It was in Berlin that the tragic and dramatic lesson of what happens to a divided city came home to me, and if I could make you see it as I saw it, you would share with me my feeling that Atlanta must not be a city divided.
In his inaugural speech last year, Atlanta's Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. thus warned his fellow citizens of the effects of the Berlin Wall, which he had recently viewed. But last week Atlanta itself was divided by a pair of 2-ft.-10-in.-high steel-and-wood barricades set up by the city to prevent Negroes from moving into a white neighborhood.
Atlanta's white-Negro relationships have long been considered among the best in the South. But the city's 200,960 Negroes (39.9% of the population) are hard pressed for living room. They live on 24.6% of the total land zoned for residential purposes, are largely confined to a black belt running northwest to southeast through the heart of the city. In this belt, one of the best districts is Collier Heights, in northwest Atlanta. The main trouble with Collier Heights is that it is tantalizingly close to a white neighborhood called Cascade Heights, where homes range from $20,000 to a few at $50,000.
Block-Busting. Both Negroes and whites acted badly in the events that led up to the barrier between Collier Heights and Cascade Heights. Negro real estate brokers used blockbusting techniques to try to buy homes in the Peyton-Utoy subdivision of Cascade Heights. They falsely told white residents that their neighbors had put their homes up for sale and conspicuously drove Negro clients through the area on Sunday to frighten white owners. A white real estate man threatened to sell his home and some lots to Negroes in order to get a higher price from white buyers in the area; he actually ended up signing contracts with both a white owners' group and a Negro. Since
July, it has been impossible to sell a house in Peyton-Utoy to a white buyer, and white owners were panicked by the threat to their property values.
Virgil Copeland, president of the Southwest Citizens Association, a group of homeowners in Cascade Heights, finally went to Mayor Allen and suggested closing off two roads that run between the Negro and white areas to prevent encroachments by Negroes and act as a psychological stimulant to white buyers. Allen called in Negro leaders to discuss the possibility of erecting barriers. In return, the city would rezone 250 acres for Negro residential use. Understandably, the Negroes protested.
Into Court. Mayor Allen turned the matter over to the board of aldermen, which voted to erect the barriers. At 7 the following morning, workmen were on Peyton and Harlan roads driving I beams into the pavement. The Negroes of Atlanta, represented by a new All-Citizens Committee composed of most Negro organizations in the city, refused to deal with the city until the barriers come down. Negroes have lost one suit in court to have the barriers torn down, but a further test is pending before superior court in Atlanta. Last week the board of aldermen considered a resolution to remove the barriers—and voted it down 10 to 3.