Parker points out this Sports Illustrated article written by Roy Blount Jr. in 1996 when Atlanta and Decatur were hoping with the energy and crowds of the 1996 Olympics.  For us newer residents, it’s a more detailed look at the event that really was a key part of Decatur’s turnaround.  Here are a couple quotes…

Decatur is part of metropolitan Atlanta. When I was growing up there, it was kind of like Leave It to Beaver, only with lots of black people tucked away in little ghettos with names like Eskimo Heights. Decatur was desegregating, slowly and awkwardly, when I moved away in 1968. My sister and only sibling, Susan, left in 1971. My father died in 1974, my mother in 1981. My roots attenuated.

But every so often my travels brought me to Atlanta, and I would drive out to Decatur square, where the old courthouse stands. I would stop to look at the bronze plaque that says ROY A. BLOUNT PLAZA. DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF A GREAT BUILDER OF HOMES AND SCHOOLS, AND THE RAPID TRANSIT SYSTEM WHICH LIES UNDER THIS PLAZA.

…All over Decatur people are trying to master the Burkinabe handshake–you raise your right hand high as if to swear an oath, then you sweep your palm down across your partner’s, and the two of you finish by coming off each other’s fingertips into a finger snap. The shake comes from a time when Africans were capturing and selling one another into slavery: Slaves’ fingers were broken, so the snap proved you were free.

Decatur folk musician Caroline Herring announced on Facebook yesterday that she would be appearing on Prairie Home Companion this coming week when Garrison Keillor and crew are at the Fox Theater on Saturday, May 22nd. Tickets look to be sold out.

With Prairie Home regular Roy Blount Jr. as one of the other special guests scheduled to be on the show, it’s too bad that Decatur couldn’t host the event itself with all the connections!

Random Fun fact: According to Roy Blount Jr.’s Wikipedia page, he went to Ponce de Leon Elementary, which used to sit on the current site of the Decatur Post Office, and if my memory serves me, looked a lot like Clairemont Elementary.