Category Archives: Peoplestown: The Place
Grace Stone
Then Muriel [Lokey] I think again asked me if I would be interested in this new project that they were starting, which was going to be the Poverty Rights Office. This was partly the inspiration from the Welfare Rights Organization headed by the wonderful and inimitable Mrs. [Ethel Mae] Mathews. What happened was that, as I remember the story, Austin or somebody—it might have been a woman named Petie Cayson, who was not there very long. But somebody persuaded the Welfare Department to put in, with one of the welfare checks, a statement from Emmaus House saying to them, in effect: If you have trouble with the Welfare Department, if you need help with something, just here’s our telephone number. Call us up, and we’ll see what we can do to help you. Read more
Dennis Goldstein
I think in the beginning [Father Austin Ford] said, “you’re gonna work on this and this and this, but then if you have other free time, develop your own program. Figure out something to do for the community.” I became a self starter. That didn’t work for a lot of people, but for me it was a great opportunity. So an early example of that was with the kids—let’s figure out how to get a better playground. Read more
David Morath Papers
David Morath worked on staff at Emmaus House from September 1970 until August 1972. The letters in this collection — from David to his parents in Westminster, Maryland — were saved by his mother. Rich with descriptions of neighborhood conditions, welfare rights meetings, and staff activities, the Morath letters provide a glimpse in to the day-to-day experience of working for social change in the urban South. Read more
The History of The Peoplestown Project
We are particularly interested in the “storied” experience of Peoplestown and its community-based organizations. We know that stories help bind many people to this place and to each other. Stories are told and re-told, creating a local lore that links people over time and space. We’ve already heard many: the strength and tenacity of a welfare rights leader, vans breaking down at Zesto’s, sleep-ins at the Model Cities offices, singing hymns in the visitor gallery during a General Assembly session. Read more
Susan W. Taylor
This oral history is available as a PDF file. LEEANN LANDS: Would you would introduce yourself and tell me your … Read more
Albert E. (Ned) Stone, Jr.
I remember Four Corners Park back before it was anything, when it was just a bare red clay lot with a couple of basketball court. And I remember being 14 and wanting to play basketball with the neighborhood kids and being a little bit intimidated. You’ve probably heard that Four Corners got its name from one of our staffers back then by the name of Dennis Goldstein (who’s now with Legal Aid). Four Corners became his nickname because it was a popular dance which he thought he could do, but he absolutely could not. [Laughs.] Read more
Arlesia Tutman
Maybe about five years ago everybody used to could go in the community center get on the computers, play pinball, play basketball, everything, but now it’s like there’s only a certain amount of people allowed in there. If you’re not in school, you only can come use the computer if you’re enrolled in their after school program. You can’t go inside the center unless you work there. Read more
Silva Griggs Britt
Oh, I love Peoplestown. I love seeing the ladybugs that I don’t see anymore, and the butterflies, and the streets, and all the kids out in the streets playing—just jumping rope, hopscotch, mother may I, Simon says—and the girls dancing, you know. Read more
Photographing MyPLACE
With the children enrolled in Emmaus Houses’s Summer Arts Camp, we studied visual composition and used digital photography to document and interpret our lives and the Peoplestown community. Read more
Photographer Boyd Lewis
The Peoplestown Project website features the photography of Atlanta journalist Boyd Lewis in its banner. The photos shown here — of Peoplestown, its activists, and the neighborhood’s families — were taken while Lewis worked for the black newspapers, The Atlanta Voice and the Atlanta Inquirer in the 1960s and 1970s. Read more
