Johnsontown (Atlanta)
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Johnsontown was a settlement in what is now the
Buckhead Buckhead is the wikt:uptown, uptown commercial and residential district of the city of Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, comprising approximately the northernmost fifth of the city. Buckhead is the third largest business district within ...
Community of
Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...
which was located on the present site of the Lenox MARTA station. It was settled by African Americans in 1912. Until 1982 approximately thirty families lived here on by lots, until the land was acquired to build the rapid transit station. “In those days, if they wanted your property, they’d condemn it and take it,” said Sam Sawyer, the pastor of Zion Hill Baptist Church in Johnsontown. However, T. M. Alexander Jr., a
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graduate and banker who had served as the first president of the Atlanta Economic Development Corporation (now Invest Atlanta), volunteered his expertise in helping landowners negotiate settlements many times larger than their original offers. The neighborhood, which saw its first paved street only in its final years, was extensively documented as part of the Historic American Buildings Survey by the
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before it was razed. Sawyer said “If you go there now, you’d never know there had been a black community named Johnsontown.” "The lost communities: A preservation group unearths Buckhead’s African American history", Scott Henry, Atlanta Magazine, April 12, 2016
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* {{Coord, 33, 50, 42.88, N, 84, 21, 27.39, W, type:landmark_region:GA-US, display=title Former neighborhoods of Atlanta Populated places established in 1912 1912 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state) Populated places in Georgia established by African Americans African-American history in Atlanta