Ghosts of Atlanta

The Black community of Atlanta, a city once heralded as the "Black Mecca of the South," is currently under threat of dislocation by cultural gentrification. Amid the city's urban renaissance, residents face rising property values, taxes, and rents, as well as the more insidious loss of a collective identity and belonging. In Ghosts of Atlanta: Cultural Gentrification of the Black Mecca, author Rhana Gittens Wheeler examines the fading echoes of African American memory and historical narratives in Atlanta. As encroaching investors and business owners enter historically Black areas, many have sought to rebrand entire neighborhoods, making those spaces more palatable to would-be gentrifiers and less recognizable to former residents. Exploring material sites of meaning, including monuments, museums, art exhibitions, and more, Gittens Wheeler unearths tensions between the city's proud legacy as a hub of political and economic equality for Black Americans and the unsettling...