown.

There was a court order about how much residents would get paid for their properties.

In many cases, there was a family survey form, so they had surveyors who went in and looked at the properties.

We compared the, the Linnentown residents with the residents of the white neighborhood that was across the street that was also affected by redevelopment and we said, "How much did those residents get for their properties?"

Owners outside of Linnentown received $11,500 as a median value for their homes.

For Linnentown homeowners, the median price received was a little less than half that, $5,600.

If we look at what Black residents of Linnentown did receive versus what they should have received, they only received 49% of the value that they should have received for their homes.

The white homeowners who were affected by that project did receive substantially more money than the Black community did, and so I think while there were white communities affected by the displacement, they didn't face the same economic consequences as the Linnentown residents did.

GIRTZ: What we've been able to demonstrate through academic research and analysis is that something like $5 million of value was taken from families in Linnentown.

If you would look today at those very same parcels where those families lived, they're some of the most valuable pieces of property in Athens, because they're in the core of town and right next to the university.

So what we owe those families is to repair the breach and to give them back some of that value that was lost.

SHANNON: What we were telling was only part of the story.

That there is another aspect of this that has to do with the kinds of emotional trauma that's created through being removed from your home.

And we weren't able to speak to that.

That's a whole 'nother kind of domain of knowledge.

GIRTZ: In Georgia, part of the legal landscape is a component of the state constitution called the Gratuities Clause, and that dictates that you can't give direct payment to an individual or an organization.

How do we move forward in the state of Georgia, the city of Athens, if we have to work within this clause?

The city of Athens shouldn't be responsible for the whole $5 million, because it was University of Georgia, too.

So, we divided the number by two and say, "Okay, Athens-Clarke County, you owe us $2.5 million."

GIRTZ: Using the legal frame that we have to operate in, we were able to contribute $1.25 million to home repair and down payment assistance, and another $1.25 million for a Black Futures center.

These are city dollars that we could have spent on many other things, but, the county commission had the wisdom to direct this toward these losses.

You know, maybe I have the wrong attitude, but to me, it's like saying, "I cut your arm off, "but I'm going to put the bandage on somebody else.

Somebody else is going to reap the benefits of what you lost."

I'm just hoping that the people that do get help, that they realize that it was the Athens descendants, the reason that they are being helped.

WHITEHEAD: We want to make a difference now while we can, and while we can see it, even though we cannot get direct payout.

And that is actually part of the impetus behind what Athens Reparations Action is doing.

We're picking up where the city had to leave off.

Until the Gratuities Clause is gone, they actually can't write checks, but we can, so we will.

We have been able to identify 11 living descendants of the original Linnentown homeowners.

WILLMAN: Our goal is to raise $110,000 by June 2024, which would mean $10,000 for each of the original 11 households.

We know that it's not a lot of money.

WILLMAN: Hattie had been working to start to tell the story of Linnentown and bring it to the public attention.

We had heard her story and had her come speak, so we were really compelled by that, and we hired her as a consultant to help us map out what a process for delivering reparations, some form of reparations, could look like.

So we set up a nonprofit.

KNAPPER: During 2020, when Ahmaud Arbery was killed, when George Floyd was murdered, and Breonna Taylor, all of those deaths really made an impact here on this community in, in what very much felt like an uprising for some.

People were anxious to, to get involved in a movement to, to recognize that our country is great, but there are some things that we need to work on.

And so the idea of reparations, I think, really started to resonate more and more.

WILLMAN: We are about to sit down with a group of neighbors in a wealthy part of town, and those neighbors have decided to come together and make a donation as a group.

WHITEHEAD: It doesn't take a whole lot of people to make change.

It takes a few dedicated people that are focused on the work.

I've learned that while working on Linnentown.

So with A.R.A., with this community, I feel encouraged.

It's-- something will have to happen, if we all together move.

But I want you to know that you need to understand that you need to find your voices when something comes down.

You find your voice... ...and get involved.

I believe in you.

I'm, I'm, I'm hanging my hat on believing in the students to make a difference in the future.

I thank you for allowing me to come here and to, to speak to you, and I will continue speaking to you and students here as long as I can.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) STUDENT: I'd just like to say thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us.

WHITEHEAD: Thank you, thank you.

And at some point, I am hoping to teach history myself in Georgia.

I'll consider it a failure if my students don't know what Linnentown is.

WHITEHEAD: Well, I appreciate you passing it on.

Thank you for teaching-- in the future.

Thank you.

(laughs) STUDENT: Who inspired you to, like, share your voice and, like, what kept you going and when people, like, told you to stop?

WHITEHEAD: Sometimes you have to be, believe in yourself.

And you have to self-motivate, because you may not have people lined up behind you, but just know that you can do it and move forward with it.

- Thank you.

- You're welcome.

STUDENT: How did the destruction of Linnentown impact you personally?

If Linnentown was still here, how do you think it would affect people?

What kind of support has your kids, you know, done for you?

How do you feel about like, students and stuff still going to, like, U.G.A., and, like, not really knowing about what had happened and stuff?

WHITEHEAD: My hope is that all the students that live in those dorms over there will know about what happened, about Linnentown, because they need to know what happened, and they are living in those dorms.

If we get the street renamed, then that will be historically documentation about Linnentown.

As a result of that, we will have a ceremony of renaming the South Finley Street to Linnentown Lane, which is so historic.

I was getting all these congratulations, I couldn't turn my phone off.

I'm like, "Oh, that is so nice."

I'm trying to keep from tearing up.

GRANDKID: Here you go.

(chuckling): Oh.

Thank you!

We're here.

HATTIE'S DAUGHTER: This street is dedicated to the people of Linnentown.

This street is dedicated to all of the families who worked hard.

All of the families who raised their kids in this space.

This street is dedicated to all of the families who were displaced.

This street is dedicated to all of the families who were taken advantage of.

This street is dedicated to their stories and to their memories.

This street is dedicated to justice.

WHITEHEAD: Yes!

HATTIE'S DAUGHTER: That should have been a real loud "Amen."

WHITEHEAD: Amen!

CROWD: Amen!

(cheers and applause) CROOK (voice breaking): This morning I was thinking, and I said that, in the ground over here, my blood is in the ground from running up and down these streets, playing ball and going from, to different people's houses and just having a good time as a child.

WHITEHEAD: I'm a first descendant of Linnentown, and along with Christine and Freddie and Bobby, we've worked hard to try to get avenues of atonement.

GIRTZ: What I hope we can offer is a return to dignity for Linnentown residents and their descendants.

Today, and every day in the future, Linnentown is seen and heard and acknowledged and will be remembered.

WHITEHEAD: Yes!

(cheers and applause) Whoo, whoo, whoo!

(laughs) GIRTZ: So as a visual... ...to remember Linnentown, I ask you to join me here in a second in unveiling Linnentown Lane.

(cheers and applause) I'm going to countdown, three, two, one!

(cheers and applause) Thank you!

It's been a long time coming.

WOMAN: Thank you so much.

God bless you to everyone one of you.

for your hard work and dedication.

WOMAN: That's it, here we go!

(laughter)