For years, driving through the campus of Morris Brown College along Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Sheffield Hale always had a bad feeling.
Financial problems have left the once proud HBCU a shell of itself, as nearly all of the buildings are empty, sold or boarded up.
Then on Aug. 20, Gaines Hall, built in 1869 to house the sons and daughters of former slaves who wanted to seek an education, caught fire.
Across the street, connected by a rickety bridge, sits Fountain Hall – also abandoned. Also endangered.
“This is something that I have been worried about for years,” said Hale, the president and CEO of the Atlanta History Center. “I said these buildings are going to burn up. When buildings are abandoned, eventually they will burn up. It is very sad and predictable. I see another fire coming. This will happen to [Fountain] Hall too.”
Hale said that Gaines Hall and Fountain Hall are two of the city's most endangered buildings that are significant to African-Americans.
Mark McDonald, president and CEO of the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, agrees but takes it a step further. He provided the Atlanta Journal-Constitution an exclusive list of 10 sites.
“There are so many important sites which have been lost and thankfully many that have been saved,” McDonald said. “With this in mind, we all feel that it is imperative and should be the highest of public policy priorities that we all work together to rehabilitate these important places, starting with Gaines Hall.”
The 10 structures are clustered in two main areas that played major roles in Atlanta growing into a city with a significant and powerful black middle class: Auburn Avenue and around the Atlanta University Center.
“It is heart breaking because the Georgia Trust and others have tried to bring attention to the plight of these buildings for years,” McDonald said. “This list of 10 buildings should be a historical preservationist’s work list. When all is said and done, Atlanta’s greatest legacy will be as the birthplace of civil rights movement. So, 100 years from we are going to have to be able to show what the landmarks of the civil rights movement are.”
About the Author
