- Neighborhood
- Segregation
- 1865 onward
- City of Atlanta
- General area only
Summerhill
One of Atlanta's first settlements of freed people after the Civil War, shared with Jewish immigrants. It was cut apart by the expressways and the 1965 stadium.
The record
Summerhill was one of two settlements William Jennings laid out in 1865. Its first residents were freed people and Jewish immigrants; in 1911 two-thirds of Atlanta's Jewish residents lived there (Wikipedia). The AUC exhibit calls it one of the first settlements of freed people, formed because of the restrictions on where Black people could live. In the 1950s and 1960s the expressway and Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium drove out many residents and much business, and the neighborhood's population and boundaries shrank. The 1996 Olympic stadium, later Turner Field and now Georgia State's, was built on the old parking lots.
Today: A neighborhood in rapid redevelopment around Georgia State's stadium and the former Turner Field lots.
Where on the map: Directly south of downtown between Zoo Atlanta and Center Parc Stadium; bordered by Grant Park, Mechanicsville and Peoplestown.