- Urban renewal
- Segregation
- c. 1940–early 1970s
- DeKalb County
- General area only
Beacon Hill, Decatur: renewal of a Black community
Decatur's historic Black neighborhood, founded by formerly enslaved people shortly after the Civil War. Public housing around 1940 and federally funded urban renewal in the 1960s and early 1970s cleared most of its homes, Black-owned businesses and several streets.
The record
A 1998 City of Decatur marker places the Beacon community between N. McDonough Street, W. Trinity Place, Water Street and Howard Avenue, with Atlanta Avenue as the center of its Black business district. The AJC (2010) described it as about three-quarters of a square mile southwest of the square, home to businesses such as the Ritz Movie Theater and Cox Brothers Funeral Home. The Allen Wilson Terrace public housing project went up around 1940–41, and between 1960 and the early 1970s Decatur carried out three urban renewal projects in the community; Beacon Hill Projects 1 and 2 alone displaced 231 Black families and 11 white families (historian David Rotenstein). Atlanta Avenue was cut into short sections, and Thankful Baptist Church, spared on the city's plans but left without street access, burned in 1970 (DeKalb History Center). A 2026 mayoral proclamation acknowledged that in the 1950s and '60s ordinance changes, eminent domain and urban renewal 'displaced families and reshaped the community'. Decatur's Black population fell from nearly 40 percent in 1990 to under 16 percent in 2020.
Today: The Beacon Municipal Center, Ebster Recreation Center and Park, Decatur Housing Authority properties and Lily Hill Baptist Church. In 2026 the city commission designated the W. Trinity Place greenspace and surrounding properties part of a Beacon Hill Historic District (Decaturish).
Where on the map: About 0.75 sq mi southwest of Decatur Square around the old Atlanta Ave, W. Trinity Pl and Herring St. The exact historic boundary is not mapped here.