It’s not just a street sign marking Linnentown Lane—it’s a piece of history. It acknowledges there was for years a thriving African-American community living on 22 acres near Peabody, Finley, Baxter and West Cloverhurst streets.
On Sept. 21, about 200 people gathered at the intersection of West Cloverhurst and Finley to watch the unveiling of a new street sign to celebrate the naming of one street block and to remember some of the people the university uprooted. Leading the event was Hattie Thomas Whitehead, a Linnentown native, who has been advocating for years for reparations for the families with other members of the Athens Justice and Memory Project.
In the early 1960s, the City of Athens used its powers of eminent domain to condemn houses and force families out of Linnentown so the University of Georgia could build high-rise dormitories and parking lots. Some 65 houses were torn down. A UGA geographer calculated that the families are owed $5 million in lost generational wealth.
Thomas Whitehead’s daughter, the Rev. Cynthia Jackson, dedicated the street to the families who gathered and made memories, who were awakened in the night by bulldozers, who were taken advantage of by local and state government. Thomas Whitehead, along with former Linnentown residents Bobby Cook and Christine Davis Johnson, described Linnentown as a safe, happy community where people knew and helped each other. Children roamed from yard to yard, playing baseball and hide ‘n seek, holding Easter egg hunts, and parents visited on front porches. Adults worked as cooks and construction workers, brick masons, plumbers, nurses and custodians.
Bobby Cook told the attendees that his was the last family to leave Linnentown. “We had no one to back us up, no one to believe us,” he said. “All we had was ‘You gotta go.’”
In addition to testimonies, the event was marked by music. Venus Jarrell played the saxophone and Arvin Scott played an original percussion piece written specifically for the occasion.
ACC Commissioner Mike Hamby, whose district would have included Linnentown, said he has been working with Thomas Whitehead for years, and has learned “You don’t tell Ms. Whitehead no.” He also said the local government is “committed to a better future for everyone.”
Among those at the event was Jennifer Tesler’s multicultural literature class from Clarke Central High School. She said her class read Giving Voice to Linnentown, Thomas Whitehead’s memoir of her community, and other Athens histories. “This was an opportunity for students to be part of history in the making,” she said.
Originally the Justice and Memory Project and the ACC government planned a broader recognition for Linnentown, including a mural near the neighborhood’s site, but that proposal was blocked by the University System of Georgia. However, ACC officials found a loophole for renaming the block of Finley because the right-of-way is still owned by the county government. The ACC Commission approved the name change in August.
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