That's a main reason he set up his T-shirt printing shop on Auburn Avenue, where he teaches formerly homeless men to make custom-ordered shirts. Davis, who goes by the African name Omlowey, lists rap stars like Ludacris and Jermaine Dupri among his customers.

Auburn, once called the "richest Negro street in the world" by Fortune magazine, is steeped in civil rights history. But the street, with its boarded-up buildings and homeless wanderers, is far removed from the business district that buzzed with shoppers and club-goers before desegregation opened stores and restaurants elsewhere to Atlanta's black community.

Today, entrepreneurs like Davis want the prestige of a historic address, but many have built businesses around the reality that few customers will walk in their doors.

Roughly 130 businesses operate on Auburn Avenue, according to the 2005 Atlanta City Directory. Half a century ago, 258 businesses had addresses on the street.

Auburn Avenue revitalization efforts over the years have had limited success. Projects like the cleanup for the 1996 Olympic Games were cosmetic, redevelopers say, and did not provide lasting results.

Redevelopers newly interested in bringing the old life back to Sweet Auburn are starting with a mix of struggling modern enterprises like Davis' and a few traditional businesses that have weathered decades of the street's decline.

One of the latter is the Atlanta Life Financial Group, which celebrates its 100th anniversary on Sept. 21.

Started by former slave Alonzo Herndon, Atlanta Life is the oldest and largest privately held black-owned insurance company in the country.

When Ronald Brown started at Morehouse College, he rode past the Atlanta Life building on a bus tour of the city. Now 51, he's chief executive officer of the company.

Brown said moving from Auburn was never an option for Atlanta Life.

"For us to leave here would be almost like blasphemy, " he said. "This was like a diamond, and you never get rid of a diamond."

Atlanta Life's continued success shows traditional businesses can flourish on Auburn, Brown said, though he acknowledges the company doesn't rely on walk-in customers. Atlanta Life does business in 17 states, and that base long has cushioned it from the economic conditions on the street.

Big plans afoot

Next door to the modern Atlanta Life building, the company's original headquarters sits unused and boarded up. Plaster is cracking on its columns, and a man often sleeps on the front steps during the day. Piles of bricks lay in the yard.

Joe Stewardson wants to give the building a makeover. President of the community-based nonprofit Historic District Development Corp., Stewardson said he hopes to restore the 16,000-square-foot building to its original condition and purpose, as office space.

"Tangible evidence [of history] is really important, " he said. "If you don't have that, you're reduced to going to the library."

Stewardson contends that the story of Auburn Avenue contains all the components of a great novel: race, religion and politics. It's time, he said, for all of these components to work together to bring the district back to the standard that it deserves.

There's evidence something like that is stirring.

Atlanta-based real estate development firm Integral Group is working with Big Bethel AME Church to redevelop property on the street. It plans to build a mixed-use complex called Renaissance Walk at Sweet Auburn with 180 condominiums and 42,800 square feet of retail space on the site of the closed Palamont Motor Lodge. The company expects to start construction in October.

Egbert Perry, chief executive officer of Integral Group, explained his reasons for building on the street.

"[Thousands of] visitors a year come to this avenue, " he said. "They come from around the globe. It is a place that has --- with a few strategic investments --- the potential to be one of the hottest areas in the city. To us it's an unmined situation."

A community voice

Another survivor, just across from the old Atlanta Life building, is the Atlanta Daily World. A metal sign on the building marks it as a "historic site for journalism."

The newspaper, now a weekly, celebrated its 77th anniversary this year. M. Alexis Scott, publisher and granddaughter of the founder, said the paper has given a voice to the black community. The World was once the flagship paper of a syndicate that enabled the first black reporter to join the White House press corps.

The World's founder was killed in 1934 and, out of that tragedy, Scott said, emerged a deep commitment to keep the paper going. She said that's why the paper has survived despite changes in society, new challenges for media, and the ups and downs of Auburn Avenue.

"We could be anywhere, " Scott said. "But as part of the cultural heritage, we're one of the institutions that shows black business and black advocacy on this street."

'Double bottom line'

Commitment to the community has long played a role in the health of the street's business district.

Brown of Atlanta Life said he believes in the "double bottom line, " where both profit and social responsibility matter. Atlanta Life played a role in the civil rights struggle, providing coverage to motorists who drove black protesters during the bus boycotts.

The business has been heavily involved with the Butler Street YMCA through employee volunteer programs, scholarships and after-school programs. The company is a benefactor of Atlanta University Center.

"Atlanta Life found a way to weave itself into the fabric of the community, " Brown said. "It touches people's lives, and they remember it for generations."

Dean Rowley, a park ranger at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site east of the business district, said that, historically, the strength of the Auburn Avenue community has been that business people tended to be socially active.

The owner of Haugabrooks Funeral Home, founded in 1929, invested in a private school so black children could have up-to-date textbooks and well-paid teachers. Business leaders were involved with the NAACP and many served on the board of directors at the Butler Street YMCA.

Working with homeless

T-shirt entrepreneur Davis continues in this tradition, working with the homeless at his Street Poetry Clothing Co., which he opened in June inside Oddballs, a store in the 93-year-old Odd Fellows building.

Davis lives on Auburn Avenue, too, near the King birth home. He said his mission is to continue King's Poor People's Campaign.

