Magnolia, atlanta and dr. Martin luther king jr. a ... - Goodman Theatre

IN THE ALBERT
ers organized the March on Washington—
an event which culminated in King’s
famous “I Have a Dream” speech:
We have also come to this hallowed
spot to remind America of the fierce
urgency of Now. This is no time to
engage in the luxury of cooling off
or to take the tranquilizing drug of
gradualism. Now is the time to make
real the promises of democracy. Now
is the time to rise from the dark and
desolate valley of segregation to the
sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the
time to lift our nation from the quick
sands of racial injustice to the solid
rock of brotherhood. Now is the time
to make justice a reality for all of
God’s children.
It would be fatal for the nation to
overlook the urgency of the moment.
This sweltering summer of the Negro’s
legitimate discontent will not pass until
there is an invigorating autumn of freedom
and equality. Nineteen sixty-three
is not an end, but a beginning.
On March 1, 1963, 72 days after Ivan
Allen Jr. erected the Peyton Wall barricades,
the Fulton County Superior Court
ruled the signs unconstitutional and
Atlanta’s city hall was granted four days
to remove them. Ivan Allen Jr. ordered
them removed 20 minutes later. That
same year, Allen moved to dismantle
other walls that divided his city: he lobbied
successfully for Atlanta’s first black
firemen, empowered black policemen
to arrest whites, desegregated Atlanta’s
baseball park, downtown theaters and
municipal swimming pools and requested
that downtown businesses desegregate to
“maintain the city’s healthy climate.”
Today, 40 years after Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr.’s death, as we welcome the first African
American president into the White House,
Taylor’s play reminds us how much of
Dr. King’s dream has been realized—and
how much is still left to be achieved.
LEFT: Photo of Peachtree Street courtesy of Geographic
Places, Lane Brothers Photographers Collection and
Tracy O’Neill Collection, Special Collections Department,
Georgia State University Library.
Where Peachtree Street
Meets Sweet Auburn in 2009
Although Atlanta was the birthplace of the
Civil Rights Movement and is known as the
capital of the New South, it is second only
to Chicago as the city with the most segregated
housing patterns in the United States.
During the period in which Magnolia takes
place, segregation was embodied by the
difference between the city’s two major
streets: Peachtree Street and Sweet Auburn.
Once the center of black life in Atlanta,
Sweet Auburn was—and still is—an innercity
neighborhood victim to inner-city problems.
In 1992, Sweet Auburn was named
one of America’s 11 Most Endangered
Historic Places, which prompted the creation
of the Historic District Development
Corporation (HDDC) to help preserve the
area’s cultural and political history, beginning
with the birthplace of Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. The HDDC has since
worked to develop the neighborhood while
constructing affordable housing to maintain
its lower-income residents.
Once the major street for Atlanta’s wealthy
white population, Peachtree has inspired
71 other ‘Peachtree’ streets throughout the
city. The original Peachtree Street has often
been compared to Broadway, even inspiring
Frank Sinatra to sing, “There’s nothing
can compare with/Strolling along Peachtree
Street with my baby on my arm.” Atlanta
developed around Peachtree Street, where
the majority of its municipal buildings and
historical landmarks were located, and it
continues to evolve today. In 2007, Mayor
Shirley Franklin made public a $1 billion,
20-year proposal to construct modern
architecture, restaurants, bars, shops and
apartments where some of Atlanta’s most
majestic homes once stood.
While Sweet Auburn and Peachtree once
represented two distinct Atlantas, today
both streets are developing into vibrant
commercial, residential and historic roads
that will one day lead to one integrated
city. While blacks and whites are not yet
neighbors in the capital of the New South,
the distance between them has been
steadily diminishing since Peyton Wall was
torn down more than four decades ago.
Peachtree Street today. Photo courtesy of Flip Chalfant.
6