This sounds pretty darn cool…

Beginning Oct. 7, 2014 the DeKalb History Center, located in the historic DeKalb County courthouse in Decatur, will offer Civil War walking tours in downtown Decatur. The cost is $10 for adults, $6 for children ages 6-18, and free for children 5 and under. The tours are scheduled at various times and they begin and end in the lobby of the Historic DeKalb Courthouse. Please call 404-373-1088 extension 20 for information or visit www.dekalbhistory.org.

The tour familiarizes participants with the early history of the county, the effects of the war on the civilian population in DeKalb, the Atlanta campaign, and the Battle of Decatur. The hour-long tour complements the History Center’s new exhibit, Tears and Curses: A Human Perspective on the Civil War. “Our research for the exhibit yielded so much fascinating material that we wanted to share some of this additional information with the public,” said Jenny Goldemund, Programs and Preservation Coordinator for the History Center. Accordingly, the tour uses photographs, letters, diaries, newspapers, meeting minutes and other documents to show how people thought and felt about the war and the events around them. “The tour has a personal feel because of the local sources used” said Goldemund, “I think people will enjoy the tour and learn a lot.”

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Melissa Forgey at the DeKalb History Center sends along this announcement…

Bring your children to Storytelling this summer! 10 – 11 a.m. most Wednesdays at the historic Biffle Cabin, 720 W. Trinity Pl., Decatur 30030 (Behind the Swanton House)

For ages 6 – 12. $4 per child for members or $6 per child for non-members. Reservations are suggested. Call 404-373-1088 extension 22 or email forgey@dekalbhistory.org for reservations  or information. Additional information can be found on each session on our webpage at www.dekalbhistory.org.

• June 5, Fun with Brer Rabbit and Friends with Josie Bailey

• June 12, Gotcha! Trickster Tales with Cathy Kaemmerlen

• June 19, Tales of the Gullah with LaDoris Davis

• June 26, Georgia Tales and Tails from Possums to Gourds with Cathy Kaemmerlen

• July 10, The Tapestry Cats with Ann Ritter

• July 17, Take Me Out to the Ballgame! With Deborah Strahorn

•  July 24, Appalachian Folktales with LaDoris Davis

• July 31, Fiddlin’Dan the Mountain Man with Reuben Haller

From the DeKalb History Center…

The History of the Streetcar in Atlanta & DeKalb County. Presented by Patrick Sullivan. Patrick Sullivan will present a talk on the establishment, growth, and decline of streetcars and inter-urban commuter lines in the Atlanta area with a special focus on the development of the transportation network in DeKalb County.

The history of the streetcar is as large and as colorful as history gets. Expansive, fast (for their time), noisy, and romantic, they were much loved by urban Georgians. Businesses, neighborhoods, recreational sites, and schools were tied into the new transportation system that provided movement to places people wanted or needed to go. Social relations changed as they brought white and black riders into close contact within the Jim Crow South. While the trackless trolley and personal automobile would bring an end to their use, funeral parties held in many cities honoring “last trolley rides” testified to their strong hold on the traveling public.

In 2011, the Georgia Department of Transportation hired New South Associates to develop a context for resources associated with Georgia’s historic streetcar systems, with an emphasis on the metro Atlanta area. The purpose of the report was to provide GDOT staff and preservation professionals with identification guidelines for streetcar-associated resources when they are encountered during road construction projects and a framework for evaluation of their historic significance and eligibility for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.

Patrick Sullivan is a historian and architectural historian with New South Associates in Stone Mountain, Georgia. He received his M.A. in Heritage Preservation from Georgia State University in 2007. Over the course of his seven-year career at New South Associates, Mr. Sullivan has worked on a number of architectural and historic resource surveys throughout the eastern United States for clients that include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the General Services Administration, the Georgia Department of Transportation, and the National Park Service among others.

• November 13, From Noon to 1:00 p.m.
• Historic DeKalb Courthouse, Second Floor, 101 E. Court Square
• Free – bring your lunch!

Photo courtesy of the Wren’s Nest

The DeKalb History Center’s Athos Menaboni mural, which hung at Decatur First Bank for an awfully long time, has found a new temporary home at the Brick Store Pub.  BSP kicked off its 15-year anniversary week celebration by unveiling the piece which hangs on the pub’s interior northern wall.  A DHC press release for the event recently described the Menaboni’s mural thusly…

Commissioned by Mills B. Lane in 1958, this unique eggshell mural has graced the walls of two banks. Now on loan to Brick Store Pub, the 27-foot mosaic depicts the biblical verse, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” It will be unveiled at this party.

Terrible photograph courtesy of me

From a recent DeKalb History Center press release…

DECATUR – The DeKalb History Center’s Lunch and Learn Series kicks off in 2012 with a presentation by Mayor Emerita Elizabeth Wilson, who will speak about the Beacon Hill Community.  Beacon Hill was an African-American neighborhood near downtown Decatur which was bordered by Atlanta Avenue, Herring Street and Robin Street.  Elizabeth will discuss the churches, neighborhood and the schools.  She has interviewed early residents and some of their children for additional history.  The segregated schools included Herring Street School (later Herring -Trinity High School) and Beacon Elementary School.  Beacon is now home to the city’s police and recreation departments.

This area was re-developed beginning in 1949 in an effort to “clear slums in Decatur” and provide low-cost housing in a specifically segregated area.  The city followed the practices seen across the south in the 1950s where towns tore down homes and buildings in “blighted areas.”   Sometimes these areas were then redeveloped with new housing projects.

Elizabeth Wilson moved to Beacon Hill in 1949 and has played a key role in helping to end segregation in Decatur’s public institutions.  She was elected to the City Commission in 1984 and became Decatur’s first African-American mayor in 1993.

The lecture is Tuesday, January 17 at 12:00 noon at the Old Courthouse on the Square and is free of charge.  Guests are encouraged to bring a lunch to eat during the program.

From Melissa Forgey at the DeKalb History Center sends along the info for this month’s Lunch & Learn on Tuesday July 19th at noon…

The DeKalb History Center’s Lunch and Learn Lecture Series continues in July with a presentation by Professor Clifford Kuhn of Georgia State University.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Decatur resident Arthur Raper was one of the South’s leading liberals. Raper’s work as research secretary for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation and as a founding member of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, his classic works on lynching and the plantation South, and his involvement with the New Deal have all been amply chronicled in the historical literature. However, from 1932 to 1939, Raper also taught sociology at Agnes Scott College, an experience largely neglected in the literature. An examination of Raper’s sometimes controversial tenure at Agnes Scott reveals an important yet forgotten dimension of his life, an experience he himself later referred to as perhaps his “finest hour.” It also sheds light on white women’s education of the period.

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The DeKalb History Center hosts this month’s “Lunch & Learn” next Tuesday, May 17th at noon, in downtown Decatur at the Old Courthouse.   This month’s lecture explores Emory University’s history.  Here’s the Center’s press release…

DECATUR – The DeKalb History Center’s Lunch and Learn Lecture Series continues in May with a presentation by Gary Hauk of Emory University.

Emory University observes its 175th anniversary in 2011, and more than half of the university’s life has been lived in DeKalb County. Born in Newton County during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, Emory came to DeKalb in the twentieth century courtesy of Vanderbilt University’s truculence and Asa Candler’s munificence. Through lean times and fat, the university’s history offers tales of saints and scoundrels, vision and misdirection, perseverance and imagination. From the launching of a humble school in rural Georgia to the building of one of the nation’s great urban research universities — a Georgian university that does not play intercollegiate football! — the story unfolds with the help of archival photographs and a lively narrative.

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