Decatur Street (Atlanta) - History

History

In 1854 the first theater in the city, the Athenaeum, opened on Decatur near Peachtree.

In the early 20th century, it included an African American entertainment district. In 1906 it was the trigger point of the Atlanta race riot; allegations that the street's dive bars frequented by blacks were showing nude pictures of white women, and "troublesome Negro vagrants" hanging out in the dive bars there, were amongst the allegations whipping up anti-black sentiment among poor whites.

After the riot, the Atlanta Constitution regularly ran stories documenting city efforts to clean up the street's dance halls, saloons, and dives; ragtime music; whiskey and drug peddling.

In 1909 the city nearly changed the name of the street in East Main street in an effort to clean up the street's reputation. At the start of the 1920s it was commemorated in the Clarence Williams song "Decatur Street Blues".

Today, Decatur Street cuts across the Georgia State University campus in the Downtown area, while further east it was part of a 1940s urban renewal area that became Grady Homes, which were demolished in 2005 and replaced by the Ashley Auburn Pointe mixed-income community, now considered part of the Sweet Auburn neighborhood as it is officially defined.