Atlanta Through the Archives
Collier Heights (1940-1990s)
Summary
Collier Heights represents a successful Black-led and organized neighborhood
that capitalized on white Atlantans' fears and the opportunity for Black community
development.
In the 1940s, Atlanta Urban League’s Secretary Thompson leads effort to create “Negro Expansion
Areas” to counteract the rapid spread of white neighborhoods into Atlantan suburbs. They fear that
this trend will only leave pockets in already crowded urban spaces for Black people. The Atlanta
Urban League creates Project X, a Black effort to use Jim Crow psychology to their advantage. They
conducted land data studies to see what portions of West Atlanta outside the city zoning boundaries
were uninhabited and cheap, so they could buy up the land and further ‘deplete’ the value so white
families and investors wouldn’t want to invest there or in adjacent areas. After collecting data and
finding the Collier Heights area to fit the criteria, the group creates a corporation made up of 23
Auburn Avenue business people as shareholders to fund the venture, and buy 177 acres in three
parcels to sell to Black families.
Despite some civic efforts for white residents to hold their
ground and not sell property in the surrounding area, racial prejudice eventually took over and
every white resident sold. Black suburbanization grew substantially through the 1960s and early
1970s, being labeled as the “Atlanta – Black Mecca of the South” by Ebony magazine in 1971. With
over 2000 homes, the 1960s and 1970s represented peak Collier Heights for middle and upper class
Black families. However, after the 1970s, commercial development and higher-density multi-family
developments replaced the slowing of single-family residential development, and issues of crime and
insufficient funding have also contributed to the decline of population and upkeep since then.
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SOURCES:
“COURT FIGHT LOOMS HERE ON PROPOSED "BUFFER" PROJECT: Property Owners Brand 'Buffer' Unit Illegal,
Plan Legal Battle” (1952). Atlanta Daily World.
“RELOCATING OF 1,800 FAMILIES, FIRMS BY MARTA BEGINS IN EARNEST ON OCTOBER 1: TRANSIT AUTHORITY
OPENS FIRST RELOCATION OFFICE.” (1973). Atlanta Daily World.
Historic Preservation Division, Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/09000457_text.
Johnson, Christopher. “The Epic of Collier Heights.” (2021).
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-epic-of-collier-heights/.
“Opposes Rezoning Collier Heights.” (1968). Atlanta Daily World.
“Rezoning Attempt Fails Here Again.” (1959). Atlanta Daily World.
“The Question Of A ‘Buffer’.” (1952). Atlanta Daily World.
Wiese, Andrew. “Places of Their Own: African American Suburbanization in the Twentieth Century.”
University of Chicago Press.