"If he was here, this wouldn't exist, " Davis said of the street's dilapidated state. "There should be no begging outside Martin Luther King's home in 2005."

Bombay Gal, a boutique opened by Shahnaz Hughson in May, looks like it belongs in Virginia-Highland. The store sells women's clothes and accessories with an Indian flavor.

Hughson, 30, sold her wares at the Sweet Auburn Street Festival for six years before settling her business on Auburn Avenue. Business has been good, she said, even though nearby business owners warned her it would be slow.

She sells wholesale on the Internet, so she's not dependent on street traffic. She thinks this strategy has helped her succeed where others have struggled.

"A lot of people around me find it hard because they have to depend on the traffic on Auburn Avenue."

Like the street, the store's floor shows signs of wear even while it evokes better days. Hughson said she pulled back the carpet to reveal the most unusual floor she had ever seen, made of octagonal-shaped tile. It used to surround the ticket counter of a movie theater. Hughson has tried to restore it.

"It has a few cracks, but it's just got history, and I couldn't cover it, " she said.

Hughson has hope for the future of Auburn Avenue.

"They've been talking about renovating the street, " she said. "Still, it's not fast enough. But the possibility of what's going to happen is very motivating."

Split by overpass

Walking under the I-75/85 overpass, whose shadow dissects Auburn Avenue, isn't pleasant. It's dark, and it smells like urine. People curl up in the shade to escape the heat. Nearby parking meters mark mostly empty spaces. People on walking tours of the historic district tend to quicken their pace when they pass this way.

When the overpass was built in 1964, it demolished an entire block of businesses. Among them were Club Zanzibar, Jordan Photography Studio and Henray's Five and Dime.

One walk-in business that survived is the Rib Shack, which has been on the corner of Fort Street and Auburn for decades. The owner, Riley Grundy, has witnessed many changes. He said he used to see many more pedestrians.

Grundy, 84, was a farmer when he decided to "take a chance" on Auburn. Recently, his wife's restaurant, Thelma's Kitchen, fled rising rents on Marietta Street and moved in with his. Grundy said business has since been pretty slow. Some of Thelma's regular customers didn't follow her to Auburn.

"I got to just hope for the best, " he said.

Built on reputation

In the next block east, the businesses start to thin out. Haugabrooks Funeral Home is an anchor.

Seventy-six years ago, Geneva Moton Haugabrooks started the funeral home with less than $300 in cash. Marcus Wimby, Haugabrooks' great-nephew, inherited the business in 1994.

Wimby, 52, said he thinks the business thrives because he relies on reputation to draw customers, many from families who have been patronizing the funeral home for years.

"When you treat people right, you're going to get repeat business, " he said. "It's like that certain little ice cream shop. You'll go way across town to there instead of going down the street to Kroger."

Wimby's father used to take him to the Silver Moon Barber Shop, another business that has survived in large part because people make a special trips to get haircuts there. Silver Moon claims to be the oldest operating black-owned barber shop in the city.

When Wimby turned old enough to drive, he would cruise down Auburn on a Friday or Saturday night. With all the people and the lights, it looked like the Las Vegas Strip, he said.

Wimby wonders whether the street will ever return to anything like its heyday.

"They've been talking of revitalization over the last 10 years, " he said.

"I don't know if the businesses in the area will step up. Once the community changes, and you get a middle class, a nice little restaurant on Auburn, it may change."

Commuter church

Across the street, Wheat Street Baptist Church has nearly 900 members, half of whom live nowhere near Auburn.

"Originally it was a neighborhood congregation in that a lot of members lived nearby, " said Eugene Jackson, church administrator since 1993. "It's a commuter church now."

Jackson, 65, has attended services at Wheat Street all his life, though now he drives from East Point. He grew up in the Grady Homes housing project down the street and recalls walking to the Royal Theater when he was 8 or 9 to watch Lash LaRue in "The King of the Bullwhip."

Jackson rattled off the names of businesses that used to line Sweet Auburn --- Yates & Milton drugstore, the Brown Boy Bottling Co., and the Blayton School of Business. The church hasn't left, he said, because the neighborhood is central to African-American heritage in Atlanta.

"It's the best place to be, " said Jackson.

The church founded the Wheat Street Federal Credit Union, which helped church families with their financial needs when white credit unions denied them credit, he said. The church helped establish Wheat Street Towers and Wheat Street Gardens, which brought 490 residential units to the street. Wheat Street Plaza, an office complex, opened in the late 1960s with help from the church.

"Wheat Street had an impact in terms of business, " he said. "I think it's played a very vital role."

More residents on way?

The King site draws nearly 600,000 visitors a year. Just east of it, houses are being built or renovated. The nearby Studioplex development offers office and residential loft space for artists and other creative professionals.

The Renaissance Walk at Sweet Auburn and similar projects could bring more residents, which in turn could mean more customers for Auburn Avenue businesses.

"We need to preserve the past, but we need to build a future, " said Charles Johnson, president of the nonprofit Friends of Sweet Auburn. "It's not enough that you live in the past, but you have to build new history. It's a living, breathing museum that changes with the time."

Meanwhile, Davis is trying to get his rapper customers involved in the neighborhood, in his vision of an Auburn Avenue that does not have crack dealers and people sleeping in the streets.

"When those entertainers realize it's their problem, it can be fixed tomorrow, " Davis said. "We need a face lift down here."