Saturday, January 19, 2013

Atlanta's Warped Civil Right Legacy: The Sad Story of Paschal's Restaurant



Posted by Debby and Hubert Yoder, ATLANTA GA -- The historic Paschal’s Restaurant and Motor Hotel, where much of the civil rights movement was launched, stands in ruins. Across the street shines a brand new Wal-Mart. Parts of the neighborhood are undergoing renovation with new condos and strip malls, while Paschal's sits abandoned and decaying. The irony is so blatant that the Washington Post did an article about the condition of this civil rights legacy last summer.


Paschal’s Restaurant was opened by two brothers in 1947. They grew up in the post-slavery period of sharecropping in Thomson, GA, picking cotton from dawn to dusk yet barely scraping by. Their aspirations for a better life led them to Atlanta where they opened a small chicken shack near Clark College (Now Clark Atlanta University). The popularity of the shack enabled them to move into a full-service restaurant across the street and later the siblings added a hotel and lounge. Their business was thriving. The lounge attracted top-notch jazz musicians and students from the local Historically Black colleges visited the restaurant daily and introduced the place to visiting family and friends. In these segregated times, Blacks had few options for upscale dining and entertainment and Paschal’s delighted in providing the best of both.


When the modern day civil rights movement began to take shape, Paschal’s was at the forefront. The student groups met for meals and strategizing and a young Martin Luther King Jr. approached the brothers about a regular spot for his team to convene. They embraced the opportunity and set aside a meeting room where the team planned the 1963 March on Washington and the subsequent marches on Selma, Alabama. The passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was celebrated at Paschal’s and the Poor People’s Campaign was organized there in the months before King’s murder. The movement continued without King and Paschal’s remained the place for crafting the future. Andrew Young, John Lewis, Jesse Jackson, Rev. Joseph Lowery, and Maynard Jackson all met regularly to plan demonstrations, political campaigns and celebrate each step forward. As Blacks gained political power, Paschal’s became known as “Little City Hall.”


The restaurant itself  has relocated to the gentrifying Castleberry Hill neighborhood, while the original building became the Paschal Center and part of Clark Atlanta University (CAU). CAU operated the restaurant as a dining hall and the hotel as a dorm but shut down both due to the costs associated with maintaining the aging buildings. So now the building sit boarded up and left to rot.  The symbolism has taken its toll on the surrounding neighborhood. Entire streets of homes, businesses and churches are boarded and unoccupied; many have been damaged by fire. Homeless and unemployed people wander the streets and squat in the abandoned buildings. There are reports of rampant drug and alcohol abuse. In the midst of this, students attend the nearby John F. Kennedy elementary school, which, by comparison, has been reasonably well maintained, perhaps because of its link to a white man. The message is subtle, but clear.





Contrast this with the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee where the site of King’s murder has become the National Civil Rights Museum. The museum opened in 1991 and has welcomed more than three million visitors since. It provides a tribute to the past as well as educational opportunities for the future. Started by a small group of preservation-conscious individuals, it has become part of the National Parks system and continues to expand. Like the King Center in Atlanta, also part of the National Park system, it provides a living, breathing link to a not-so-distant and very important past.


If the city of Atlanta can consider sinking money into a new football stadium to draw tourists to the area, shouldn’t it also invest in restoring Paschal's and its surrounding neighborhood, which may have even greater tourist potential? Tax revenues are collected from the hotel and motel industry to fund development, historic preservation and create additional destination appeal. Paschal's is ready for such an investment. Coretta Scott King was once quoted as saying, “Paschal’s is as important a historical site for the American Civil Rights Movement as Boston’s Faneuil Hall is to the American Revolution.” We need to act before we lose our history to strip malls and Wal-Marts.







Debby Yoder is a Contributor to Social Shutter as well as a student at Georgia State University majoring in Sociology. She can be contacted at debby.yoder@gmail.com. Hubert Yoder is Debby's father and retired after working in information systems at McDonnell Douglas, EDS, and IBM. Photography is now his work and hobby. He can be contacted at hyoder@gmail.com.

4 comments:

  1. I loved reading this piece! Well written! :)

    jason
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  2. Wow, I have been thinking all the same things. So sad and really poingnant today as I noticed the death of Mark Mulkey. I was wondering if he ever contemplated doing anything with this before his death. So now what???

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  3. I was struck by your words here: "There are reports of rampant drug and alcohol abuse. In the midst of this, students attend the nearby John F. Kennedy elementary school, which, by comparison, has been reasonably well maintained, perhaps because of its link to a white man. The message is subtle, but clear."

    I live in English Avenue, a couple blocks from Kennedy & we shop at the WalMart regularly (closest grocery store). I don't see how John F. Kennedy being white has anything to do with Paschal's not being maintained. The vast majority of the staffs of both Atlanta Public Schools & Clark Atlanta are African American. I assure you, Kennedy, before it was Hollis, before the Stadium, got very little help from anyone. I've been there, I've tutored there, the school really struggled. They have a natatorium that's been closed and unused for years (even though the single thing our neighborhood kids always ask is to go to a pool).

    Both of these buildings have their struggles. And certainly Paschal's should have been maintained better. But I think that saying that Paschal's is in ruin because Kennedy Middle School is named after a white man is definitely a stretch, an odd, misleading and unfair comparison.

    Why can't the school have been well maintained because it's run by a government funded organization? Why can't Paschal's be in disrepair because of mismanagement or lack of funds or lack of economic viability? Why isn't it Clark Atlanta's fault? Why does it have to be the general fault of white people sending a subtle yet clear message? I think very few of those white people even knew that Kennedy Middle School existed. So, I find the "white man" argument very hard to believe.

    You might know that there are lots of abandoned and vacant properties owned by AUC schools. If you drive through, you see. It's pretty sad. Could it be that Paschal's is like those? Maybe Clark lacks the funds to maintain all they have - or with down economy, they had a setback? Perhaps fewer students are wanting to attend a racially segregated university, so revenue is down?

    I don't think it has much to do with the name of the middle school up the street, but if you have more thoughts or arguments to support your assertion, I'm absolutely open to correction and education.

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  4. I believe Atlanta's political, social, and religious leadership are self-conscious about a legacy and heritage that is a manifestation of blindness to the "tattered" reality that was trashed a long time ago. Yes, I can criticize, given I am a graduate of CAU, and my grandparents lived on Jeptha St (30 years ago) across from Paschal's parking lot. What used to be a source of pride slowly became a source of embarrassment. On a larger scale, this is a reflection of failures of businesses and communities that benefited from segregation, and lost ground to forces of integration.
    Sad to see no progress after all these years. CAU has its own struggles, and the neighborhood struggles with every negative imaginable. In a city with significant resources, must salvation require handouts? Seems a lack of imagination and will keep this embarrassment treading water. I am part of the problem too. I left Atlanta decades ago, and returned recently as part of the new Great Migration, but I chose the grassy suburbs for safety and to protect my investment.
    No need for a monumental rundown abandoned keepsake. The Paschal heritage is clearly reflected up the street on Northside.

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